3 Attendance and Audition Rules ATTENDANCE     Region IX Orchestra Division feels that All-State participation is one of the highest educational processes open to the high school music student.  Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that every student selected to All-State Orchestra will have participated in all TMEA Region, Area and State activities, rehearsals, and concerts to the best of their abilities.  Conflicts with other organizations, personal discomforts, personal schedule conflicts, etc. will not constitute a reasonable excuse for missing any activities in this Region. Students who withdraw from the All-Region Orchestra without authorization will not be allowed to audition for a Region IX Orchestra event for a period of one year following the offense. Exception:  Personal illness, hospitalization and doctor’s notes will be dealt with individually at the discretion of the Region Chair.     Directors are required to attend all auditions/clinics/concerts.  Should it be necessary to be absent (illness, family death, etc.) a proxy (certified school personnel) must be appointed to accompany the students. PLEASE NOTE that a parent may not serve as proxy for Region IX Orchestra events, unless that parent is an employee of the student’s school district. The exception to this rule is in the case of a “home-schooled” student.   In the event that a proxy is needed a “Proxy Form” must be submitted to the Region Chair.  When a director is absent from an event without arrangements for a proxy, that director’s TMEA membership may be jeopardized and written notification sent to building administrators. PLEASE NOTE that only one Director per school is needed to meet this requirement. The Region Chair appreciates knowing who is responsible for each student. In the event that a prearranged proxy is absent, the actual director who entered the student to the contest will be held responsible.  NO STUDENTS SHOULD BE UNACCOMPANIED!!  A GRIEVANCE CAN BE FILED WITH TMEA IF A DIRECTOR FAILS TO ATTEND REGION OR STATE EVENTS THAT COULD LEAD TO BEING UNEMPLOYABLE BY TMEA. AUDITION RULES     All directors must accompany their students to the auditions. Students must not be unattended! Should it become necessary for a director to be absent (illness, family death, etc.), the Region Orchestra Chair must be notified and a proxy must be appointed to accompany the student prior to the event.  The Chair must approve the proxy. You must also notify the chairman of the judging committee, if you were expected to judge. PLEASE do not leave the judging panels short-handed!         Students will be disqualified if they leave the audition site without permission before the audition process is completed.     The Region Orchestra Chair has the authority to appoint a person to serve as a Judging Panel Chair.  This person’s duty will be to secure all judging panels for the various audition rooms in use on the day of the try-outs.  All directors serving as judges should bring a calculator for tabulating their own scores and checking each other’s tabulations.     All students within each section will audition on the same music.  The cuts for the Junior High auditions are selected by the judging panel prior to the auditions.  The cuts are announced to the students in the audition room after roll check.  All-State cuts are posted 30 minutes prior to the audition.  These are announced by the monitor and rehearsed prior to the beginning of the audition.     To insure impartiality, each judging panel will consist of a 5-member panel.  The computer determines audition order randomly.  The computer does tabulations.  Each judge must break individual ties before submitting results to the computer chair. Ties between judges are broken by the official TMEA computer program, which uses the TMEA judge’s preference procedure. In multi-panel violin auditions, any tie that occurs at a break-point may result in additional students gaining membership in the organization.     Results shall be posted with the following statement: “Results are not final until 30 minutes after the posting of the last section of the current audition”.  If errors are discovered after the results are announced, the Division Chair at the site makes the corrections immediately. It is the responsibility of directors to inform their students regarding final placement in the Region Orchestras. Please be certain your information is accurate.