Music at Illinois - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Percussion Audition Information

Prospective students will be evaluated on their skills of tone production, intonation, musicality, rhythmic accuracy, technical proficiency, sight reading, and overall musical experience. The student will be asked to perform a solo or etude of moderate difficulty in each of the following instrumental areas: Snare Drum* (concert style), Marimba or Xylophone, Timpani*, and Drum Set (a demonstration of time-keeping in contrasting styles of swing, bossa nova, mambo, and 1/2-time funk shuffle will suffice on drum set; a prepared solo is not required). Each applicant must also demonstrate sight-reading ability on snare drum and marimba. Please bring one (1) copy of your audition music for the panel.

*We recommend the following selections for auditions, however, comparable alternates may be performed: Cirone: Portraits in Rhythm (Snare Drum) and Etude #1 from Hochrainer: Etudes for Timpani, Vol. 3.

The School of Music will provide instruments for the on-campus audition. Percussion applicants are not eligible to audition at National Audition locations.

Updated on 09/07/2018