Symphony Orchestra

After learning the audition excerpts provided, you should record them and submit them through a video.

Submitting Your Video

When you’re ready, record your audition on phone, iPad, etc., and submit your video by Monday, Aug. 17, 2026.

Email the link to BOTH Ricardo Averbach and your studio teacher:

• Ricardo Averbach (Conductor): averbach@MiamiOH.edu
• Harvey Thurmer (Violin): thurmehp@MiamiOH.edu
• Marion Peraza (Viola): perazam@MiamiOH.edu
• Franklin Sandoval (Cello): sandovfg@MiamiOH.edu
• Steve Ullery (Double Bass): sfullery@fuse.net

Video Format Options

• Option 1: Upload to Google Drive
  • Be sure that sharing permissions allow us to view it.
• Option 2: Upload to YouTube as an unlisted video
  • Email us the link.

Violins: Which Part Should You Prepare?

• Music majors: Prepare 1st violin excerpts
• Minors and non-majors: Prepare 2nd violin excerpts
• Part and seating decisions will be based on your audition.

Audition Excerpts

All excerpts come from Copland’s Appalachian Spring, one of the most important American orchestral works ever written. Beyond its historical significance, it is also a remarkable piece for developing ensemble awareness, rhythmic precision, intonation, tone production, and musical sensitivity. The work combines moments of great transparency and delicacy with energetic rhythmic passages, requiring players to listen carefully and perform with refinement and control.

The excerpts were selected not simply to test whether you can play the notes, but to evaluate a broad range of musical and technical skills that are essential for orchestral playing.

Some of the most important skills developed through these excerpts include:

• Rhythmic accuracy and subdivision
• Counting rests carefully
• Ensemble precision
• Intonation in exposed passages
• Bow control and articulation clarity
• Dynamic contrast and phrasing
• Consistency of tone quality
• Musical style and expressive playing
• Ability to sustain concentration during repetitive rhythmic patterns
• Sensitivity to balance and orchestral texture

Each instrument has five excerpts, and each excerpt presents different musical and technical challenges. Some passages emphasize rhythmic precision and articulation; others focus on lyrical phrasing, blend, and intonation. Certain excerpts may seem “simple” at first glance because the notes are not extremely difficult, but in orchestral auditions these exposed passages are often the most challenging because every detail becomes audible. (Continue reading at the bottom of the page!)

For many students, one of the biggest challenges is understanding that orchestral playing involves much more than playing the correct pitches. Dynamics, articulations, accents, note lengths, bow distribution, tone color, rhythmic stability, and style are equally important. In professional orchestral auditions, these details often matter more than the notes themselves.

I strongly encourage you to use the provided YouTube recording below as part of your preparation.

The timestamps in the audition excerpts correspond to the beginning of each excerpt. One very effective strategy is to slow down the playback speed on YouTube and practice along with the recording. This helps develop:

• rhythmic accuracy,
• pulse and subdivision,
• intonation,
• awareness of style,
• articulation consistency,
• and ensemble listening skills.

Even advanced musicians use this type of practice regularly.

Time stamps for the beginning of each audition excerpt in the following YouTube video:

When practicing, I suggest:

• Practice slowly first with a metronome.
• Count subdivisions carefully, especially in irregular rhythms and syncopated passages.
• Isolate difficult shifts, string crossings, and bowings.
• Practice dynamics and articulations from the very beginning — do not wait until later.
• Sing or clap rhythms before playing them.
• Listen repeatedly to the recording to internalize the style and pacing.
• Practice excerpts in small sections, then connect them into longer musical phrases.
• Record yourself occasionally and listen critically.
• Pay close attention to tone quality, especially in soft passages.

Most importantly, remember that auditions are not designed to eliminate students, but to help build an orchestra capable of performing great music at a high artistic level. Careful preparation will not only improve your audition, but also make you a stronger musician overall.

I am very much looking forward to hearing your auditions and to working together on a wonderful orchestral season!

-Ricardo Averbach

The First Years

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

It was not until 1903, however, that the Miami 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 Miami Student reads in part, "...since its organization a year ago, [the Miami orchestra] has perhaps contributed more to the pleasure of the college life of Miami than any other organization..." An editorial in the January 1905 Miami 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 Miami Student announced on Nov. 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 Dec. 15, 1916, in the First Concert of the Miami 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, Ricardo Averbach, a native of Brazil, was appointed as Director of Orchestral Studies in the fall of 2002.

Ricardo Averbach is Director of Orchestral Studies at Miami 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.