My vocal jazz ensemble audition consists of five important components.
- Solo Song
- Sight Reading
- Ear Testing
- Improvisation
- 24-hour prepared excerpt (learn your part)
All of these are important in assessing the overall skills of the singer. I can better assess voice quality in the solo song, but better understand their creativity and ear for jazz with improvisation. They are all important, but I weight them differently in my head and in my rubric.
For me, the least important element of those five is the sight reading. I want to see their musicianship skills, and I’m particularly interested in their process in approaching the sight reading, but vocal jazz is not inherently sight readable music (unless you’re The Singers Unlimited). It’s important, but the other components are more essential.
The 24-hour piece lets me know how they process music with a short window; I get good insight into their motivation, their self-assessment, and again their process.
But more important to me, and maybe the most important component of the audition, is the ear testing. I ask singers to sing the middle note of a three-note voicing, and to arpeggiate a 4-note voicing from bottom to top. Performing on these tests gives me an excellent sense of how well they can hear the sorts of harmonies they’ll need to master in the ensemble. Because until you can hear them clearly, you cannot sing them in tune.