My First Concert Ensemble Audition at UIUC

This semester was my first audition for concert ensembles at UIUC, and it was terrifying. 

Mostly, I was worried because I hadn’t performed a live audition since before the pandemic began. I was definitely rusty. 

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I began my warm-ups in the music building practice rooms. I thought it would be nice to give myself a good, private warm-up to calm the nerves and prepare, since I wasn’t sure what the warm-up room situation was inside of Krannert Center. 

After about half an hour of scales and slurs with a shaky tone, I made my way towards the audition room.

Despite the semester of experience on campus that I already had, I was extremely unfamiliar with Krannert’s layout.

I was hoping as I walked in the door to find a check-in table immediately inside with plenty of people to point me the right way, but I was only greeted with a sign telling me to find the check-in table at production level.

From my time inside Krannert, I had never once come across a production level, let alone a staircase. I’d only ever been in the lobby. So I set out on my hurried wandering, following anyone who looked like they might be heading towards a staircase.

After several minutes, I had made no progress, so I resorted to asking anyone in sight. I approached the only person nearby, asking her if she could point me to the stairs, to which she apologetically replied, “I don’t work here.” 

And I was left on my own again. 

My search of the building grew ever more frantic as minutes passed. I found one staircase, finally, but it was blocked off for construction. It did, however, soon lead me to find the next staircase with a sign pointing to production level. 

I had exactly 10 minutes before I was expected to be performing on stage, so I rushed to the check-in table, filled out my form, and remembered to ask directions to the next room. 

By the time I had made my way to the warm-up room, I had three minutes to make it to the stage. I whipped out my trumpet and continued my warm-up for approximately two seconds before I tuned and prepared to leave. 

On my way out, I overheard two other players in the room discussing the final cuts to the excerpts, which I didn’t have. So I ran over to them, asking for the quickest run-down of final cuts, then proceeded to run out of the room toward the stage. 

I peeked around the corner to make sure I was in the right place, only to end up scaring the backstage proctor by showing up almost out of nowhere. 

She came around quickly after my accidental jumpscare, and proceeded to calmly show me the music and explain the procedure; she would walk me on stage, announce my number, I would sit and play the excerpts in order at my own pace, they would thank me and I would leave. And it was all a blind audition. 

The final performance was much less terrifying than I had been working up in my head. And even though I absolutely botched the first note I played, I survived the rest and the pieces came out pretty well.  

If I can share any piece of advice from this audition experience, it is that you should trust the process and give yourself enough time to look around and find where you need to be. Hopefully, that should take a lot of unnecessary out of your day. 

• Jaelyn Hudson​