Young Artist Competition

Rules and Guidelines

To participate in the competition on Friday morning, December 9, 2022, all eligible students will need to sign up in the Music Office (#207 Hamel Hall) by the deadline of 4pm on November 1, 2022. To complete your sign-up, you will need to pay a $30 fee (by cash or a check made payable to "Andrews University Department of Music") and provide all of your participation information, including your accompanist's name and the exact length of your piece, so that we can schedule everyone accordingly. For this year, the competition will be just one round and will take place beginning at 9am on December 9.

Students can expect:

to prepare a solo with orchestral accompaniment that is shorter than 20 minutes in length (shorter than that is recommended for balancing the winners' concert). For the competition, your accompanist will need to be a pianist playing a piano reduction of the orchestra music. Vocalists will need to prepare and perform three contrasting selections (discuss with your private teacher)
to gain your private instructor's approval of your chosen music well in advance of the November 1 application deadline
that there is not a dedicated budget for us to rent orchestra music that is under copyright. Therefore, we recommend selecting music that was composed/revised/published prior to 1920 and that has orchestra parts freely available on the IMSLP.org website or in our Orchestra Library. If your selection was composed/revised/published after 1920, the Department of Music cannot guarantee that we can purchase the rental music for it. If you are hoping to perform a piece published after 1920, you may discuss this with your private teacher and Dr. Elysee, and you should expect to pay for it entirely by yourself. It's possible that in a given year we may able to make a "contribution" towards rented music, but in most cases a single rented piece will exceed our total funds. If you are not able to pay for the rented music yourself, we request that you select older music instead. Rental prices can be obtained by requesting a quote from the composition's publisher. The average price for a rental composition is currently $550.
to memorize their selection (it should be performed by memory for both the competition and winners' concert)
to provide the judges with one piano score of their selection, on the day of the competition
audition times will be announced via email, sometime prior to Thanksgiving break, and scheduling will be done based on the information submitted in your sign-up form
winners will have one opportunity to perform with the orchestra at the Howard Performing Arts Center, on Saturday, February 4, 2023
to be eligible for this competition, students cannot be selected as a "winner" of the competition in back-to-back years.
all undergraduate and graduate students majoring or minoring in music are considered eligible for the competition if they did not win the previous year

For more information, contact Dr. Marc Elysee.