Registration for collegiate state auditions is now closed.
State Auditions Date and Location
| Location: | UMKC, Kansas City, MO, Nov. 2-5, 2023 |
| Application Submission Deadline: | October 9, 2023 at midnight |
PURPOSE:
One of MMTA’s goals is to create the musicians and audiences of the future. Competitions and auditions can play an important role in this process, helping to bring out the best in young musicians by giving them the chance to perform alongside the best young musicians from across the state.
ABOUT THE MMTA HONORS AUDITIONS:
MMTA Honors Auditions were created to allow a very broad participation of students. With few restrictions, music students of any age, any level of experience, and any performing medium (instrument or voice, solo or ensemble) are eligible to participate.
Although winners are chosen and ratings given, MMTA Honors Auditions are specifically designed to be a positive experience and a learning opportunity for all students who enter them.
ELIGIBILITY FOR MMTA HONORS AUDITIONS
- Students in all performing media are eligible, including ensembles. Piano ensembles must use a single piano only.
- Students must be studying with a teacher whose MMTA-MTNA dues are paid by the State Audition deadline date for Collegiate entries. Teachers who are not MMTA members may enter students if they pay the Non-member Teacher Fee of $100 by the same deadlines.
- Collegiate members of MTNA/MMTA may enter students in the MMTA District and State Honors Auditions if they have paid the collegiate student membership for both state and national organizations by the deadline for the auditions entry. These collegiate members will be expected to pay the registration fee for the state auditions at the collegiate student rate in order to be eligible to enter students in the state auditions. Collegiate students may enter collegiate-level MMTA Honors Auditions or MTNA Competitions themselves and still be eligible to enter their own students in the MMTA Honors Auditions. (Please note this rule applies to MMTA Honors Auditions only–because of MTNA rules, collegiate members are NOT eligible to enter students in the MTNA competitions.)
- To meet the Missouri residency requirement, one or more of the following must be true:
- The teacher resides in the state of Missouri
- The student resides in the state of Missouri
- The place of music study is in Missouri (for instance, at a Missouri college or university).
- Collegiate contestants must be Senior High graduates, but they need not be enrolled in a college or university.
- Students entering MTNA Competitions may not enter the MMTA Honors Auditions in the same performing medium (Please note–this includes both District and State MMTA auditions–MTNA competitors may not enter either level of MMTA auditions, in the same medium).
- All collegiate MMTA Honors Auditions entrants proceed directly to the State Auditions; for collegiate students, there are no District Auditions.
- In the event that a member of an ensemble is not able to perform at the state or district auditions, the ensemble may play with a substitute member (i.e., a teacher or older student) for comments but not for a rating.
GENERAL REPERTOIRE REQUIREMENTS FOR MMTA HONORS AUDITIONS
1. The general repertoire requirement is for the performance of three compositions by different composers in contrasting styles or periods.
2. Memorization is required for some mediums and is optional for others; see below.
3. Concertos are not allowed in piano auditions; however, concertos are allowed in the brass, percussion, string, and woodwind auditions.
4. Simplified arrangements will not be accepted for piano solos.
5. Sets of variations or multi-movement sonatas or sonatinas may be used as one of the compositions.
7. Repertoire may not be changed following submission of application.
8. Students are to provide a reasonably clean copy of the music for the adjudicator WITH MEASURES NUMBERED. Entrants’ names (teacher, student, school names) must be removed or concealed.
9. All entrants and accompanists must abide by the federal copyright law in providing scores used by the performer, accompanist, and/or adjudicator.
SPECIFIC REPERTOIRE REQUIREMENTS FOR MMTA HONORS AUDITIONS
Collegiate Level (Undergraduate and Graduate):
Three compositions in contrasting styles or periods. See memorization requirements, below.
MEMORIZATION REQUIREMENTS FOR MMTA HONORS AUDITIONS
All vocal music must be memorized. All piano solo must be memorized except for 20th Century avant-garde piano compositions. Memorization of music for brass, classical guitar, organ, percussion, strings and woodwinds is optional. All ensembles may use music.
MMTA HONORS AUDITIONS TIME LIMITS
| | Performance Time | Audition Time |
| Collegiate | 12 minutes | 15 minutes |
| Collegiate Voice, undergrad. | 10 minutes | 12 minutes |
| Collegiate Voice, grad. | 12 minutes | 15 minutes |
If the program exceeds the time frame it may be interrupted. It is recommended that in choosing repertoire, competitors adhere closely to audition times so that judges can hear most, if not all, of the student’s program.
The Honors Auditions Time Limits are guidelines and final discretion as to the exact amount of performance time allowed lies with the adjudicator(s) in consultation with competition officials.
COPIED MUSIC IN MMTA HONORS AUDITIONS
All entrants and accompanists must abide by the federal copyright law. Photocopies are strongly discouraged. Photocopies may not be made in order to avoid purchasing scores needed for performers, accompanists, or adjudicators. A Music Release Form must be signed for any photocopies being used.
ACCOMPANISTS FOR MMTA HONORS AUDITIONS
Students must provide their own accompanists at the Auditions. Teachers are allowed to accompany their students in the MMTA Honors Auditions.
CLASSIFICATION OF MMTA HONORS AUDITIONS
- Collegiate undergraduate: College undergraduates are grouped into lower and upper divisions. If a certain division has only one entry, competition officials may, at their discretion, choose to combine the lower and upper divisions in that category.
- Graduate: Graduate students in a particular medium are grouped together.
- If ensembles have students in different grade levels, place ensembles in the level where the majority of the students are. If an equal number of students are from each level, the ensemble must be placed in the highest level.
- Collegiate ensembles must be composed entirely of college students.
- Any classification with 30 or more entries will be randomly divided into two groups for adjudication.
- For classifications that include different instruments or mediums (ie, voice, brass, woodwinds), any classification judged sufficiently large by competition officials may be divided into smaller categories according to medium. For instance, upper collegiate voice may be divided into upper collegiate men’s and upper collegiate women’s voice, lower collegiate brass into upper collegiate high and upper collegiate low brass, and so on. The decision to subdivide a classification in this way shall be at the sole discretion of competition officials.
- Auditions are open to anyone who wishes to attend and listen.
OUR GOAL–ON TIME AUDITIONS (N/A, 2020)
- Our goal for auditions is to have them run on time–neither early or late. Many times “dead time” is purposefully scheduled between performers. Performers cannot perform before the scheduled time, even if there appears to be dead time between performers. In addition, judges cannot request students to perform ahead of schedule. Many teachers, parents, friends, or relatives–some you may not even know are planning to attend auditions–have missed hearing an audition because a student or a whole room was running many minutes ahead of the published schedule.
MMTA HONORS AUDITIONS ADJUDICATION
- Decisions of judges are final and may not be questioned by participants, parents, or teachers. Please explain this rule in advance to students and parents and abide by it carefully. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find adjudicators for MMTA Honors Auditions, and one reason is because of too-frequent violation of this rule.
- Judges will write an evaluation sheet for each registration.
- In all classifications at the state level, judges may select a Winner, Runner-Up, and one or more Honorable Mentions. A judge may also opt to declare no winner, runner-up, or honorable mentions within a given category.
- Teachers and students should, insofar as reasonable, avoid meeting with adjudicators immediately prior to the auditions or making any comment or taking any action that might bias the adjudicator or have the appearance of doing so.
MMTA HONORS AUDITIONS AWARDS
Coming soon.