How "perfect" do audition videos for the Eastman summer institute need to be?

[ryebrye]

My son is a junior in high school. He came across the Eastman summer institute page, and the deadline is by May 15th.

https://summer.esm.rochester.edu/course ... institute/

He's got a couple audition pieces he's been working on for a local youth orchestra, but that's audition isn't until the end of May and they aren't quite "ready"

His older audition pieces from past stuff he can make sound good, but says that he's not sure he's remembering all the little technical details (Spanish dances, first and second movement)

Assuming he could even get an audition submitted tomorrow, what's the bar for a summer institute?

He wants to learn, and specifically would like the help preparing for auditions, etc. Should be bother submitting an audition video even if it's got some rough spots in it? Or really take some time tomorrow and get back his old form on a previous audition piece and use that?

[WilliamLang]

It's almost always a good idea to try - there's plenty to learn from the process, and the auditioning system also means that for almost everyone you'll "fail" more than succeed.

As to each individual summer festival, they all have their own standards, and competition and open spots will vary from year to year and institution to institution, until you get to the very top level summer festivals, which a private teacher or exceptional talent will be prepared for.

As to the last question, my intuition says take this chance to re-visit the older piece and send that in. But there's no real right answer at this age and experience. From here, I'd also recommend finding a private lesson teacher, assuming he doesn't currently have one?, especially if your son wants to consider a future in music.

[ryebrye]

He does have a private instructor, he has done wonders with him this past year. They're working on his audition pieces for his youth orchestra together now (they're close, he just needs to string all the sections he's got down individually into a fluid performance)

I'll try to help him get his old stuff up to snuff tomorrow and send it in.

[ryebrye]

To follow up... He recorded videos of the past audition pieces, and one of the current one. They weren't perfect, but there were only one or two issues each video.

He submitted them to get it in by the deadline. He found out today that he got accepted.

They also extended the deadline out until June 1st. Thankfully he didn't know that it would be extended earlier because otherwise he'd still drag his feet on getting it done.

[Rrova]

he got accepted.

Congrats to you both! My son is the same age and we are going through similar experiences! Good luck!