Saturday, February 3rd & Sunday February 4th, 2024

REGISTRATION: 1/15-1/25

Portland State University
PORTLAND OR 97219

Online registration for this year’s event is through the national website, nats.org

THIS YEAR’S EVENT WILL BE LIVE AND IN PERSON!

What to Expect - The Student Experience 

ARRIVAL & CHECK IN: Please check-in at least one hour in advance of your time. Check-in opens at 8:30 am. Each student brings three copies of their completed adjudication forms to the check-in table in the Evans lobby. Check-in table staff will confirm that details on the forms match the registration. Singers must receive an “approved” stamp on their adjudication forms before they may proceed to their audition.

Students’ three adjudication sheets should already be completely filled out (name, category, song, larger work, and composer) before they arrive. The check-in table will provide information for practice rooms and remind the specific locations of their audition category. Please be ready to perform, at the designated room, at least 10 minutes prior to your assigned time. Students who miss their time should not expect any accommodation.

***REPERTOIRE CHANGES*** If a student wishes to change their registered repertoire after the registration deadline, they will need to request and bring a completed Repertoire Change Form to the check-in table. Plan ahead for a longer check-in time, as the staff will need to approve repertoire.

AUDITIONING: After checking in and warming up in a practice room, students take their forms to the room monitor, who will hand them to the judges.  When it is time for the student to sing, the singer will slate (announce their NAME and opening selection.  For example: “I am Fred Smith, and I will begin with ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ from My Fair Lady”). This allows the singer to experience common practice for auditions. Adjudicators will choose the following selections.

The monitor/timer will start the stopwatch when the pianist begins to play. If the singer’s selections are longer than the allotted time, the monitor will call “Time”. The singer should stop singing, say “thank you”, and exit the room. The cut-off does not count against the singer and should not affect the judges’ comments or scoring in any way. Please note, at the chapter level, all high school and lower college auditions are allotted 10 minutes, upper college 12 minutes and youngest categories 8 minutes.

GUESTS: All auditions are open.  Students are welcome to bring guests and are encouraged to spend the day listening to other singers as a means of showing support and learning by watching other performers.  Please be courteous and follow room monitors’ instructions for the best time to enter a room.

WHAT ARE NATS STUDENT AUDITIONS?

The purpose of our Student Auditions is to provide an opportunity for student singers to perform before a panel of outstanding NATS adjudicators in a positive and constructive format. Singers receive written evaluations to assist them in growing as performers and musicians. Outstanding participants are selected to perform in an Honors Recital the following day and are eligible for further scholarships based on their performance.

New this year:

1) NATS National has a new registration system (AuditionNOW), for ALL our audition events.

2) NATS is requiring that all participating minors have a chaperone for the duration of the event, and that the parent/guardian complete the chaperone agreement form.

Teachers are welcome (and encouraged) to email the form in advance to the parents/guardians of minor students we anticipate will be participating in our audition event, so the parents/guardians may fill out the chaperone form and email the completed form back to the teacher.

Our National Office urges us to plan our student entries in advance, because our registration period will be shorter than usual.

1) COLLECT STUDENT INFO.

Please complete this Excel spreadsheet to be used as backup in this new situation. When you’ve completed your registration, save it and send it to Audition Co-Chair Amy Hansen.
Please note that the file contains two sheets: One for your student’s information, and a second one for the songs they will be performing.

2) LOG IN TO NATS.ORG, GO TO YOUR MEMBER PROFILE PAGE (by logging in or clicking on your email address in the top-right corner). Scroll down the page and click on the green “AuditionNow” button.

*You will be logged in to AuditionNow automatically; this may take a few moments.

3) SELECT “CASCADE” LOCATION USING THE DROP DOWN LIST ON THE LEFT.

4) USING DROP DOWN LIST IN MAIN BODY OF PAGE, SELECT THE EVENT (“Cascade Classical Auditions”, once available)

5) WHEN THIS PAGE DISPLAYS, FOLLOW PROMPTS TO INPUT TEACHER INFO AND STUDENT INFO.

Data is saved, and changes may be made*, as needed, until the registration deadline.

*PLEASE NOTE: Do not pay for your students’ registration until you are sure you have no more changes to make! Once you pay the registration fees, no more changes may be made!

Deadline: January 24, 2024

6) PAY REGISTRATION FEES.

Registration fee: $25 per teacher and $25 per student

Deadline: January 24, 2024

7) RECEIVE ADJUDCATION ASSIGNMENT(S) AND RE-FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH THE RUBRICS FOR THOSE CATEGORIES.

Please review rubrics on NATS.org. The Schedule and Adjudication assignment will not be available before Sunday November 12th, perhaps later as we work with the new platform.

Musical Theatre Rubric

8) PLAN TO ATTEND AND PARTICIPATE (ALL TEACHERS WHO SUBMIT STUDENTS FOR PARTICIPATION MUST ATTEND ON 2/3/2024 AND WILL BE ASSIGNED ADJUDICATION FOR THE DAY, 9 A.M. - 6 P.M.).

NATS Audition Regulations - UPDATED 8-23-23

It is strongly encouraged that teachers set aside time to read the most recently updated regulations and category clarifications, to re-acquaint yourselves with the very specific requirements of our auditions. Enjoy the new adjudication videos as well!

Please read pages 2-3 with particular attention, for useful clarifications regarding repertoire, transpositions, and audition procedures for students. There are many excellent descriptions and resources added this year on pages 6-12!

Please note that categories have new labels and we have the new category “Non-traditional Student” for those music students who’ve aged out of the college categories. Please check these carefully so that your student is registered in the correct division/category.

As always, in our chapter auditions we allow 10 minutes for high school categories, as opposed to the 8 minutes used at the national level. We will allot 8 minutes for Categories MT 1 & MT 2 (Children & Youth).

There is a wealth of information on our NATS National Website about NATS Auditions. Please refer to it at your leisure.

• Accompanists may play from iPads and other electronic devices, provided that our NATS Copyright Policy is being observed. Please review the Copyright FAQ’s provided by NATS National.

• We will have Adult Avocational Musical Theater categories for students older than High School age AND the new category for music students older than college age, “Non-Traditional Student”

• Fees:

Registration: $25 per student per category, plus $25 for teacher

• The responsibility of abiding by NATS copyright policy, AND copyright law now rests with the teachers/parents/students.

• Although singers are not required to provide adjudicators with an ORIGINAL copy of their songs, they (and their accompanists) must still be able to substantiate that the scan of the music on their iPad is legal, if asked.

• For any questions, please contact NATS-Cascade Co-Chair Beverly Park at beverly.park@comcast.net