Piano Audition Requirement
Live auditions at NEC are required for all piano applicants living in North America*, as well as all piano applicants to the Artist Diploma or DMA programs regardless of their country of residence.
Applicants interested in presenting a live audition are required to submit a prescreening CD by December 1. After review, qualified applicants will be asked to present a live audition at NEC. Applicants who are not selected for a live audition will be notified that they have not been accepted for study at NEC. For additional information about CD recording guidelines, please refer to Tape Guidelines.
PRESCREENING RECORDING
All undergraduate (BM, DP) and graduate (MM, GD) applicants requesting a live audition must submit a prescreening recording with the following repertoire:
- first movement of a Classical Sonata (e.g., music by Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, or others)
- substantial Romantic work (e.g., music by Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Mendelssohn, or others).
For DMA applicants, prescreening repertoire requirements are the same as the live audition requirements listed below. For Artist Diploma applicants, prescreening requirements may be found at Artist Diploma Applicants.
Please submit an audio CD that can be played in a standard CD player. Do not submit a DVD. Prescreening recordings are due with all other application materials on December 1. Please refer to the Recording Guidelines section for more details.
LIVE AUDITION*
Applicants are required to attend a live audition if invited to do so after review of the prescreening recording. Applicants selected for a live audition should prepare the following repertoire according to their desired degree program.The specific repertory chosen is a significant representation of the applicant. Although pianists are not accepted or rejected on the basis of the pieces they choose to play, the music a pianist chooses to perform is a statement of artistic identity.
All works must be performed by memory with the possible exception of challenging contemporary music.
Undergraduate:
- piece written before 1750 (e.g., prelude and fugue, or suite or partita by J.S. Bach)
- complete Classical sonata
- substantial Romantic work
- 20th-century or 21st-century work
- fast etude
MM/GD: Prepare the equivalent of a recital program of major works representing the four style periods. You must also perform a fast etude. Multi-movement works must be prepared in their entirety.
DMA applicants must prepare a recital-length audition of stylistically diverse, musically and pianistically challenging works.
* Piano applicants residing outside of the United States, Canada and Mexico who are not applying to the Artist Diploma or DMA programs may be considered for admission based on the submission of an audition CD. (Do not submit a DVD.) Audition CDs are due on February 1. If you are submitting an audition CD instead of requesting a live audition, you do not need to submit a prescreening CD. CD auditions should include all movements of all pieces for the live audition repertoire above. Please visit the Recording Guidelines section for more information. Given the competitive nature of our program, we recommend that applicants attend a live audition if possible.