Preliminaries
Judging

Each year, the Illinois Wesleyan Civic Orchestra showcases the School of Music's finest soloists in the annual Concerto-Aria concert, now known as the Henry Charles Memorial Concert.  Soloists are chosen by audition, according to the following guidelines:

1. Auditions are held during the fall semester.  Audition dates and details will be posted on School of Music bulletin boards.  A sign-up sheet will be posted across from the School of Music Office. Professor Eggleston and the Orchestra staff provide oversight of the Concerto/Aria auditions and concert.

2. Auditions are open to all students regardless of class level.

3. Winners from previous years are not eligible to audition.

4. Students must audition on the work they intend to perform with the orchestra.  Each audition is strictly limited to 10 minutes.  The performance piece must be 20 minutes or less in length.  Longer selections will be disqualified.

5. All auditionees must provide an accompanist, and auditions must be from memory.

6. Ensembles of no more than 3 performers will be allowed to audition, provided that, in the preliminary audition, each performer’s preparation qualifies them to continue to the finals.  Selection to perform with an ensemble will count as each student’s single time as a concerto/aria winner.

7. The balcony will be open to an audience at the finals.  There is to be no applause or other noise.  Stage crew monitors will ensure that there are no disruptions.  Preliminaries may be open to an audience at the discretion of the faculty in each department.

Preliminaries:

1. Each area must conduct preliminary auditions.

2. Preliminaries are to be judged by a panel of at least three IWU faculty members, two of whom are from outside the performance area and one of whom is from within the area.  It is the responsibility of the area head to secure the panel of faculty judges.  In some cases, at the discretion of the faculty members in the area, additional judges from outside of the University may be included on the panel.

3. Each judge will rate each student on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being highest.  Those students whose point average is 4.0 or higher will be advanced to the finals.  No consensus of the judges is required.

Judging of the Auditions and Selection of Performers:

1. The final auditions will be heard by four judges from outside of the University.  Each department in the School of Music will secure one judge with expertise in their performance area.  Judges will not be engaged in consecutive years.

2. At the end of the auditions, each judge will rank all auditionees in order, ranking the field 1 through x (x equaling the total number of auditions.)  After compiling the scores of all the judges, the students with the lowest point totals will be selected to perform in the concert.  No consensus of the judges is required.

3. A maximum of 50 minutes of playing time will be reserved on the concert for the concerto/aria performance.  The number of students selected to perform will be determined by the playing time of the pieces of the top students, the total of which may be up to, but not exceed, 50 minutes.

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