NATS Student Auditions will begin using a new set of regulations this fall following changes adopted by the NATS Board of Directors during their annual meeting in June.

The NATS Auditions Committee worked for more than a year to draft updated national policies and regulations to help streamline the overall experience for singers that will ultimately provide for the highest quality adjudication standards. The regulations will be in place for all audition events beginning in fall 2015.

“We are excited about these changes and believe that they will serve as a model for other organizations seeking to improve their efforts at performance adjudication,” NATS Executive Director Allen Henderson said. “NATS has the opportunity to lead the change we want to see in the way other competitions and organizations judge our singers.  Eventually, we want to influence others in a positive way, encouraging them to adopt some of the processes we have developed so that even more unification happens.”  

The most significant changes will be noticed in the singer categories, which have been amended for regional and national rounds to include 14 categories. Standardized adjudication scoring sheets and accompanying rubrics have also been added, which will allow for adjudicators to compare a singer’s performance against general standards for the category they are adjudicating.

A digital NATS Auditions Kit has is available online for officers and members. It provides information needed for chapters, districts and regions to hold successful auditions. The kit includes a copy of the NATS Student Auditions regulations, PDF versions of the adjudication forms, categories and rubrics, and logos.  

For more information about these changes, or to read a complete version of the new regulations, visit http://www.nats.org/nsaresources.html.