{"id":3147,"date":"2009-09-21T06:00:52","date_gmt":"2009-09-21T13:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=3147"},"modified":"2009-09-20T19:28:52","modified_gmt":"2009-09-21T02:28:52","slug":"how-not-to-run-an-audition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/21\/how-not-to-run-an-audition\/","title":{"rendered":"how not to run an audition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"800px-Darts_in_a_dartboard\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There was an orchestral audition that took place this weekend at the local opera company.\u00a0 It was an audition for nine violin positions.\u00a0 There were twelve applicants.\u00a0 Of these twelve, two were advanced out of the preliminary round to the finals.\u00a0 It isn’t clear if anyone was offered a position at the time this was being written.\u00a0 This is inexcusable.<\/p>\n

I know many of those violinists who took this audition, and they are all superb musicians, and a good number of them are the best violinists in the city, freelance or otherwise.\u00a0 How is it that so few managed to meet the obviously high bar that the committee set for these auditions?\u00a0 I find it hard to believe that out of such a high quality field that only two were found worthy – and with NINE open positions to fill!<\/p>\n

It also galls me because elitism-by-committee at any level of ensemble is deeply abhorrent to me.\u00a0 Auditions that result in no-hires, with some exceptions, occur because a committee is run by (or bullied by) one or more musicians who think that only they know what quality is, and are of the opinion that, if you aren’t inhumanly tough, you’re lowering your standards,\u00a0 and that’s just not acceptable within the hallowed halls of insert-orchestra-name-here.\u00a0 Please!\u00a0 Give me a break!<\/p>\n

Also likely in mid-level and lower ensembles is the situation in which the committee is cowed by the level of auditioning talent.\u00a0 They are intimidated, and don’t pass people out of fear.\u00a0 It’s hard to be top dog if the new dog in the pack can eat your lunch for breakfast.\u00a0 They’ll find idiotic excuses like “they didn’t play double stops in the overture” or other such nonsense.\u00a0 And maybe that’s all well and good when you’re in the final round, but I’ve heard many an audition that had nearly as many candidates in the finals as this opera orchestra committee heard in their entire preliminary round.\u00a0 Is it that hard to listen?\u00a0 Is their time that important?\u00a0 Are they that superior?<\/p>\n

So now you’ve got pretty much every freelance violinist who isn’t in the orchestra already hopping mad about what a travesty this audition was, and how will that play out when it comes time to fill those 7, 8, or 9 open spots during the season?\u00a0 How many takers will they have from the top ranks of the available freelance violinists?\u00a0 How many will take the next (and inevitable) round of auditions?\u00a0 I’m not sure what the answers to those questions are, but I do know that there are some musicians in Portland who have lost my respect, and they aren’t the violinists who took this audition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was an orchestral audition that took place this weekend at the local opera company.\u00a0 It was an audition for nine violin positions.\u00a0 There were twelve applicants.\u00a0 Of these twelve, two were advanced out of the preliminary round to the finals.\u00a0 It isn’t clear if anyone was offered a position at the time this was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[238,283,2,21],"tags":[54,3662,3659],"class_list":["post-3147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-auditions","category-opera-music","category-the-orchestra-world","category-violin","tag-opera","tag-portland","tag-violin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-OL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7865,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/09\/19\/audition-discoveries\/","url_meta":{"origin":3147,"position":0},"title":"audition discoveries","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I served on another audition committee this week. This time around it was for our assistant principal second violin opening. I think this is around the tenth audition committee I've been on - actually, I'll take an inventory right now: I've sat on committees for four viola auditions, associate concertmaster,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "auditions"","block_context":{"text":"auditions","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/auditions\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4728,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/06\/02\/berlin-philharmonic-auditions\/","url_meta":{"origin":3147,"position":1},"title":"berlin philharmonic auditions","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I just stumbled on to an online virtual panel discussion at Polyphonic.org from several years ago centered on the subject of orchestral auditions.\u00a0 One of the panelists, Fergus McWilliam is a member of the horn section of the Berlin Philharmonic - I thought his thoughts on the nature of how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "auditions"","block_context":{"text":"auditions","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/auditions\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/4582625127_d45b92a536_b-400x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6658,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/06\/27\/auditions-really-suck\/","url_meta":{"origin":3147,"position":2},"title":"auditions really suck","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I just heard from a friend who took an audition for a smaller orchestra, and her story really appalled me. What bothered me the most was the fact that the person who should have told the candidates of the decision chose only to tell the winner of the audition, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "auditions"","block_context":{"text":"auditions","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/auditions\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":283,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/04\/22\/auditioning-for-middle-farts\/","url_meta":{"origin":3147,"position":3},"title":"auditioning for middle-farts","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Many of you may not have been aware that over the past two weeks I've been preparing for an audition for the Seattle Symphony this past weekend (April 19-21). The orchestra had two vacancies, for Assistant principal (2nd chair) and section. As a relatively young person (38) but also a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7244,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/01\/15\/conspiracy-theories\/","url_meta":{"origin":3147,"position":4},"title":"conspiracy theories","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Once again I made the mistake of reading the auditions forum at the myauditions.com website. Once again, there are conspiracy theories being proposed about the results of another major audition - in this case the recent Boston Symphony percussion auditions (one of the winners is a current member of our\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "auditions"","block_context":{"text":"auditions","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/auditions\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5314,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2010\/09\/16\/gala-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":3147,"position":5},"title":"gala night!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Tonight marks the official opening of the Oregon Symphony season - it's the gala concert with violin soloist Joshua Bell.\u00a0 The concert is selling well, but there seem to be tickets at all price levels available, so grab one or two quickly if you're so inclined. The Lalo Symphonie Espagnole\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "soloists & recitals"","block_context":{"text":"soloists & recitals","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/soloists-recitals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/Joshua-Bell-photo-002-e1265300723916.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}