The Auditions: Leeds College of Music

Preparation

On Friday it will be three weeks since I travelled to Leeds for my first conservatoire audition.  I'd chosen to play Faure's Fantasie and the first two movements of Bach's Sonata in E major, however, a couple of nights before I realised that, although my pieces were both up to standard and ready to be performed, I just wasn't comfortable with the Bach.  I had talked through the different repatoire options with my flute teacher and she'd advised me not to play anything unaccompanied but in the end I decided to play the Sarabande from Bach's Sonata in A minor for solo flute - a piece I love and had prepared just in case.  Now, don't get me wrong, I am not in any way suggesting that you also change your repatoire the night before your audition (!) but I would advise having something ready that you really enjoy playing and are completely comfortable with as a safety net.  I know myself too well to attempt playing something I'm not 100% happy with and I really believe changing my piece had a huge effect on my overal performance.

Luckily for me, scales have never been something I've struggled with - I've always really enjoyed methodical work so technical preparation for exams and auditions has never been something I've worried about (apart from the terrifying moment before a few months before my grade 8 when I realised I couldn't play any of my technical work).  However, scales and arpeggios in particular seem to be the area that's most affected when I'm nervous so I did spend a little extra time just making sure I was really happy with them.

The Day

I was initially given an audition time of 9am but, as our journey there was at least 5 hours long, I'd contacted them and had the time changed to 3.30pm.  This meant that with the extra time I was able to play for a few minutes when I first woke up - something I always find really helps my confidence.  Our journey there was fairly easy, changing at London Bridge to catch our train to Leeds and arriving there with plenty of time.  Leeds is such a beautiful place and I know I'd be really happy living and studying there.

When we arrived at the college, the students volentering gave me my sight-reading test (such an unexpected luxury having it to play through before-hand!) and two free tea and coffee vouchers for me and my mum - so sweet!  My rehearsal with the pianist went really well and I was taken through to the audition room.  The actual audition was such a lovely experience and apart from shaking through the scales, everything went well.  After I'd played, the panel asked me about a couple of things I'd mentioned in my personal statement and why I chose Leeds and then it was over!  I left feeling so happy and grateful that my first conservatoire audition had gone well, whatever the outcome.

This was absolutely the best experience I could've hoped for and I would be over the moon if the rest of my auditions go even half as well!

Next up, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama!

As always, please leave a comment if you have any questions - I'm happy to help in any way I can. 

Introductions

Hi everyone and welcome to my application blog.  My name is Annie and I'm currently in the process of applying to conservatoire where I'd like to study flute performance.  I really hope you get something out of this blog and I can provide some help to you - please do leave comments if you have any questions.  So far, I've applied to LCM (Leeds College of Music), RWCMD (Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama), RCM (Royal College of Music) and TRCMD (Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance), had auditions for the first two (Leeds and Wales) and got my first offer!  I am planning to write a blog post covering my two audtions and what my application process has been like so far, but, for now, I think I'll just use this post to introduce myself and my musical interests - because obviously you're all really interested in the ramblings of a baroque-obsessed flautist.

So... Flute is the instrument I've been learning the longest - I started when I was 9 and despite learning various other instruments since then (and absolutely loving them all) I've always returned to flute as my main love.  Over the years I've developed a huge interest in the baroque era and my dream would be to become a professional baroque specialist.  I toyed with the idea of a historical conservatoire degree but decided it would be a better plan to apply for a straight flute performance course to get a really broad understanding of my instrument first.

My other main musical interest is jazz - I study double bass, jazz harp and jazz composition and I just love it!  I'm hoping to be able to keep up with my jazz studies wherever I go, with flute remaining my main focus.

That's just about all there is to know about me musically so I'd like to thank you for staying with me and I do hope you'll be back!  Next time I'll be talking about my conservatoire choices and how I decided on them, the audition process and getting the result!  

See you then!