I'm auditioning for several schools in the spring, including:

Dartington at Falmouth (Totnes, Devon, UK)
University of Cambridge (UK)
UMass Amherst
URI

After going through my music, I've chosen my audition pieces. They are as follows in the order I will be performing them.

Henry Purcell - What Can We Poor Females Do?

This particular piece moves a LOT. The challenge with the Purcell is to remain rooted in your body, and since it is a comic piece, to also possibly add movement and most definitely facial expression. Your body has to tell the story just as the piece does. Breath control is a challenge in this piece as well because it moves so much, and I think working on this piece may help me to address that, since breath is something I know I need to work on.

Ned Rorem - O Do Not Love Too Long

This piece is very slow, and starts off quiet. It is a sad piece, and crescendos about halfway through, so attention to volume is very important. Facial expression also plays a big part here, so you have to remember not only to use your eyes and face to express the sadness of the piece, but you have to remember when to increase the volume of your voice and for how long. My sheet music yells "Spit the diction!" at me, because it's easy to swallow your words in this piece.

Shenandoah (arr. by Luigi Zaninelli)

Shenandoah appears to be a very simple song on the surface, but maintaining a consistent volume and a legato voice throughout is a bigger challenge than most might think. It is lyrically and melodically simple, but again, breath control plays a huge part in maintaining the volume of the piece and also in maintaining legato throughout. My legato voice is something I want to improve on, so I chose this piece for that purpose.

Handel - Verdi Prati

I chose Verdi Prati as my ending piece partly because I believe it is my strongest as far as tone goes, but also because it is challenging to remember where all the rests and the breaths are. It is the longest audition piece I chose, and will serve to help me hone my vibrato voice as well as breath control. But it is my favorite piece to sing amongst the ones I have; the melody is wonderful, and the overall construction of the piece is very appealing to most people who hear it.

I just spent about a half an hour practicing, warming up and then singing some pieces, and it's really amazing what I managed to accomplish in just a half an hour. I think if I set aside a half hour each day to practice, or even fifteen minutes, I could have my voice back to its collegiate level in a few months. I plan to take some lessons from Candice's voice teacher, Ellen, in November or December to prepare for the auditions and further expand my voice if I can.

This year is looking very busy musically. I'm thrilled to tears about it. Because, after all, this is what I was born to do.

-Muse