Hi all. Looking to impress at Music Scholarship audition - can anyone advise on violin pieces that they may have used themselves in this situation? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Lots of good options in Young Violinists Repertoire Book 2 by Barbara Barber. Main thing to remember I think is that a simpler piece played really well is better than a hard piece played badly.

Is this audition for secondary school entry?

If you want to show your skill in playing stopped harmonics, there are 'Two Pieces for Violin and Piano' by William Walton. The first my daughter played several years ago for Grade 6, it has several harmonics. (The second piece is much harder, not for Grade 6 !). I guess it would be sort of showing off if you can handle those technical things.

For an orchetsra audition I played second movement of Handel sonata in F major and melodie by tchakovsky(sp!)

The meoldie may be too hard for grade 6 though. Also if it were played you would then need a contrasting faster piece.

Always play to your strengths and choose something you LOVE playing so that you give your musicality a chance to shine, not just your technical standard. Almost anyone can play notes - but it takes a good musician to turn them into music.

Auditions at this stage set out to try to find out something about your potential as a musician rather than just a test to see where you have got to now, so do choose something that you are technically comfortable with and can really show off what you can do, rather than something at your technical limit which is more likely to expose what you can't (yet).

I have exactly the same question!

At the moment, my daughter wants to play Brahm's Hungarian Dance as one piece. We are thinking something slow for the other - maybe Faure's Berceuse.

Bohm's Sarabande is also on the list.

She can play all these very well but may be bored of them by the time the audition comes round which is still 6 months away so also looking for some new suggestions.

Is Brahm's Hungarian Dance about grade 6? the number 5?
I have the score for this but have not 'dared' to look at it yet

Yes, but for Grade 6 it is a slightly simplified arrangement - far fewer double stops and it doesn't venture too high in position either. That's not to say it doesn't have it's challenges though! It must be played with some gutsy gypsy spirit behind it.

The Grade 6 arrangement is (I think) contained in Classical and Romantic Pieces for Violin Book 4, published by Oxford University Press.

Thanks Amanda, I have the original score, not an arrangement so I won't dare look at it for a while yet, I wouldn't do it any justice

How about a movement from a Seitz Concerto? Suzuki Violin book four has a few nice ones. Buy the accompaniment CD to the book if you can. You can also hear Itzak Perlman playing these in his CD "Concertos from my Childhood." The Seitz Concertos are all relatively short (within movements, of course!) and can display a wide range of abilities. For example, Concerto No. 2, 3rd mvt. has some interesting bowing technique in the beginning, double stops, a slowish section and then a fast staccatto section. They are quite flashy and showy pieces as well!

I agree. I think the 3rd one from Book 4 is the one with the double stop from ###### section, but within the short movement itself, it has 3-4 different themes for you to show off your techniques. Great suggestion!

They are good pieces but in my experience you are likely to come up against anti-Suzuki prejudice if you use a Suzuki repertoire piece in an audition or competition.

I've never had that happen, to myself or any of my students! Is this common in the UK? In fact, what is there to be prejudiced against if Suzuki works and works well for many people??!!! Suzuki's own students are concertmasters and leading performers in main orchestras around the world. Those who are taught with the Suzuki method advance quickly and have a sound foundation for music making. If you are concerned about a judge being anti-Suzuki perhaps you should not enter the competition if you know they will be biased ... OR buy the actual Seitz concerto book rather than a Suzuki copy! You don't have to be Suzuki trained to play Suzuki music, and vice versa!

Of the pieces that son played at that stage, one that his teacher in NZ recommended as good consolidation was Mollenhaueur's The Boy Paganini Fantasia. Viohazard enjoyed playing it, and it is probably a good choice for an audition, where you want to show off a range of techniques with a piece that's not too long. I don't recall that it had any harmonics though...

You don't have to buy the Suzuki books to get them though - they're published by Bosworth I think, each concerto separately. The other advantage of that, is that you get the whole concerto in one place rather than odd movements scattered around the book! They're great little concert / audition pieces.

My friend is about grade 6-7 violin and for a recent concert she played Tico Tico by Zequinha Abreu. (And I've been learning it on the clarinet too - a slightly different version.) Not the same sort of style as some of the others suggested on this thread - but it sounded really good!

Oh there ARE some nice harmonics in that, at the end of the Theme.