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yes, there are colleges where your admission is based solely on the pieces you send to them in your application. That counts as your "audition", however, I highly suggest you get into performance as that will help a lot with knowing what musicians go through (although I'm sure it's possible) the point is, do you write good music? if so, then great, then I guess you know what you're doing and don't need to perform. and your statement about the piano intrigues me. Why don't you like it? Is it that it's over used? or do you not like the timbre? If it's based on its uses, I'd have to say, it's the greatest instrument ever made because of what you can do with it.

If you're an absolute beginner, don't spend too much. Stentor or Chinese-made student instruments will do fine, you're not going to be playing the sort of repertoire or have the kind of technique where amazing tone or a careful set-up matters, rather you just need a reliable and sturdy instrument to learn basic technique on.

"best composers" ... lmao. I'm sorry, but you need to learn something about music before you go pontificating on a subject you have absolutely no knowledge about. This is like a 4th grader telling everyone that the "best" show ever is Hey Arnold. Objectively 100% fact, right? Nope! It's just their misguided, young opinion. As for you, kid If you have this mindset, you will never, ever be a professional composer of any kind. There's a reason why people write piano reductions, and that is to properly visualize voices and ensure a consistent harmonic texture as well as ensuring good counterpoint and vocal lines. Composers of the past used piano reductions not because their mental conception abilities were miniscule compared to yours - no, if you think that, then you are one of the most arrogant, pretentious kids I have ever seen. No, they needed piano reductions because of the vast amount of theory and knowledge it takes to write something coherent and good for orchestra... It requires complete mastery of harmonic and melodic skills. Hearing ideas is not enough, as it is impossible to 1.) hear and visualize something simultaneously in your head, and 2.) hear more than 12 different coherent lines. That may work for a solo instrument, but when you have 16 or more instruments, a piano reduction is necessary. You are a pretentious high schooler. You know nothing about this, so why do you go pontificating about some misguided notion that all degrees are about who you know and not what you know? Most composers were piano players not because they played piano first and then starting composition. Rather - they learned composition and piano simultaneously as children. It doesn't matter if you are a piano player.. you can be a great composer as a hurdy-gurdist. Again, you sound like a dumb 8 year old. The composer's conception of orchestration comes before the process of writing a reduction. The primary orchestrated components are given cues and placed in their respective ranges. Once the process of expanding begins, lines are given to their idiomatic/most desired ensembles and the cued out portions. Also, I love how you just state these things as facts "they sound best closed, normally open harmony in winds is a speciall effect, most often in p or lower to achieve a misty atmosphere"... I'm sorry, but you're a dumbass. No piano isn't a very good gauge of how things will sound.. your MIND is and that is what comes after orchestration. Like I said, it is impossible to write good orchestral music directly from your mind onto the 32 stave score. Have you even studied any orchestral scores? The complexity and independence of parts requires mastery. Sample libraries, sequencers, and notation software can be used to hear what your music will sound like, true, but it is too easy in this era to be stuck in the idea of "playback composition". In other words, write a few notes, hear how it sounds, then keep going. This stymies creativity.. it is much more organic to fiddle around on your primary instrument and hear ideas that you enjoy and take that back to your score for writing. You have a long way to go as a composer. I would advise learning how to be humble and knowing your place first. No school will accept someone who makes dumb statements like you and tries to say that it is a fact. The first step to learning is having an open mind, and that is what you must work on. Fortunately, all teenagers go through the "I know everything already" phase, so you are not alone. Next, I would advise more study of orchestral scores.. if that is what you are really interested in, then you must know how difficult it is to write something of quality of that magnitude. Finally, learn how to play piano. It's not that hard.