Test material for the Department of Vocal Studies

BA Stud­ies

Major: VOCAL STUDIES

Spe­cialty: Solo Singing (intra­mural and extra­mural studies)

- Singing

• pre­sen­ta­tion of two of three pre­pared vocal pieces with piano accom­pa­ni­ment (songs or arias). One piece must be in Polish

- Act­ing and move­ment pre­dis­po­si­tion test

• recita­tion of a frag­ment of a lit­er­ary text (prose or verse, learned by heart, ren­der­ing of set act­ing stud­ies, also con­vert­ing the pre­pared text (for another sit­u­a­tion con­text), dic­tion and breath­ing prob­lems, exer­cises test­ing the artic­u­la­tion appa­ra­tus for speak­ing, as well as dic­tion accu­racy of sep­a­rate sounds, dance/movement stud­ies, and per­for­mance of one piece from the pro­gramme sub­mit­ted to the singing exam­i­na­tion (the exam­i­na­tion com­mit­tee chooses the piece and assesses the emotional/movement aspects of the interpretation)
• required cloth­ing that allows to per­form dance, exer­cises, move­ment and gym­nas­tic tasks

- Aural Train­ing — oral

• audi­tory pre­dis­po­si­tion and skills test includ­ing score read­ing, real­i­sa­tion of rhyth­mic exercises,
• iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of con­so­nances includ­ing third inver­sions and sev­enth dom­i­nants, iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of major, minor, aug­mented and dimin­ished chords, musi­cal mem­ory pre­dis­po­si­tion test

MA Stud­ies

From the Aca­d­e­mic Year 2010/2011 there is an option to widen one’s MA Stud­ies with the Mul­ti­me­dia Pro­gram for stu­dents of the sec­ond degree stud­ies major­ing in Vocal Stud­ies (spe­cial­ity: Solo Singing) at the FCUM. Stu­dents will be qual­i­fied to par­tic­i­pate in the Mul­ti­me­dia Pro­gram widen­ing the cho­sen Major of Stud­ies on the basis of their pre­lim­i­nary dec­la­ra­tions, dis­trib­uted among the can­di­dates for the sec­ond degree stud­ies and a qual­i­fy­ing test.
Detailed infor­ma­tion about the pos­si­bil­ity to use the above men­tioned widen­ing options in the aca­d­e­mic year of 2012/2013 will be given later on (in April 2012).

Major: VOCAL STUDIES (intra­mural and extra­mural studies)

Spe­cialty: Solo Singing

- Singing
The can­di­date must present a 30 minute pro­gramme, which should include:

• two arias or opera frag­ments, one of them must be a baroque or a clas­si­cal aria with a recitative
• one oratorio/cantata aria
• songs from his­tor­i­cal peri­ods that are var­ied stylistically

The pro­gramme may include an operetta or musi­cal aria or other pieces suit­able for the candidate’s voice type.
All the pieces should be per­formed in the orig­i­nal lan­guage. The can­di­date chooses one piece from the pre­sented pro­gramme, the rest is cho­sen by the exam­i­na­tion committee.

- Act­ing and danc­ing skills
The can­di­date is required to present:

• a frag­ment of an opera recita­tive in stage inter­pre­ta­tion (about 3 minutes)
• a frag­ment of a mono­logue from a free drama play, or a free frag­ment of poetry or prose (about 5 minutes)
• per­form­ing a given dancing/movement etude cov­er­ing national or his­tor­i­cal dance styles; it is per­mit­ted that the can­di­date presents a pre­pared dance etude (national or his­tor­i­cal dance styles) with his or her own back­ing music on a CD

The can­di­date is required to present:
Per­for­mance of ele­ments of dance cov­er­ing national and his­tor­i­cal styles.
National styles:

• Basic steps for polon­aise, indi­vid­u­ally and in pairs with a bow
• Steps for kujaviak in pairs (chosen)
• Steps for cra­coviak, in pairs, with dif­fer­ent kinds of hold­ing hands
• Basic steps for tchardash, indi­vid­u­ally and in pairs with dif­fer­ent hand movements
• Hand posi­tions and move­ments in the fla­menco style
• Sim­ple ele­ments of Zap­ateado (accents on one, two, Tyree, four), types of clap

His­tor­i­cal styles:

• Steps for pavane (Eng­lish and French), indi­vid­u­ally and in pairs, together with a bow and hand movements
• Steps for pas de bourre together with hand man­age­ment char­ac­ter­is­tic for the Baroque style
• Steps for min­uet (to choose) with a bow
• Steps for waltz, indi­vid­u­ally and in pairs
• Steps for polka, indi­vid­u­ally and in pairs

- Aural Train­ing solfeg­gio – a’vista read­ing
A three-part exam con­nected with com­plet­ing three tasks:

• a’vista read­ing of a given frag­ment of music
• a’vista read­ing with piano accom­pa­ni­ment of one of the given voices from the score (the piano-examiner plays a dif­fer­ent voice)
• read­ing a rhyth­mi­cal passage

Exam­i­na­tion mate­ri­als from the aural train­ing are pre­pared by the exam­i­na­tion committee.

- Inter­view