2019 March Madness Orchestral Excerpts Tournament

Let’s face it – orchestral excerpts are a necessary part of our clarinet existence.

Whether you love them or hate them, they’re required of most serious clarinetists. They teach us valuable fundamentals, ensemble playing skills, and loads of patience throughout the years.

Which is why I’ve created the 2019 Jenny Clarinet March Madness – Orchestral Excerpts tournament!

This is a combination March Madness bracket (for all you sports fans) and orchestral excerpts boot camp. I’ve created a bracket with 32 standard orchestral excerpts for clarinet, and this bracket will serve as the boot camp and practice guideline for excerpts in March.

Here’s how it works: I used a random online generator to randomly pair orchestral excerpts for the first round. Each day in March, I will post a poll on my Facebook Page at 12:00am (EST) for you to vote on your favorite excerpt. These votes can be based on anything – which excerpt you prefer, which you think is more important, or completely random. Each poll will be open for 24 hours, and the excerpt with the majority will advance to the next round of the tournament. For the boot camp portion, you’ll practice both excerpts listed in the poll each day. The more popular the excerpt, the more you’ll practice it in March. The overall winner will become the unofficial 2019 clarinet excerpt champion and has bragging rights until next year!

Here’s a March Madness tournament schedule:

• Round 1: March 1-16
• Round 2: March 17-24
• Round 3: March 25-28
• Round 4 (semi-finals): March 29-30
• Round 5 (final round): March 31

Here is the 2019 March Madness Orchestral Excerpts bracket for you to print and complete.

Make sure to fill out the bracket before March Madness begins to see how closely you match the polls. Even though I created this concept, the results are left to chance and the opinion of the clarinet community, so nobody knows who will be crowned the ultimate excerpt of 2019!

Let the games begin!