Audition Requirements
Applications with audition videos are due February 28.
Create an unlisted YouTube video including the following requirements:
1. Introduce yourself: include your name, grade, school and county.
2. Answer both interview questions
- Describe the reasons why you chose the song you are using for the audition. What do you like about it?
- What skills and characteristics do you have that would make you an ideal candidate for PAVAN?
3. Sing any major scale and major arpeggio using solfege. You may sing a capella for this portion only.
4. Perform a song of your choice of any style: classical, musical theatre, jazz, or pop. You MUST use either a live accompanist or a recorded accompanist track. A capella songs will NOT be considered.
Recording tips for vocalists:
- Use landscape view
- Dress appropriately for an audition
- Use a live accompanist or a recorded accompanist track.
About the Voice Division
Additional Information
The PAVAN Voice program is fun, engaging, and challenging, and draws students to come back for multiple summers. Singers develop their singing and musicianship skills through a combination of large and small group work, as well as private voice instruction. The primary focus of the program is choral and all students participate in the choral ensemble. Students are challenged by the difficulty of the music, often singing in styles and languages different from what they experience in their home schools during the academic year. Rehearsals move at a fast pace, yet the collaborative and supportive nature of the students help to encourage younger and less experienced peers. The program culminates in the performance of as many as nine or ten songs on the final program concert and is an exciting end to the program for vocal participants.
Students also receive instruction in music theory. This is provided in small groups under the tutelage of an experienced music theory instructor as well as on a more general, ongoing basis through choral rehearsals and, as time allows, in private voice lessons.
Each student receives 2 private lessons to further develop the foundation of a healthy vocal technique. Students are asked to prepare in advance two solo pieces of contrasting styles on which to work in private lessons. Participants work on performance aspects in several small group studio classes, learning how to work in collaboration with a professional accompanist and how to perform for a small group of their peers. Towards the end of the program, all students may choose to sing one of their solo pieces for the large group and in recital.
Faculty
Melissa Chavez
Acclaimed by the Washington Post for her "voluptuous voice" and "cooly exemplary production", Melissa Jean Chávez regularly performs throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. In addition to performing over thirty operatic roles, Ms. Chávez has sung for Supreme Court justices, the
head of the International Monetary Fund, and performed as a soloist with the United State Army Chorus. She also appears regularly as a recitalist and soloist. Recent orchestral and recital engagements include Strauss’ Four Last Songs, Bachianas Brasileiras No.5, Knoxville: Summer
of 1915, Requiem (Faure, Mozart), and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Ms. Chávez is a semi-finalist for the American Prize for opera, a regional finalist for the NATS Artist Awards, a two-time winner of the Bach-Handel Competition, has placed in numerous NATS competitions, and
received multiple grants for performance and study including the Marion Park Lewis Foundation grant. Ms. Chávez is graduate of Shenandoah Conservatory and the Pennsylvania State University, and an alumna of the Castleton Festival, where she performed under the baton of the late Lorin Maazel. She is on the faculty of Shenandoah University where she teaches applied voice, and on the faculty of the Washington Waldorf School as vocal music instructor, grades 7 - 12.
Steve Jennings
Dr. Jennings earned his Bachelors of Music Education 1980, his Master of Music Education in 1987, and his DMA in Music Education in 2004. He did post-graduate work in Special Education at George Mason University and taught special education in the Winchester/Frederick County area, in both private and public schools for ten years. In 1993, Dr. Jennings became choral director and special education teacher for students with learning disabilities and emotional handicaps at the newly opened Sherando High School, in Frederick County, Virginia where he continues to teach today. Steve was the director of the Shenandoah Valley Chapter of the Sweet Adeline International Inc., in Winchester, and Choral Director at Woodstock Christian Church in Woodstock, Virginia, was adjunct professor of music at Lord Fairfax Community College from 1997 through 2000 and was a member of the chamber choir Musica Viva of Winchester, Virginia from 2001 through 2003. He is currently Director of music at Market Street United Methodist Church in Winchester, Virginia and also the lead singer in the 50’s Jazz Band “Jump Alley.”
Steve has been sought after as a choral adjudicator, coach, and guest conductor throughout the east cost. In 2007 the Sherando High School Choral Department under the direction of Dr. Jennings toured Italy singing in Rome at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. In 1995, 1997, 1999, 2003, 2008 and 2011 Sherando’s Concert was selected to perform at the White House in Washington D.C. during the Christmas Holiday Season. In 1997 his concert choir performed with U.S. Navy Band on national television for the “Lighting of the National Christmas Tree” with President Clinton and the first family. In 1997 and again in 2000 the Sherando High School Concert Choir was selected from a national audition to be the feature choir at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and in 2009 they were asked by the National Park Service to perform at the 150 Celebration of John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry.
Also in 2007 Dr. Jennings was awarded the “Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award” at Yale University. Dr. Jennings is a member of the Virginia Music Educators Association and for the last four years has been one of the registrars for the VMEA conference in November. He is also a member of the Music Educators National Conference and the American Choral Director’s Association. Dr. Jennings is married to his college sweetheart and has two daughters.
Terrian Jennings
Bio coming soon
Amy Bowman, Accompanist
Amy Bowman graduated from Shenandoah University with a degree in Piano Performance. She has accompanied several choirs including District Chorus, the Arts Academy Angel Chorale, Voices of Youth, PAVAN and various local school choirs. Amy currently maintains a private piano studio in her home, as well as at the Arts Academy in Winchester. She currently serves the music director and pianist for the New Stone Gathering service at First Presbyterian Church in Winchester. Amy received her Musikgarten certification in 2010 and currently teaches preschool music at First Presbyterian Weekday School. She and her husband, Todd, and their son, Kyle, live in Winchester, Virginia.
Karen Schlosser, Accompanist
Bio coming soon.