Edmonton Principal Perc (National)

If the outgoing principal was in the audition room in any capacity, that's just asking for trouble whether they're a voting committee member or not.

Often times recorded auditions becomes a game of who can afford the best quality recording and have access to quality instruments. This isnt a fix all solution. Especially for percussion and timpani access to instruments/spaces/recording equipment can become more expensive than taking the audition itself. I think a good solution would be to offer both. But to suggest “recorded prelims should be the norm” as if it was simple is laughable.

Recording often can come down to who can afford good equipment. Otherwise you'll have to spend atleast $400 on an engineer because are you willing to take a risk with a bad sounding recording? People say they're not paying attention to recording quality, but humans always have some kind of bias. And there is a point where better quality audio will allow the subtleties of the music to better come through compared to a lower quality recording. AFM/CFM orchestras typically have a Union steward present at auditions to ensure due process. Pretty hard to oversee a buch of recordings floating around. Another concern would be the candidates who don't own a good professional level set of vibes, xylophone, bass drum etc. They'd have to either rent high end gear if available or fight their way into a local university to access those instruments. More aggravation and time lost that could be better spent elsewhere either working or practising. Again, are you willing to take the risk with poorer gear? I think not. At the end of the day recorded rounds just waste more of the candidates time and at least for me, are more stressful than live rounds.