Irvine Unified School District Honor Orchestra
There are total of 5 string orchestras and 3 band orchestras. For elementary
school strudents there are two string involve orchestras which is Elementary
Honor Orchestra, Elementary Honor Chamber Orchestra, Elementary Honor band. For
middle school, there are two orchestras such as Middle school Honor Orchestras
and Middle school Honor Band. For High school there are two orchestras, High
school honor orchestras and honor band. There is no audition for high school
honor orchestras. Each school's two to three highest chairs for each
instruments will be automatically selected. For all other orchestras, there
will be audition held sometimes at the end of January or beginning of February.
For 2010 honor orchestra, the excerpts hasn't been released yet. But, normally
there will be no free choice of music for elementary schools. There are two to
three excerpts that students choose from according to there level. For middle
school honors, there are free choice of music and excerpts given from the
district. There will be a scales that students have to prepare. The excerpts
and all the requirements will be out sometimes end of November or beginning of
December. Depends on school, some teacher may require to have pre-audition.
Students who pass the pre-audition will be able to get an application form.
Vienna Music Institute value on this audition heavily that we give two to three
Musicality Master Classes for the students. This class will help students
significatnly because most of students will hear same excerpts and easy to see
where they are in terms of preparation. This is why 10% of Honor Orchestra
members are chosen from Vienna Music Institute students.
Southwestern Youth Music Festival (SYMF) Competition
SYMF competition is the largest
competition held in California. The competition starts the end of July to beginning of
August every summer at Cal. State Long Beach College. The competition offers
many different categories such as Young violinst/cellist/pianist (and more)
category, qualified solo categories, open solo categories and many more.
Qualified solo categories is one of the lowest categories that has many sub
categories (ea. Piano has over 80 different categories, violin has more than 40
categories). It divides into different age and year of study for your
instrument.
Musical Arts of Orange
County Competition is held sometimes in March. There are different categories
for piano, violin, cello, flute, clarinet and voice. This competition is for intermediate
to advanced students.
ASTA Competition is one of the most authorized competitions for
string instruments. The first round (regional) is held sometimes in March
depending on the area. There are three more rounds, LA/Orange County Final (second
round), State Final (third round), National Final (final round). This
competition is for more advanced student.