Recital Program Preparation - Guidelines for Students
Congratulations on reaching this significant stage in your music degree. As you are
busily practicing your music, you are also responsible for creating your recital program
document. Please carefully follow the guidelines given here to help make this an efficient
and worry-free process. Department of Music recital programs follow standards of appearance,
layout, and typography in order to communicate information about your music selections
effectively. This process both serves to support the department’s mission of maintaining
excellence in performance protocol and it plays an important role in connecting with
your audience: family, friends, student colleagues, and members of the community.
Concise instructions follow. More detailed explanations appear at the bottom of this
webpage. PLEASE READ THIS INFORMATION CAREFULLY AND THOROUGHLY.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS:
Download the relevant template (MS Word .docx file) from this website.
Replace the content in the template with your own specific recital information. Be
careful not to leave any imaginary content from the template behind.
Follow the formatting in the file exactly! Do not change font sizes or other typographical
characteristics. Adjust the spacing as needed to fit your content in a visually appealing
way.
Compare your draft against the original template to make sure that you have not accidentally
deleted any of the required elements.
Save your file using this naming style: LastName-DD-Month-YY (Smith-08-May-18).
At least four weeks prior to your recital, submit first camera-ready draft of program with accompanying documents (translations,
program notes) to applied teacher. Applied teacher proofs program and requests edits
from student. Student submits it to applied teacher again for final approval.
At least three weeks prior to your recital, applied teacher forwards the final proofed and approved program documents in electronic
form (MS Word, NOT a PDF) to Julie Lanahan, Leneida Crawford and Gretchen Carlson. Applied teacher copies student on email.
At least two weeks prior to your recital, final edits made and programs will be printed ten days to two weeks prior to recital.
Failure to submit the revised draft two weeks prior to your recital may result in
cancellation of your recital at the discretion of the Department Chairperson. The two week submission deadline is for all materials; program, translations, program notes etc... The sole responsibility for
the timeline articulated above rests with the student. Seek input in a timely fashion
from your teacher and request further information with any problems from the Department
Office.
Practice professionalism and meet these deadlines punctually. The department reserves
the right to cancel your recital if you are unable to adhere to these instructions.
Program Templates are available for download below. Right click the proper template
and select "Save target as..." or "Save link as..." depending on your browser.
The recital program templates, although filled with “imaginary” content, attempt to
provide models for the most common performance types given by music students. Select
the one that most closely matches the recital you are presenting. However, it may
be helpful to examine multiple templates for additional examples of how to correctly
list the titles and movements of musical works.
The template files were created in MS Word. It is recommended that you prepare and
edit your program in that software too.
Work titles appear in bold.
Include opus numbers, years of composition, or composer catalog numbers (BWV, K.,
D., etc.) as appropriate.
Individual movements of a larger work (or individual songs from a cycle) appear in
regular type and are indented ½ inch.
If you are performing only a single movement from a larger work (or an aria from an
opera), list the movement/aria title in bold. Indent the following line ½ inch, begin with lowercase “from” and provide the work
title in Italics.
Composer names and dates align with the right margins. Use the Tab key once or twice
to move the cursor there (as this Tab stop is built into the template). Do not just
press the spacebar a bunch of times!
A composer’s dates appear in parenthesis, using years of birth and death only. If the composer is still living, use lowercase (b. ####).
If a composer’s music occurs more than once in your program, subsequent appearances
only need the composer’s last name without any dates.
If your recital employs a single accompanist or a consistent combo throughout the
entire program, these additional performer names should be listed as part of the program
heading. See the voice or jazz templates, for examples.
If your recital involves a variety of collaborators, list these additional performers
after the pieces in which they participate. Center their names on the page. See the
solo instrumental or composition templates, for examples.
For performances given in the Harold J. Kaplan Concert Hall, if you are notusing the Susan Fine Langsam Memorial Steinway, please delete its mention from your
program.
List your degree in the following way, to complete the “…partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of…” statement:
* Bachelor of Music with a major in [instrument] performance * Bachelor of Music with a major in vocal performance * Bachelor of Music with a major in jazz commercial [instrument/vocal] performance * Bachelor of Music with a major in composition * Bachelor of Science in Music with a major in [instrumental/vocal] performance * Bachelor of Science in Music Education * Master of Music with a major in [instrumental/vocal] performance
Review your work carefully. Re-check for errors in names, titles, dates, etc. Make
sure that you have replaced all the template's imaginary content with your specific
information!
Remember that your applied teacher must first review and approve your recital program as well as any supplemental materials, such as translations
or program notes.