All-State posting
North Carolina 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.
NCBA
North Carolina Bandmasters Association (NCBA)
2026-27 materials are posted.
- Ensembles
- All-State Honors Band
- Season
- 2026-27
- Audition window
- 2026-27 audition dates are not yet posted. The NCBA auditions page still carries the 2025-26 cycle: auditions March 7, 2026 at Atkins High School with a March 14, 2026 snow date, registration February 1-15, 2026 with fees postmarked no later than February 15, 2026, results official March 11, 2026, and clinic May 1-3, 2026 at UNC Greensboro. NCBA holds these auditions in March, so the 2026-27 audition is expected in March 2027, but that is inference and not stated on the page.
- Instruments
- all band instruments - flute, oboe, bassoon, clarinet, low clarinet, all saxophones, trumpet, F horn, trombone, BC and TC baritone, tuba, plus percussion (snare, mallets, timpani) and string bass
What the organization posted
Rotation-based requirements. For 2026-27 the current sets are Middle School Rotation 3, 9/10 Rotation 2, and 11/12 Rotation 2. Solos are drawn from the Audition Solos catalog at auditionsolos.com, at Level 1 for middle school and Level 2 for the 9/10 division, and each solo carries two endings: Ending A is used for All-District auditions and Ending B for All-State auditions. Scales are published as separate per-instrument PDFs and must be played in the order printed on the page. High school candidates in both 9/10 and 11/12 must be prepared to play any scale either tongued or slurred, with the chromatic scale slurred, except trombone, which plays it legato. Middle school scales are tongued with the chromatic slurred, again excepting trombone legato. Percussion auditions cover a snare solo, a snare technical etude played with an accessory instrument (crash cymbals at middle school, bass drum at 9/10), a mallet solo, and a timpani solo. Sight-reading is scored on the audition sheets alongside the solo, with deductions taken in 0.5 or 1.0 point increments and articulation errors costing 0.5.
Notes
NCBA is the band section of the North Carolina Music Educators Association. A district structure exists: All-District Honors Band auditions feed All-State, which is why every solo carries an A ending for district and a B ending for state. The 2026-27 rotation spreadsheets are at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SfH-S4LKyVJUMYyiKJgdHcgAXzPEnrxCYJ99cEQynvc/edit?usp=sharing (9/10) and https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y-yNPNOikl4hWXRSLQ6BYcVnNTQUNapFi3WeIcclzSc/edit?usp=sharing (11/12). Total scale counts per instrument are in the individual scale PDFs and were not tallied. NCMEA separately runs an All-State Senior Orchestra that winds and percussion can audition for, but its requirements page defers to ncorchestra.org and was not pursued in this pass. Directors are pointed to pages 10-17 of the NCBA Policies and Procedures document for full audition detail.
Retrieved from the organization's page on August 23, 2026.
AUDITION REQUIREMENTS | NCBA - NC BandmastersPrepare the scales and etudes
Use a structured practice plan for scales, excerpts, and recordings. The official packet still sets the requirements.