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String Auditions

Your audition is not only to determine your seating in the orchestra, but also to provide you with a unique learning experience, where you will grow as an artist. You should share your audition with both me and our string faculty, so that we can give you feedback and ways to improve.

Once you learn the audition excerpts, you are asked to film yourself (you can use your phone, iPad, etc.) and send the video link by email to me and to your respective studio instructor.

Brass and Woodwind Auditions

Woodwind and brass players wishing to perform in the Wind Ensemble or Symphony Orchestra take one audition to be considered for either or both ensembles. First, be sure to fill out the ! Next, access the . We will utilize video auditions for the Fall 2025 semester, so check the folder for a file named “Audition Instructions – Fall 2025,” and reach out with any questions. Video submissions are due to Daniel Farr, DMA, and Ricardo Averbach, DMA, no later than Friday, Aug. 15, 2025.

The First Years

The ߣߣÊÓƵ University Orchestra dates back as far as 1890 to the ߣߣÊÓƵ Stringed Orchestra, which consisted entirely of banjos, mandolin, guitars, and piccolo-banjos.

It was not until 1903, however, that the ߣߣÊÓƵ University Symphony Orchestra was officially founded. At its inception, this twelve-member ensemble, under the direction of Dr. S.S. Meyers, served to play each morning in the university chapel service and at most university functions. An article in the December 1904 edition of The ߣߣÊÓƵ Student reads in part, "...since its organization a year ago, [the ߣߣÊÓƵ orchestra] has perhaps contributed more to the pleasure of the college life of ߣߣÊÓƵ than any other organization..." An editorial in the January 1905 ß£ß£ÊÓƵ Student later boasts, "Both students and faculties can feel justly proud of our Orchestra. It is a living exemplification of the precept, that whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well...it would not be an exaggeration to say that it is the flower of the music department." Soon after 1905, however, the orchestra was forced to disband as the number of instrumentalists at the university dwindled. Ten years later, in 1915, plans to revive the orchestra were undertaken.

The ß£ß£ÊÓƵ Student announced on November 25, 1915, "The development of the university orchestra is well under way, for the most difficult part of the process — that of securing the talent, was easily accomplished." The premiere of this new ensemble took place on December 15, 1916, in the First Concert of the ߣߣÊÓƵ University Orchestra with a 44-member ensemble held in Hall Auditorium under the direction of noted composer and conductor Joseph W. Clokey.

Growing Up

Over the next several decades, the orchestra's leadership included conductors Donald Kissane, Roy A. Williams, Dr. Theodore Kratt, Gordon Sutherland, Joseph Bein, and Adon Foster. In 1957, the university secured conductor and composer Otto Frohlich, a native of Czechoslovakia, to direct the orchestra and the newly organized student opera program. Frohlich's twelve year tenure with the orchestra contributed a great deal to the success of both the ensemble and the music department.

Into the Present

After Frohlich's retirement, the ensemble was directed by George Seltzer and, later, Paul Nadler. Carmon DeLeone, who served as director of the orchestra from 1980-1992, was followed by interim conductors Jacob Chi, and Jose Luis-Novo, who, in 1998, founded the Oxford Chamber Orchestra, a collaboration between music faculty and select students. The current conductor, , a native of Brazil, was appointed as Director of Orchestral Studies in the fall of 2002.

Ricardo Averbach is Director of Orchestral Studies at ߣߣÊÓƵ University and Past President of the College Orchestra Directors Association. Originally from Brazil, after graduating in engineering at the Universidade de São Paulo, he received his degree in orchestra, choral and opera conducting at the National Academy of Music of Bulgaria and his doctoral degree at the University of Michigan. Averbach conducts regularly in South and North America, Europe and Asia, having performed as guest conductor in over 15 countries. His discography includes several world premiere recordings in prestigious labels, which already sold over half a million copies worldwide. As a scholar, he published a number of articles in peer reviewed publications and the critical edition of Villa-Lobos’s The Insects Martyrdom with the Theodore Presser Company. His book Villa-Lobos and Modernism: The Apotheosis of Cannibal Music has been released by Lexington Books in August 2022.