Let's wrap this one up... with the coda! Many audition lists will also include the last page, or coda, as well as the first page. Here it is:
It's basically more of the same, with an unwritten option (one that I accept) to bump the tempo up a bit for a more exciting ending. If you've shown great control and restraint in the main section, here you can show more virtuosity.
So how do you get it started? I've unfortunately heard many auditions where a candidate simply got off to a bad start and couldn't recover his/her coordination. It can happen to anyone. But you decrease the chances of it happening to you if you have a consistent, and I mean ironed-in, starting routine. Your routine should begin with the violin in a "down" position, as it would be between excerpts in an audition. You imagine that the next excerpt requested is the Schumann. You then put the instrument up and begin. Sounds simple!
I'm excited! This is the beginning of a project I've been imagining for a while now: an online collection of videos dedicated to the orchestral excerpts. I've always loved William Preucil's CD of selected excerpts, but I've often wished that I could see just how he was doing what he was doing! Today I took out my Panasonic Lumix LX5 and put together a Schumann Scherzo. Here's the video, below which you can download PDFs of my actual part, with bowings and fingerings.
My third year of Curtis, 1998-1999, Zach DePue transferred from Cleveland and we immediately began playing in quartet together (along with Priscilla Lee and Jessi Thompson, the Grancino Quartet after a violin the school was lending me). But Zach grew up in Ohio, the youngest of four violin-playing brothers, and fiddling was his first love. So for the Holiday Party in December, which used to be a sort of vaudeville show, we volunteered this act, Flaming Fiddles. Zach's brother Jason played guitar and stuntman.
I just put an old video on youtube, my first experiment there. Here's part of my application for the 2004 Sion-Valais competition: the first movement of the Sibelius concerto, with Andrea Swan accompanying. This was done in Buntrock Hall at Symphony Center in Chicago, which was also the site of many photos for my album Rapid Approach.
