California · CMEA · 2026-2027
California all-state audition prep for 2026-2027.
California's CMEA All-State draws from the state's regional sections, each hosting their own honor orchestra auditions. The path to All-State runs through the section level: earn a Section Honor chair, and you become eligible for All-State nomination. Scale and excerpt requirements are section-specific and published annually.
The California CMEA season is running now. Tell the teacher what is not ready. Real fix in 30 seconds. Free to try, no card.
Verified against codaorchestras.org on August 17, 2026.codaorchestras.org
The deadline time changed this year, and your director still has to submit.
High school recordings are due at 9:00pm on Thursday, October 15, 2026, and junior high recordings at 9:00pm on Monday, November 2, 2026. CODA flags the change in deadline time explicitly. Uploading your file is only half of it: the audition record is created and submitted by your director, and a file sitting in your own account is not an entry.
Confirm two things with your director well before the date. That they hold a current CODA membership, and that they have submitted your audition record rather than just seen your upload.
CODA's own FAQ page carries three different past years. Do not take a date from it.
The FAQ answer about deadlines mixes October 15 2025, November 3 2025 and November 3 2024 in one place, while the homepage gives the current cycle: high school recordings due October 15 2026 at 9:00pm and junior high due November 2 2026 at 9:00pm. A student who reads the FAQ first builds a schedule around a deadline that expired a year ago.
- October 15, 2025, on the FAQ page
- November 3, 2025, on the FAQ page
- November 3, 2024, on the FAQ page
Use the CODA homepage for dates, not the FAQ. And note the time as well as the day: CODA states the deadline time changed from prior years, so 9:00pm is not what a returning student remembers.
The 2026-2027 CODA season, date by date
| Date | What happens | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday, October 15, 2026, 9:00pm | High school All-State recordings due | The time matters. CODA flags explicitly that the deadline time changed from prior years, so a returning student's memory of the cutoff is not reliable. |
| Monday, November 2, 2026, 9:00pm | Junior High All-State recordings due | Same 9:00pm cutoff, two and a half weeks after the high school one. |
| Friday to Sunday, December 4 to 6, 2026 | CODA Honor Orchestras | Occidental College. |
| Wednesday to Sunday, January 13 to 17, 2027 | CASMEC | SAFE Credit Union Convention Center, Sacramento. |
These dates are from CODA's homepage, read on August 17, 2026. Do not take dates from CODA's own FAQ page, which carries three different past years inside a single answer. See the warning above.
CODA scale requirements
We could not confirm California's scale requirements, so we are not publishing any.
CODA publishes the current cycle's audition requirements on codaorchestras.org. We could not confirm the scale keys, octave counts, tempos, or whether anything has to be memorized from a source we read directly, and a guess here would cost you real practice time, so there is no table below. Get the requirement list from your director or from CODA. Two things we can confirm about the material: 2026-2027 is Cycle B for high school and Cycle BD for junior high, and all printed bowings must be played as written, with CODA stating that failure to do so could result in disqualification.
What CODA publishes about scoring
CODA does not publish a scoring rubric and does not publish an advancement threshold. There is no point breakdown for us to show you and we are not going to invent one. The audition is a submitted recording, so there is no sight-reading in it either.
You upload the recording. Your director submits it.
First, the name. California's string auditions are run by CODA, the California Orchestra Directors Association, under the CASMEC umbrella. cmea.org is Connecticut, not California. California's music educators association is calmusiced.com. If you are reading a requirement list from cmea.org, you are reading the wrong state.
The audition is audio only. No video. It is submitted through the CODA Digital Audition System, and CODA deliberately conceals the student's identity from the judges, comparing the process to a professional behind-screen audition.
You upload to your own CODA account, but you are not finished when the file is up. Your director has to create the audition record and formally submit it, and that director must be a CODA member. Confirm the submission actually went in before the 9:00pm cutoff rather than assuming your upload was the last step.
Bass players may also request consideration for a CBDA All-State Band seat.
What it costs
Audition feeNot confirmedNot published
We did not confirm a CODA audition fee from a source we read directly, so we are not publishing a number. Ask your director what your school is charged and what it passes on.
The 2026-2027 California CMEA all-state audition at a glance
- Audition tiers
- Section Honor Orchestra → CMEA All-State
- 2026-2027 audition window
- September through November
- Scales required
- Scale and technical requirements set by each CMEA section for their honor orchestra audition. All-State requirements are published annually.
- Excerpt format
- Orchestral excerpts and scales as specified in the CMEA section audition materials. Requirements vary by section and instrument.
- Audition format
- California's path to All-State runs through CMEA Section Honor Orchestras. Students audition for their section ensemble, and section honor players are nominated for All-State consideration.
This season's official CMEA list
The scale requirements, season dates, and scoring breakdown on this page are read off California Orchestra Directors Association's own documents and dated above. What we do not reproduce is the rotating 2026-2027 etude and excerpt list itself: those files belong to CODA and change every season. Get your instrument and grade band file from your director or from the official source, and check the season label on it before you practice it.
Orchestra Kingdom has no affiliation with California Orchestra Directors Association. Official CODA source
A 2026-2027 practice plan skeleton
- Summer (July to August): confirm the posted CMEA requirements, then build fundamentals. Scales from memory at tempo, slow-practice the hardest passages, and record a weekly baseline take to see where you actually stand.
- Six to eight weeks out: run full excerpts at tempo. Let the Audition Simulator score every take on tone, intonation, rhythm, tempo, and musicality, and pour your daily time into the lowest dimension.
- Final two weeks: stop adding material. Mock the audition under one-take pressure, no retries, so audition day is a rep you have already done.
How Orchestra Kingdom prepares you for CMEA
- Same rubric the panel uses. The Audition Simulator scores tone, intonation, rhythm, tempo, and musicality on the same scale CMEA adjudicators do, calibrated against real audition feedback.
- Specific, not generic. Not "work on intonation" but which interval, which passage, how the drift shows up. A real teacher's specificity, between lessons.
- Audition Prep Mode (Kingdom Pass). Set your audition date and target. The Oracle plan rebalances your daily drill schedule against your timeline. Within 21 days: zero new material, review only.
Common California searches we answer
- CMEA all-state strings
- California all-state orchestra
- California honor orchestra audition
California CMEA all-state questions
Answered from California Orchestra Directors Association documents read on August 17, 2026. Where CODA does not publish something, the answer says so instead of guessing.
Is the California All-State audition screened?
Yes, and California is unusual for saying so outright. CODA runs the audition through its Digital Audition System with the student's identity deliberately concealed from the judges, and compares the process to a professional behind-screen audition. Most states do not state this either way, so do not carry the assumption to another state.
Is the California audition a video or an audio recording?
Audio only. No video is submitted. It goes through the CODA Digital Audition System, not to YouTube and not by email, which is a real difference from states like Illinois where the audition is a video.
Who actually submits my California audition?
You upload the recording to your own CODA account, and then your director creates the audition record and formally submits it. Your director must be a CODA member. A file uploaded but never submitted is not an entry, so confirm with them before the 9:00pm deadline.
Do I have to play the printed bowings?
Yes. CODA states that all printed bowings must be played as written, and that failure to do so could result in disqualification. This is not a place to substitute a bowing you or your teacher prefer, however musical the substitute is.
What grades can audition in California?
High school All-State is grades 9 to 12, with recordings due October 15, 2026. Junior High All-State is grades 7 to 8, with its own separate deadline of November 2, 2026. The two tracks have different rotation cycles as well.
What scales do I need for the California audition?
We are not going to tell you, because we could not confirm it. The scale keys, octaves, tempos and any memorization requirement could not be verified from a source we read directly, and publishing a guess would send you into the wrong practice for a month. Get the current list from your director or from CODA.
What score do I need to make California All-State?
CODA does not publish a scoring rubric or an advancement threshold, so nobody can honestly hand you a number. Prepare the required material cleanly, play the printed bowings, and submit early enough that a file problem is not what ends your season.
Which rotation cycle is 2026-2027?
Cycle B for high school and Cycle BD for junior high. Check the cycle letter on any requirement sheet a friend passes you, because a sheet from the wrong cycle looks identical at a glance and you will not notice until the audition.
I play bass. Is there anything extra for me in California?
Yes. Bass players may also request consideration for a CBDA All-State Band seat alongside the CODA orchestra audition. Ask your director how that request is made and whether it changes anything about what you record.
Keep going
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