All-State posting

New Hampshire All-State band audition requirements

The 2026-27 auditions use Rotation #4.

NHMEA | Live All-State audition

Start with one passage

Check NHMEA's Live All-State audition requirements for your instrument. Audition date: November 21, 2026.

Begin your etude with a short passage. Confirm the official packet with your director.

Plan with Virtunity

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Available on iPhone. The browser version is in early testing.

Last checked October 6, 2026 | Official source: https://nhmea.org/festivals/all-state-music-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.

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.

Back to all states

NHMEA

New Hampshire Music Educators Association (NHMEA)

2026-27 materials are posted.

Ensembles: NHMEA All-State Band, NHMEA All-State Orchestra
Season: 2026-27
Audition window: Registration deadline Thursday, October 15, 2026 at 11:59 p.m.; payment due November 2, 2026; live auditions Saturday, November 21, 2026 at Manchester Memorial High School; All-State Music Festival April 15-17, 2027 in Concord, NH.
Instruments: winds, brass, and percussion (strings and voice audition the same day under separate requirement lists)

What the organization posted

The 2026-27 auditions use Rotation #4. Winds and brass are scored 60 percent prepared solo, 20 percent scales, 20 percent sight reading; percussion is 60 percent specialty, 20 percent scales or rudiments, 20 percent sight-reading. All solos are played unaccompanied and are named per instrument, for example flute plays Hindemith's Sonata for Flute (Schott), oboe the Mozart Concerto in C K314 expositions (Henle Urtext), clarinet the Prelude from Finzi's Five Bagatelles Op. 23, bassoon the Mozart Sonata No. 2 in E minor (Kalmus), piccolo "Stars and Strips - J. P. Sousa" plus the Largo of the Vivaldi Piccolo Concerto in C RV443. Scales are memorized at quarter note = 160, one to three octaves depending on the instrument's range: majors C, F, B-flat, G, D; minors a, d, g, e, b; plus chromatic. Sight reading is generated from Sight Reading Factory in a key drawn from the repertoire or the scale list. Students must have the original printed music in hand at the audition; without it they receive comments but no rating and are not considered for the ensembles.

Notes

NHMEA links its requirements document as 'Auditions Information' from its All-State Music Festival page at https://nhmea.org/festivals/all-state-music-festival/, which also links per-instrument resource folders and the scale reference sheets. NHMEA's separate all-state rules PDF covers fees ($25 per audition), eligibility, and chaperone policy. A Modern Band audition is submitted digitally Monday 11/9/26 through Thursday 11/19/26 at 11:59pm and is a separate track; the classical registration form is labeled 'Classical All-State Auditions'. The NHMEA School Participation Fee is due October 1; NHMEA lists this deadline without a year. Directors register students. Separate Jazz All-State registration closed Monday, September 21, 2026 at 11:59 p.m.; payment was due October 3, 2026; live auditions were October 17, 2026 at Londonderry High School; the festival is February 4-6, 2027 at Pinkerton. NHMEA's classical requirements document still labels the percussion auxiliary material "to be posted June 2026". Source: https://nhmea.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/NHMEA-All-State-Auditions.pdf. Source: https://nhmea.org/festivals/jazz-all-state/.

Retrieved from the organization's page on October 5, 2026.

NHMEA All-State Auditions 2026-2027 - New Audition Requirements, Rotation #4

Practice for NHMEA 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 drone

How 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 solo: 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.