Can anyone tell me how the NYSSMA Levels, for voice specifically, are determined?

Question

What should students know and be able to do within each level? Who decides the lists? What musical elements and characteristics should a piece have to fall within each level?

Answer 1

There are 6 levels, 1-4 are graded on a 28 point scale, and 5-6 are graded on a 100 point scale. Each level has 7 categories: Tone, intonation, technique, accuracy, interpretation, and sight reading.

If you're doing levels 1 or 2, you must know 3 scales. Levels 3 and 4 require knowledge of 7 scales, and for 5 and six, you must know 15 scales. Through levels 1-4 you pick the scales you wish to perform, but in the higher scales it's assumed you know all of the major scales.

As far as musical elements and characteristics, I don't think any set criteria applies to the pieces chosen for each level. I know the music is actually created just for NYSSMA, but I think higher levels simply have you perform more pieces of music, each with a different scale, to test your capability to perform each of those scales, among the other factors listed above.