ABA - 2027 All-State / Cycle C
Alabama All-State band audition requirements
Live district auditions.
ABA | District All-State auditions
Start with one passage
Check ABA's District All-State auditions requirements for your instrument. Audition date: confirm with your director.
Begin your etude with a short passage. Confirm the official packet with your director.
Results are emailed to the President and Executive Secretary, not posted publicly.
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Last checked October 6, 2026 | Official source: https://alaband.org/all-state-festival/
What to work on this week
Use this plan for your next round, a solo, or next season. Not taking another audition? Choose music with your director and use the same steps.
- 5 minutes - Read before playing. Find the required passage in the official packet. Mark its start and end. Count through a rhythm that needs attention.
- 10 minutes - Work on one small chunk. Choose a few notes or a short phrase. Play slowly enough to follow the notes and rhythm.
- 10 minutes - Connect two chunks. Practice the next small section. Then join the sections, paying attention to the connection.
- 5 minutes - Record and listen. Record the joined passage. Follow the score while listening. Write down one thing to revisit.
Find the official material, audition procedure and dates below. Confirm every date and requirement with your director. Organizations update packets.
Who runs it and how you advance
| Organizing body | The Alabama Bandmasters Association (ABA) runs concert-band All-State through 8 districts. |
|---|---|
| District to All-State | The January district audition is the All-State tryout. District Honor Band is a separate clinic; it is not a second required round. Selected All-State players later complete recorded chair placement. |
Scales
The engraved PDF is the authority. Play from it for the notes, octaves, ranges, key signatures, meters and tempos.
| Selection and memory | Play the published order from memory, using the names-only prompt sheet on the stand. This is not a draw or a judge-selected subset. Scale notation and other visual cues are not allowed in the room. |
|---|---|
| Gate to continue | High school: correctly play at least 7 major scales with their arpeggios to continue to prepared studies and sight-reading. Middle school: the gate is 5. The middle-school scale limit is 4 minutes; a high-school time limit was not published in the material read. |
| Official scale sheets | The high-school and middle-school requirements pages link the instrument scale sheets. Percussion uses the mallet scale sheet for its level. |
| Conflicting older scale tables | The state's documents disagree; see the packet. Older bylaw tables and the linked 2027 sheets differ on middle-school minor scales and some instrument chromatic requirements. |
What to prepare
| Official cut lists | The 2027 Cycle C PDFs name the required books and cuts. Bring your own required book to registration. ABA prohibits photocopying and allows your own prepared music in the audition room. |
|---|---|
| Flute and double reeds | High-school flute: Mary Karen Clardy, Flute Etudes Book, exercises 13 (pages 20-21) and 50 (page 83). Oboe: Ferling / Andraud, 48 Famous Studies for Oboe or Saxophone (1st Oboe), studies 5 and 6 (page 3). Bassoon: Weissenborn / Ambrosio, Practical Method for the Bassoon including Fifty Advanced Studies, Andante (page 89) and study 13 (page 87). Middle school: Rubank Advanced Method, Volume 1, for your instrument. Flute uses page 35, study 15, and page 53, study 22. Oboe uses page 21, study 3, and page 50, study 19. Bassoon uses page 36, study 21, and page 26, study 11. See the middle-school cut sheet for all starting and stopping points. |
| Clarinets | High-school Bb clarinet: 32 Rose Etudes for Clarinet, C. Rose, Carl Fischer, 2009 - study 5 (page 9) and study 18 (page 22). Bass and contra clarinets: 21 Foundation Studies for Alto and Bass Clarinet, edited by William E. Rhoads, Southern, 1965 - study 18 (page 28) and study 8 (pages 14-15). Middle school: Rubank Advanced Method, Volume 1, clarinet book. Bb clarinet uses page 47, study 24, and page 56, study 24. Low clarinets use page 32, study 11, and pages 50-51, study 5. Follow the different cuts on the official list. |
| Saxophones | High-school alto, tenor and baritone saxophone: Ferling / Andraud, 48 Famous Studies for Oboe or Saxophone (1st Oboe), Southern Music Company - study 29 (page 15) and study 22 (page 11). Middle-school alto, tenor and baritone: Rubank Advanced Method, Volume 1, saxophone book - page 26, study 8, and page 46, study 6. Read the listed cuts. |
| High brass | High-school trumpet and cornet: Arban Complete Conservatory Method for Trumpet, New Authentic Edition, edited by Thomas Hooten and Jennifer Marotta - page 422, No. 12 (Variation on a Theme from Norma), and page 366, Characteristic Study 9. Horn: 335 Selected Melodious Progressive and Technical Studies for French Horn, Book 1, Pottag / Andraud - Arioso (page 131) and study 35 (pages 44-45). Middle school: Rubank Advanced Method, Volume 1. Trumpet uses page 43, study 25, and page 55, study 28. Horn uses page 41, study 26, and page 59, study 34. The cut list specifies the line and repeat instructions. |
| Low brass | High-school trombone and bass-clef euphonium: Arban Method for Trombone and Baritone, New Edition, edited by Alan Raph - Carnival of Venice Introduction (page 349, No. 11) and Caprice and Variations, Variation II (page 339, No. 8). Treble-clef euphonium uses the Hooten / Marotta Arban trumpet edition, pages 417 and 407 for those assignments. Tuba: Blazhevich, 70 Studies for BBb Tuba, Volume 1 - studies 28 (page 27) and 30 (page 29). A separate bass-trombone Cycle C page was not published in the material read. Middle school: Rubank Advanced Method, Volume 1. Trombone and bass-clef euphonium use page 24, study 8, and page 52, study 10. Treble-clef euphonium uses the trumpet book, page 23, study 8, and page 49, study 10. Tuba uses page 31, study 11, and page 42, study 30. |
| Percussion | High school: mallets use Rondo (page 90) in Mark Johnson's Solos and Etudes for Marimba, plus Jason Baker's Mabila printed on packet page 4. Snare uses Mitchell Peters, Advanced Snare Drum Studies, etude 17. Timpani uses Kirk J. Gay, Pedal to the Kettle: Etudes and Solos for Timpani, etude 26. Middle school: mallets use Sonatini (Clementi), page 20 in the Johnson collection. Snare uses Mitchell Peters, Intermediate Snare Drum Studies, etude 22. Timpani uses Pedal to the Kettle, etude 7. Both percussion packets supply the cuts and additional station requirements. |
Practice for ABA with your audition tempo, tuner and drone on one screen
Virtunity is a practice app built by a band director. Set up each scale and excerpt, then work it up a step at a time.
Scan with your iPhone to get Virtunity
Practice now in your browser: free tuner, metronome and droneHow it fits each part of this audition
- Scales
- Set up each scale in Virtunity and practice it with the metronome at your audition tempo, with the tuner and drone in the same window. Scale Checker confirms scale notes on your iPhone. Notes only. Not tone, rhythm or a complete performance.
- Prepared etudes
- Keep the PDF in your Music Library and set the piece up in practice with the metronome, tuner and your notes beside it. Start under tempo: good reps in a row move the tempo up a step, and Keep lets you stay at the old tempo.
- Sight-reading
- Sight Reading Sprint in the Lab puts one note at a time on the staff for a 60-second round of fast note reading. It is not a full sight-reading excerpt, so read something new every day too, and keep your counting steady with the Lab's rhythm modules.
- Tone and intonation
- Every judge listens for these. The tuner shows your note and how sharp or flat it is, and the drone gives you a steady reference pitch for long tones.
- Tempo
- Tap tempo finds a marked tempo, and subdivision clicks keep your eighths, triplets and sixteenths even.
For students 13 and up. Virtunity helps you prepare. Your playing on audition day earns the chair.
Sight-reading
| In the room | After the scale gate and prepared etudes, turn over the music on the stand. You have 1 minute to study before playing. Leave the music on the stand. The excerpt, publisher and level were not published in the material read. |
|---|---|
| Percussion and chair placement | Percussion sight-reading is on snare and mallets; timpani has none. The recorded state chair-placement round has no sight-reading. |
Scoring and audition format
| District format | The concert-band district audition is live. Wind players are judged by number behind a screen. Percussion may be judged without a screen so technique is visible. |
|---|---|
| High-school wind scoring | Each major scale and arpeggio earns up to 2 points; each minor scale and arpeggio earns up to 2. Chromatic earns up to 4. The 2 etudes are worth 25 each, tone 10 and sight-reading 38. |
| Percussion scoring | The high-school Set 3 and middle-school Cycle C packets each list 500 total points: mallets 190, snare 190 and timpani 120. |
| Multiple instruments | The state's documents disagree; see the packet. The bylaws give a 1-instrument rule while the festival page lists combination exceptions. |
Key dates for this season
Dates read on 2026-09-07.
| District 1 | Auditions: January 29-30, 2027, Huntsville High School. Postmark deadline: December 18, 2026. |
|---|---|
| District 2 | Auditions: January 30, 2027, Albertville High School. Deadline: December 18, 2026. |
| District 3 | The district page lists January 30, 2027, Muscle Shoals High School, with a December 18, 2026 postmark deadline. Its table heading still says 2025-2026. |
| District 4 | Auditions: January 30, 2027, Hoover High School. Deadline: December 18, 2026. |
| District 5 | Auditions: January 30, 2027, Hillcrest High School. Postmark deadline: December 18, 2026. |
| District 6 | Audition date, site and deadline were not published on the district page read. |
| District 7 | The district page lists January 16, 2027, Robertsdale High, with a December 4, 2026 deadline. Its table heading still says 2025-2026. |
| District 8 | Auditions: January 30, 2027, Coppinville Junior High School. Deadline: December 18, 2026. |
| All-State Festival | April 2027, Von Braun Center, Huntsville. On the exact festival dates, the state's documents disagree; see the packet. The 2027 festival registration dates and exact chair-placement recording window were not published in the material read. |
| All-State Jazz auditions | Checked September 21, 2026: director registration is due 11:59 PM October 30, 2026; recordings upload November 2-13, 2026; results December 8, 2026. The festival is January 21-23, 2027 at the BJCC in Birmingham. The 2026-27 instrument PDFs are linked even though the hub banner still says Coming December 2026. Winds and rhythm section prepare scales, an etude and play-a-longs; drum set prepares patterns, an etude and play-a-longs. The fee is $20 per student plus $20 per school; the director must hold NAfME membership. |
Read from Alabama Bandmasters Association on 2026-09-07; season 2027 All-State / Cycle C. Check the packet before you rely on any of this.