Keyboard Audition Requirements

Bachelor of Music – Piano Performance or Piano Pedagogy

Prepare three memorized solo works from contrasting style periods, to be chosen from:

• One Baroque work, comparable to a Bach Prelude & Fugue.
• One movement from a classical sonata by composers such as Haydn, Clementi, Mozart, Beethoven, or Schubert.
• One 19th or 20th century work.

Only solo repertoire will be accepted, no accompaniments. Sight reading might be asked at the audition.

Master of Music – Piano Performance

Prerequisite: the student should have completed an undergraduate degree in music or its equivalent.

Audition requirement: 

• One Baroque work, comparable to a Bach Toccata, Suite or Partita.
• One complete classical sonata.
• One major Romantic/ Post-Romantic or Twentieth Century work.
• One virtuosic etude.

Incoming Graduate Auditions are held in the fall and spring semesters. Please be sure to apply via https://www.calstate.edu/apply. A few days after applying, you will receive a music department audition application link that requires the materials listed below.  Students admitted into the program will take placement tests in music theory/analysis and music history just prior to the first week of classes.

Materials that are required as part of your music audition application:

• Recital programs and repertoire lists for the audition personnel.
• A brief statement discussing background and goals.
• Letters of recommendation

Those students unable to be present for their live incoming graduate auditions may submit a video recording of their performance by picking the "video submission" link in the audition dates drop-down menu on the music department application. You will have the opportunity to upload the video directly on the music audition form site.

Following the evaluation of all these documents and the performance audition, the area coordinator in consultation with the graduate advisor may recommend remedial coursework in areas such as musicianship, music history, or analysis. Remedial class credits do not count toward the degree requirements. In some cases, it will be possible to count 400-level courses as electives, if needed. Occasionally, incoming graduate students in piano performance will be required to schedule a senior recital, if such a recital was not mandatory during your undergraduate studies. A senior recital would occur if the undergraduate degree is in another field.

Bachelor of Arts – Music Education

Three memorized solo works:

• One Baroque work, comparable to a Bach Invention or Sinfonia.
• One movement from a classical sonata.
• One piece of the candidate’s choice.

Sightreading is required at the audition.

Bachelor of Music - Composition or Commercial Media Writing                    Bachelor of Arts - Music Therapy or Music Industry                 

The applicant should have studied piano for a minimum of two years (may be class instruction).

Repertoire should include:

Two classical solo works – Selections should be comparable to one movement from a classical sonatina, Schumann’s Album for the Young, or Bach’s Little Preludes.

Repertoire does not need to be memorized. Sightreading is required at the audition.

Bachelor of Music - Organ

Applicants must show evidence of considerable previous organ study. In rare cases, exceptions may be made for applicants demonstrating evidence of considerable previous piano study, but somewhat limited organ study. In addition to scales and arpeggios at the piano, organ literature (three pieces from different periods) performed for the entrance audition normally should be comparable in difficulty to:

• Bach, Orgelbüchlein, BWV 599–644
• Pachelbel, preludes and fugues
• Vierne, 24 Pièces en style libre
• Dupré, Seventy-nine Chorales
• Distler, Dreissig Spielstücke

Bachelor of Music - Composition or Commercial Media Writing and Bachelor of Arts - Music Therapy or Music Industry

Applicants must show evidence of previous piano study. In addition to scales and arpeggios at the piano, applicants should prepare three pieces from different periods for presentation on the piano or organ.

If performed on the piano, the audition repertoire should be comparable in difficulty to:

• Bach, Two-part inventions
• Mozart, Sonata in C major, K. 545
• Beethoven, Sonatas, op. 49
• Mendelssohn, easier Songs Without Words
• Chopin, easier Preludes
• Debussy, Reverie
• Bartók, Ten Easy Pieces

If performed on the organ, audition repertoire should be comparable in difficulty to:

• Bach, Adagio in E minor, BWV 916
• In dulci jubilo, BWV 729
• Pastorale, BWV 590
• Eight Little Preludes and Fugues, BWV 553–560
• Croft, Voluntaries
• Lemare, Andante Pastorale
• Muffat, Antiphon
• Peeters, selections from Sixty Short Pieces
• Vierne, selections from 24 Pièces en style libre