Posting Date: April 3, 2009
KSU School of Music auditions open doors to musicians' dreams
By Jarmea L. Boone
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Visitors ask questions at the welcome session during the School of Music auditions in the Bailey Center. |
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Auditioning student sings in a practice room in the Wilson Annex. |
Photographs by Jarmea Boone |
In the morning hours of a quiet building on Friday, March 20 and Friday, March 27, aspiring KSU vocal and instrumental music students filed in slowly and curiously with parents and tutors. The dim and soothing light of the Dr. Bobbie Bailey & Family Performance Center cast shadows of the chair rows onto the carpet at the feet of the visitors. The musicians were there, ready to share their dreams and to audition for admission to the Kennesaw State University School of Music.
The active auditions were part of a two-fold process for hopeful music majors that also included the standard KSU admissions application process for those who were coming to college as a first-year or transfer student. KSU students who planned to change majors were also required to perform an audition piece.
School of Music professors, , staff, and volunteer students welcomed the groups to the occasion and encouraged questions regarding the auditions, orientation, and the music program. The groups reviewed their welcome packets that presented viable information regarding KSU, the School of Music, and the auditioning student’s concentration of study.
The groups were then escorted to the audition site-the new Wilson Annex alongside the Bailey Center. The students and their families toured the building that still smelled faintly of sawdust and fresh wood. They rushed to the state-of-the-art, soundproof practice rooms, unique to the Wilson Annex. These practice rooms are equipped with pianos and with a panel that alters acoustics of a singer’s voice as it carries through the air.
Each musician was required to audition their piece in front of a panel and followed an organized schedule and set time guidelines. The School of Music provided a hospitality room and breakfast in the nearby Wilson Building for waiting guests and auditioning students.
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School of Music hopeful Natalie Gough |
Everyone seemed eager to lie out his or her musical experiences and to express enthusiasm for the program. High school senior Chani Maisonet wishes to open her own school of arts someday. She prepared auditions for both the School of Music and the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies and has been studying both music and dance for most of her life. High school senior Natalie Gough wants to sing professionally and looks to KSU as the start towards her rewarding music career. She has been studying vocal with KSU Artist-in-Residence in Voice and mezzo-soprano Valerie Walters for six months.
“I have been singing forever because my mother is a piano professor,” said Gough. “Dr. Walters talks about Kennesaw State University and its new facilities all the time, and she recommended KSU’s School of Music to me. It’s a great, exciting time for the entire college.”
The overall success of the auditions was evident in the meticulous organization and planning of the event. Christine Collins, academic associate in the Office of the Dean, believed that the auditions met high expectations. “Everything ran quite smoothly,” she said. “We had lots of positive feedback from parents and professors, especially of the hospitality room and of our new facilities.”
The School of Music holds auditions for its program annually. For more information on admissions, contact the College of the Arts Office of Admissions and Enrollment Development at 770-423-6614 or visit http://www.kennesaw.edu/arts/admissions/.