Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority
Search the VCAA website

Music: Solo Performance

Victorian Certificate of Education page banner

Back to Top

Enrolling

All students will be enrolled for Music: Solo performance recital examination through the student’s home school as part of the enrolment for VCE Music: Solo performance Units 3-4. The school will enrol the student through the VCE Administrative Software System (VASS).

When enrolling, the student should inform the VCE co-ordinator at the student’s home school of the instrument list from which the program is selected for the Solo performance recital examination. The name of the instrument list should be that used in the Prescribed list of notated solo works, for example Voice - Classical or Voice - Contemporary Popular, not Voice.

Back to Top

Choosing a program

Teachers and students should select a performance program from one instrument list. A program cannot be made up of works from two or more different instrument lists. The selected program should allow the student to fully demonstrate his/her performance in relation to all the criteria for the award of grades for the Music: Solo performance recital examination within the time allocated.

Note that each work selected does not have to fully demonstrate each criterion; the program as a whole needs to demonstrate the student’s performance in relation to all the criteria. Within any particular requirements in the list, the program should include contrasting works that represent a wide range of styles and characters and demonstrate a wide range of techniques. Sample programs are provided for each list to assist teachers and students to select appropriate programs.

The program must consist of at least four works (five for Contemporary piano, and percussion; six for Contemporary double bass, electric bass, voice and drumkit). At least two works are to be examples of twentieth century and/or twenty-first century music; at least one to be unaccompanied; and at least two to be with piano accompaniment as appropriate.

Specific information regarding the number of works to be performed, categories from which works should be selected and accompaniment of works is provided at the commencement of each instrument list. This information should be considered with information provided in the VCE Music: Solo Performance Units 3-4 section of the Study Design.

Teachers and students should note the following:

  • The work as cited in the prescribed list must be performed in its entirety.

  • Some works consist of several movements or sections. Where more than one movement or section is selected, these will count as one work in terms of the minimum number of works required. In a few cases this also applies to two different works by two different composers.

  • For some works the words ‘any’, ‘any of’ or ‘any movement(s)/section(s)’ appear. Where this occurs it means one or more movements/sections can be selected for performance.

  • Where the words ‘any one’ appear after the title, it means that only one movement/section should be chosen.

  • For some works, a choice is provided; for example, ‘nos 1 and 2 OR nos 3 and 4’. This means that one of the options should be selected.

  • When selecting music for study, works presented for assessment in Music Performance Units 1 or 2 may not be presented for assessment in Music: Solo performance Units 3 and 4. Students may study and practise a particular work in any unit, but may only present it once for assessment across Units 1 to 4.

  • Works that have been assessed in Units 1 – 4 may be performed in the end-of-year recital examination providing they are on the Prescribed list of notated solo works. For example, students may commence studying and practising an extended sonata movement in Unit 2, but not present it for assessment until the assessment of Unit 3 Outcome 1. This work may also be performed at the Solo performance recital examination.

  • All works presented for performance at the end-of-year Solo performance recital examination must be drawn from the appropriate instrument list in the Prescribed list of notated solo works or have been approved as an ‘Alternative Work’.