In the shabby basement practice room of a summer-struck college campus, they sat and watched and listened. Oh, how they listened.
Three judges -- all professional musicians -- tolerated a string of seven-hour days in hard plastic chairs. They endured cracked high notes and sloppy intonation, questionable phrasing and seemingly endless renditions of the Italian arietta "Caro Mio Ben" by 16- and 17-year-old singers who didn't know Italian (and seemed not to care).
By the end of today, about 130 high school juniors from throughout Maryland will have belted out show tunes and arias in front of judges William Ray, Kay Krekow and Thomas Hetrick at the Community College of Baltimore County's Catonsville campus.
If the judges like what they hear, really like it -- and they hear some memorable voices, they say -- they will award 13 of the students with $3,000 renewable scholarships to any Maryland college as part of the Maryland Higher Education Commission's Distinguished Scholar talent awards.
"I've done auditions before but this is different," said Allison Strudler, 17, who attends Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville. "The whole idea that this is for college is scary."
If the judges don't like what they hear, they will find something positive on which to comment. To a girl who lifelessly sang her foreign language song, but sang something from Godspell with gusto, they might write, "Good energy." To a boy who botched his Italian lyrics but wore a natty suit, a judge might comment, "Appropriately dressed."
"This is going to be the nicest audition experience they will ever have," said Krekow, a private voice teacher who lives in Montgomery County. A soprano who has sung the roles of Violetta in La Traviata and Tosca in Tosca, Krekow said she never will forget the person who told her at an audition that she would never make it as a professional singer.
But auditioning for a college scholarship isn't the same as auditioning for a professional job, the judges insisted. "We're not looking for the best singer."
Instead, they're looking for potential. "We want people who have talent and have done something with it," said Hetrick, an opera coach who is the music director of the Crittenden Opera Studio at American University in Washington.
"They're only 16 and 17 years old," said Ray, a retired professor of voice at the Peabody Conservatory and Howard University who founded a theater company in Germany. "They're not done yet."
Students must sing two contrasting songs: a foreign language piece, such as from a cantata or an opera, and a song in English, such as a ballad or show tune.
This audition might be the gentlest they'll face, but to the students it's still daunting.
The door to the austere practice room opened Wednesday afternoon and 17-year-old soprano Deborah White entered. Wearing a denim skirt, cork sandals and ice-blue toenail polish, the Anne Arundel High School junior took her place in the crook of the battered black Kawai piano, took a deep breath and glanced at the judges. Their faces were blank.
"Oh my God, just let this be over," White thought.
Then she heard the opening bars of her first song, "Caro Mio Ben," closed her eyes and forgot about the judges. Her facial expressions conveyed that she not only knew her two songs and their lyrics, but that she knew what they meant. By the time she hit the last note of Gershwin's "The Man I Love," which she held for 10 seconds, White had nailed her audition.
After a brief interview in which the judges inquired about how much private voice training she had taken (none) and how long she had played piano (six years), White scooped up her music from the judge's table and left.
Sometimes students sing the words but don't embody the parts. They're just going through the motions, Ray said. Not White. "She sold it," he said.
Started in the 1980s, the Distinguished Scholar Program recognizes superior academic achievement, National Merit and National Achievement Finalists, and superior talent in the arts, including visual arts, vocal and instrumental music, dance and drama. In the beginning, the program awarded $1 million in scholarships annually; now the sum is $4.2 million.
Although 3,300 students applied for the scholarships this year, 350 will win them. In the talent category, for which students must be nominated by their schools, some 800 students audition for 85 scholarships. To renew their scholarships, students must maintain a 3.0 grade point average.
Winners will be notified by mail at the end of July.
The state gives more than $80 million in college scholarships annually, according to Walinda P. West, spokeswoman for the Maryland Higher Education Commission. "Many of our scholarships are need-based," West said. "This is the only program that recognizes high achievers and talent."
The students auditioning aren't necessarily musical prodigies, but they love performing. Some aspire to careers in music education, others plan to pursue nonmusical careers and sing on the side.
Ray, who has been judging the auditions for 15 years, can't name a scholarship winner in the vocal category who went on to fame and fortune on stage, but that doesn't mean the winners won't be successful in other ways. "We are here to invest in these kids," he said.
In the hallway outside the practice room after her audition, White breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, I'm so glad that it's over," she said. She paused. "I think I could have done a lot better."
She wants to study music at Towson University and wrote on her application that she hopes to become a "well-known jazz vocalist" someday. And although White has been performing since age 5 and sometimes earns $60 for singing a couple of songs at a wedding, this was a big deal.
After all, making $12,000 toward college for 6 minutes of her time is a good gig if she can get it. "This is for college," said White, who lives in Crofton. "This is my life."
Even if she doesn't get the scholarship, she's determined to go to Towson and pursue a professional singing career. "I'm still going to try," she said. "I'll probably try to find another scholarship."