All-State posting
California All-State band audition requirements
This page reports what the official organization posted. Virtunity does not write audition requirements.
Confirm every date and requirement with your director. Organizations update packets.
CBDA
California Band Directors Association (CBDA)
2026-27 materials are posted.
- Ensembles
- All-State Honor Bands (High School, grades 9-12), All-State Honor Bands (Junior High, grades 7-8), All-State Honor Jazz Bands (High School and Junior High)
- Season
- 2026-27
- Audition window
- Recorded auditions are due by 9:00 PM on October 15, 2026 for high school (grades 9-12) and by 9:00 PM on November 2, 2026 for junior high (grades 7-8). The 2027 All-State Honor Bands perform at the convention January 13-17, 2027.
- Instruments
- winds and percussion (jazz auditions have their own separate instructions)
What the organization posted
Auditions are recorded, not live. Students record required scales plus the prepared solo excerpts, save the files as MP3s, and submit them through the CBDA Digital Audition System from their own student account. The scales and solo list for this cycle is Cycle B, and the required scale sheets and audition excerpts are downloaded per level from the CBDA auditions page. Recording rules are strict and enforced: auditions are judged blind so the recording must not identify the student, no spoken words may be recorded, no piano accompaniment is allowed, a metronome must not be audible, tempo/pitch/rhythm/dynamics may not be digitally altered, and recordings may not be spliced within a musical phrase. The instructions do not list a sight-reading component.
Notes
Requirement detail read from the linked '2027 All-State Concert Band Ensembles Recording Instructions' document (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TCl_5lDoovLgBsTqWsMbts1ZUliI1XTiNP67yPZ5AZw), reached via the CBDA auditions page and read through the document's mobilebasic view. Scale sheets and excerpts sit in CBDA's own linked Google Drive folders (High School Scales, High School Excerpts, Junior High Scales, Junior High Excerpts), which were not opened individually, so the specific key list per instrument is not captured here. Jazz has separate junior high and high school instruction documents linked from the same page. CBDA also references a Golden State Honor Band and all-state orchestra participation options; orchestra auditions for strings are run by CODA.
Retrieved from the organization's page on August 23, 2026.
Auditioning - California Band Directors AssociationPrepare the scales and etudes
Use a structured practice plan for scales, excerpts, and recordings. The official packet still sets the requirements.