Disciplines

2023 OSAI Audition Information Coming Soon!

1. Complete an online application and schedule your audition no later than noon the weekday before your desired audition date. See dates in right side bar or view full audition schedule here. Applicants are strongly encouraged to schedule their audition on the earliest possible date they are available to ensure there are rescheduling opportunities remaining in the audition season, if they have to cancel their audition due to illness.

2. Read guidelines below to prepare your audition.

3. Arrive at your audition at least 15 minutes early to check in and warm up.

Due to the continued prevalence of the COVID-19 virus and recent surge of the Omicron variant in Oklahoma, the following special precautions will be taken in order to keep all applicants, facilitators, guests, and staff members safe during in-person auditions: 

• Only one guest may accompany an OSAI applicant into the audition site’s registration and waiting areas. (All other guests must wait outside or in their vehicle.) As always, guests are not permitted in the audition room during an applicant’s audition.
• OSAI applicants, guests, facilitators, and staff members are expected to wear face masks upon entry into all audition sites, during check-in, and during waiting times. (Audition facilitators will instruct applicants to remove their mask when their audition begins.)
• If an OSAI applicant becomes sick prior to their audition, OAI staff must be notified immediately. Applicants who test positive for COVID-19 or exhibit symptoms of contagious illness will not be allowed to attend in-person auditions. OAI staff will make every reasonable effort to reschedule applicants who are sick and, therefore, unable to attend their auditions. Likewise, applicants are strongly encouraged to schedule their audition on the earliest possible date they are available to ensure there are rescheduling opportunities remaining in the audition season, if they have to cancel their audition due to illness. For questions or to arrange for accommodations due to illness, please contact the OAI office: 405.605.7500 or oai@oaiquartz.org.

Thank you for helping to ensure the safety of our community!

Auditions will be audio recorded live and sent to judges for scoring at a later date. Judges will NOT be present at the audition. A facilitator will be in the audition room to play audio files and record the audition, but they will not be scoring.

The audition consists of THREE COMPONENTS. All music and sound files are available in the Dropbox folder linked below.

1. PREPARED PIECE: Sing your choice of ONE of the songs listed below. You must sing your selected song AS WRITTEN on the sheet music provided. The music and words do NOT have to be memorized. OAI will provide a copy of the sheet music or you may print it beforehand to bring to your audition. While you are encouraged to practice your piece with a metronome in advance, electronic devices (including cell phones and metronomes) are NOT permitted during the audition. The beginning pitch will be provided for you at the audition, and you will sing unaccompanied (a cappella). Vocal embellishments, inaccurate tempos, or otherwise not singing the music as written will result in significantly lower scores. All music and starting pitch audio files are available in the Dropbox folder linked below.

OPTION A: America the Beautiful
TEMPO: Quarter note = 75 - 90 bpm (Set your metronome at a tempo between 75 and 90; each click represents one quarter note.)

OPTION B: Greensleeves
TEMPO: Dotted quarter note = 40 - 60 bpm (Set your metronome at a tempo between 40 and 60; each click represents one dotted quarter note.)

OPTION C: O Danny Boy
TEMPO: Quarter note = 50 - 65 bpm (Set your metronome at a tempo between 50 and 65; each click represents one quarter note.)

Again, you only have to sing ONE of the songs listed above. If you have any questions, please call 405.605.7500 or email oai@oaiquartz.org.

2. CHORAL SELECTION: Perform the selection from Way Over In Beulah Lan' for your voice part with the provided backing track. Sopranos and tenors should sing the top line for all divisi parts. Altos and basses should sing the bottom line for all divisi parts.

Way Over In Beulah Lan' arr. Stacey Gibbs (Gentry Publications), mm. 1-42

3. TONAL MEMORY: Sing four short musical exercises to assess tonal memory. In the first tonal memory exercise, applicants will listen to 4 pitches, then sing the sequence of pitches back by memory. Each subsequent exercise will then increase in length, with the final tonal memory exercise consisting of 7 pitches. Tonal memory can be sung using any syllable (e.g. "do do do," "la la la"). Listen to sample tonal memory exercises of comparable difficulty in the Dropbox folder linked below.

CLICK HERE TO Access all sheet music and audio files

• Ask your choral director or other music instructor to play short melodies (4-7 pitches) for you to sing back. They can help you learn what to listen for and make sure that you're singing back melodies correctly.
• Try singing back melodies you hear on the radio, television, or even melodies you hear at your school. Start with small fragments and try to gradually sing back longer and longer sections of melody.
• Learn to identify and sing common musical elements like scales, chords, and sequences. Recognizing these patterns in the tonal memory exercises can help you remember longer fragments of melody.
• Practice melodic dictation exercises from online music theory websites, like Teoria.com