It's been a hot minute, but I'm back! It's been (thankfully) a busy season for me, which didn't leave a lot of room for waxing poetic on the blog, but fear not, because this post marks the Second Annual Audition Stats Roundup, the event you've all surely been waiting for, second in historical importance only to the birth of Tilly the cat:
This is the part where I share the results of my yearly applications for Young Artist Programs, shows, or any other paid singing opportunity. I'm here to share the good, bad, and ugly as transparently as I can.
So, without further ado - let's get this party started!
Audition Season 2023/2024
Number of Programs Applied To:
I tallied them up, and this year I applied to - wait for it...
58 freaking programs!!!
That number certainly snuck up on me. Of these programs, 11 were Canadian, 29 were American, and 18 were European.
Callbacks
You would hope that with so many applications, I'd get at least a few callbacks, right? Well, this year I got...
11 callbacks, baby!
I realize that this looks like a low number, and...it is (about a 19% callback rate). However, last year, I received 3 callbacks for 36 applications (about an 8% callback rate), meaning I've shown an 11% improvement rate since last year. Sure, my chances would (ideally) be higher since I cast a way wider net this year, so maybe the math isn't a super accurate reflection of my improvement in general (I went to music school, not math school, OK?), buuuuut I'm still taking it as a win!
Of these callbacks, 2 were Canadian programs, 8 were American programs, and 1 was a European program.
Acceptances
Now, here's where stuff gets ✨interesting✨:
Of the callbacks I did, I received 1 offer. Yee haw.
However, I ended up being quite busy in the first half of 2024 because I had this wonderful influx of gigs being offered to me through people I've worked with previously. Whether it's friends who have started their own programs, other singers who need someone to step in, or connections from my school days, I feel very thankful to have gotten the majority of my gigs this year by virtue of those who think that my squeaking is stage-worthy.
Here's a breakdown of what I've been up to since January 2024, and what's on the docket so far for the rest of this year:
Sang a role in my first Czech opera at the beginning of 2024
Sang in the chorus for a school production at my alma mater (volunteer gig)
Had a pre-pandemic contract reinstated and was part of a local company's first live show since pre-2019
Will be singing a lead role with a company in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area for the uninitiated) - can't give details just yet 😉.
Ye Olde Pie Chart
You didn't think I'd forget about the highlight of this blog entry, would I? I'd never let you down like that. Here's this year's pie chart, this time with exciting new slices!
The colour scheme makes me feel a bit queasy, but I was wasting too much time trying to get it to my liking - I'm a singer, not a graphic designer. In any case, the mint green slice that for some reason has glitched every time and refuses to be labelled (SUCH a visionary) is the "Offer of Employment" slice, coming in at a whopping 1.8%.
Postmortem - 2023/2024
I didn't include this section in my first round of audition stats, probably because I had nothing to compare it to. However, wisdom comes with experience, I guess (or maybe it's just a whole new flavour of insanity), so I think it's worth including ye olde debrief with ye olde stats roundup.
Some things to consider after this year's round of auditions:
I submitted the exact same recordings as last year, and got...more auditions???
I'm not sure whether to be encouraged or disappointed by this. At the beginning of this season, I found myself unable to make new recordings due to time constraints, scheduling conflicts, life circumstances - a whole bunch of things. So, I submitted the same recordings from the previous year, for many of the same programs who'd rejected me for callbacks based on these very recordings, and somehow found myself with more auditions than ever despite having submitted the exact same material...
I'm not going to even pretend for a second that I know what's going on here. Perhaps I wasn't the right fit for last season's program, and they simply did not need another light bright soprano at that time. Perhaps I'd been just short of a callback last year, but the audition pool was smaller/more diverse this year, so they had space for me this time around. Perhaps they didn't actually listen to my recordings last year and somehow actually ended up listening to them this year. Or perhaps YAP callback decisions are made by pulling names out of a hat. Honestly, I couldn't tell you. It's perplexing, amusing, and a little discouraging, but here I was thinking that I'd get fewer callbacks than ever at the decrepit age of 30 and with recycled recordings, only to discover that the opposite was true. There is no moral to this story; I don't know what to tell ya 🤷🏻♀️.
👻 Ghosted 👻
I wish I was talking about The Turn of the Screw but...alas :') . I used to think that ghosting was a maladaptive coping mechanism coined and executed to perfection by us millennials. Unfortunately, I was gravely mistaken: I'd been contacted about potential audition callbacks by a few companies/programs, and while trying to set up an audition date I was ghosted by at least two of them :( .
This seems particularly bizarre to me since they were clearly interested enough to ask me to work with them to help find an audition date that was workable and then...forgot about me? Don't get me wrong: I can only imagine how busy it is to coordinate auditions for a million singers and that details are certain to fall through the cracks at times, but I figure we're both missing out if you're offering me an audition and then completely forget about it/can't be bothered to follow up.
Please y'all - check your emails because there might be a note from lil' old me following up on your audition request. And check your spam folders - rookie mistake!!!
And that's a wrap on a very busy audition season! I applied for a billion things this time around, and compared to last year, I got way more rejections, but I also got way more callbacks. Perhaps that's to be expected since I widened my audition pool this year, but I'm taking it as a win.
Reflecting back on this past year, I'm not sure if I have any concrete takeaways about what was successful and what wasn't, especially since I somehow got more auditions by submitting the same material. I guess it's just another reminder that the inner workings of this industry remain as mysterious as ever, and that callbacks and audition offers are based on all sorts of decisions, many of which may have nothing to do with how well you sing.
That being said, after publicly admitting to recycling my recordings, it's time for some new rep. I'll be interested to see how many callbacks (if any) I get this year, and with some potential changes in repertoire (more lyric coloratura stuff as opposed to light lyric coloratura/soubrette rep), I think it's about time that the world learned that I am, in fact an adult and (wait for it) not a tiny little baby. Trust me, this is way harder for me to accept than it is for you.
I hope my attempt at candour and honesty came across somewhat, and can help boost those of us (and there are many) who may have felt a tad defeated and disheartened after yet another difficult and exhausting audition season.
Don't let those PFOs get you down, keep singing, and if you need to recycle those recordings, I won't tell anyone 😉.
I find your squeaking to be not only stage worthy, but AWE INSPIRING