All-State posting
Iowa 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.
IHSMA
Iowa High School Music Association (IHSMA)
2026-27 materials are posted.
- Ensembles
- All-State Band, All-State Orchestra
- Season
- 2026-27
- Audition window
- Audition materials released Wednesday, July 22, 2026; online registration opened Thursday, August 6, 2026; registration deadline September 10, 2026 (penalty deadline September 17, 2026). Auditions are held October 24, 2026 for vocal, woodwind, brass, string and percussion (piano October 21, 2026; harp October 9, 2026 by video recording). Festival November 19-21, 2026.
- Instruments
- woodwinds, brass, and percussion (strings, harp and piano audition separately for the All-State Orchestra)
What the organization posted
Live in-person auditions at regional audition centers on October 24, 2026. The 2026 wind and percussion etude list is posted and names a specific book plus page or etude number per instrument: Voxman Selected Studies (Rubank) for flute p. 20 and 24-25, oboe p. 14 and 39, Bb clarinet p. 25 and 36, saxophone p. 23 and 40, trumpet p. 8 and 37, trombone and euphonium p. 16 and 35; Weissenborn Method for Bassoon, 50 Studies section, #13 and #40; Rhoads arrangement of Weissenborn Advanced Studies #3, #11 and #32 for bass and contra clarinet; Pottag Preparatory Melodies to Solo Work #24, #47 and #95 for horn; Grigoriev 50 Etudes (Hawes edition) #22 and #39 for bass trombone, which requires an F attachment and .525 or larger bore; Blazhevich 70 Studies for BBb Tuba Vol. 1 #14 and #30. Percussion: Cirone Portraits in Rhythm #36 for snare, Iowa Percussive Arts Society Etude #6 for timpani (three drums only, no tuning gauges), Iowa PAS Etude #2 for mallets, and Iowa PAS Etude #8 for crash cymbals and tambourine in the recall round only. Under IHSMA's most recently posted All-State Band regulations (the 2025-26 booklet; the 2026-27 booklet is not yet posted), brass and woodwind entries perform in this order: one minute of an unaccompanied solo of choice (memorization not required), the prescribed etudes with first-round excerpt cuts posted online at 5:00 AM and at each site at 8:00 AM the morning of auditions, three major scales (one of the student's choice plus two drawn at random) memorized in full range and two or more octaves where possible in sixteenth notes at quarter = 88 with all tongued ascending and slurred descending or the reverse, then a full-range chromatic scale in sixteenth notes at a minimum of quarter = 88. No sight-reading component is listed.
Notes
The 2026 etude list, percussion etudes and string excerpts are live on the page (files uploaded July 2026), but IHSMA has not yet posted its 2026-27 Rules and Regulations booklet - only the 2025-26 edition is public, so the solo, scale and chromatic requirements above come from that edition and should be re-checked once the new booklet appears. IHSMA runs the concert band and orchestra only; Iowa's all-state jazz bands are a separate posting by Jazz Educators of Iowa.
Retrieved from the organization's page on August 23, 2026.
All-State Music Festival - Iowa High School Music AssociationJEI
Jazz Educators of Iowa (JEI)
This organization has not posted 2026-27 materials yet.
The organization's page still shows last season (2025-26).
The full requirements were not readable from a public official source.
- Ensembles
- Class 1A-2A Jazz Band, Class 3A Jazz Band, Class 4A Jazz Band
- Season
- 2025-26
- Audition window
- The live posting is the completed 2026 cycle: recorded auditions were due by a firm March 1 deadline, with JEI membership required by November 30 for the reduced fee and results released to directors by the end of March. No 2026-27 audition dates are posted yet.
- Instruments
- jazz winds and rhythm section - alto, tenor and bari saxophone, lead and section trumpet and trombone, bass trombone, piano, vibes, guitar, bass, and drum set
What the current page describes
Recorded auditions submitted by the director through OpusEvent; students may not audition on more than one instrument or part, each student is submitted as a separate file, and no speaking of any kind is allowed on the recording. Saxophones, trumpets and trombones play the first page of the selected etude for 1A-2A and 3A, or both pages for 4A, in every case accompanied by the supplied rhythm section mp3. Lead trumpet, lead trombone and bass trombone add a track playing a major or chromatic scale at any speed demonstrating the top (or, for bass trombone, the bottom) of the range. Piano, vibes, guitar and bass play the etude up to the key change at letter E over an instrument-specific minus-one mp3. Drum set players perform pages 1 and 2 of the drum etude unaccompanied plus timekeeping and light fills in up-tempo swing at quarter = 184, bossa nova at quarter = 120 and a Tower of Power style funk groove at quarter = 96 for 30 to 40 seconds each, and a solo of up to two minutes. Improvisation over changes of the student's choice is optional but encouraged for all non-drum parts. No sight-reading.
Notes
The live page, its two instruction PDFs and the site navigation are all labeled 2026 (with 2026 rosters and directors already published and a 2025 site copyright), so this is the completed 2025-26 cycle rather than 2026-27 material. The page gives no date for when the next cycle's audition instructions or etudes will post. Requirements differ by school class, and the selected etudes themselves live on a separate 'All State Jazz Band Etudes' page.
Retrieved from the organization's page on August 23, 2026.
All-State Jazz Audition Instructions - Jazz Educators of IowaPrepare the scales and etudes
Use a structured practice plan for scales, excerpts, and recordings. The official packet still sets the requirements.