I’d like to first extend my congratulations to Jaclyn on winning the audition. I heard she also won the 3rd horn spot with San Francisco and I’m so relieved she is dodging that bullet. (To be clear- I only say that because of how terrible the SFS management is to that poor orchestra.) No matter what round you start in, playing a fabulous audition (and likely working your behind off) is what will get you named the winner. Brava Jaclyn- you’re on a roll and we’re so pumped to see you get what you deserve!
My question, especially since someone from Minnesota Symphony was thoughtful enough to chime in, is how did Jaclyn get a one year in the first place? Was she a finalist from a previous audition? If so, did she start in semis or prelims for that audition? @Flutester
I think it is a huge foot in the door to start in finals. I certainly wouldn’t turn down an invite to finals! It seems naive to think that it’s not possible (or likely) that at least some committee members are potentially less incentivized to not advance people to finals when they’ve already voted on who’s starting in the final round. They might be less charitable or understanding towards more of the prelim & semi final candidates if they’ve put some people straight in to finals. This could also be done unconsciously as committee member’s patience begins to wear thin. Exhaustion is real!
Additionally, I think if a committee auto-advances anyone directly to finals, and then subsequently no one else advances to that final out of semis, the committee MUST screen the rest of the audition. It seems messy to me if the same committee that decides who’ll start in finals also can decide if they’ll use a screen when that committee also didn’t advance any other candidates to that final! Keeping it fully blind would also spare the winner and the committee any suspicion!
Just want to chime in how disappointing it must feel to be a super-semi or super-super semi finalist. Because of these extra semi rounds, those candidates don’t get to put this final on their resume or applications for OTHER auditions, they’re not put on the Minnesota sublist, and they’re not able to request being auto-advanced at the next Minnesota audition. I feel that these candidates truly advanced out of semis and that the committee moved the goalposts for these candidates. To me I would consider them finalists and my heart goes out to them. It’s likely the committee doesn’t think of these pointe. It’s also possible that the committee hasn’t taken a lot of auditions and/or hasn’t been on the circuit recently to know how TOTALLY unusual it is to have both a super-semi and/or a super-super semi. And, @2224 makes a really valid point about fatigue (especially for horn!)
I think it’s possible to ask these questions while not implying or assuming that anyone is undermining Jaclyn, or her successful result, in anyway. That is my intention here. It is possible to be sincerely proud and happy for her and to also ask basic questions in an effort to have an aboveboard audition process.
Industry wide, hiring and tenure processes have historically not always been fair. Candid discussion is one way to help our industry improve.
Again, cheers to Jaclyn and we wish you all the success in the world!
2 people were auto advanced to finals. As this orchestra has done in the past, multiple “semi-final” rounds were held until everyone that started in prelims was eliminated. Then the finals were held with just the two hand-picked candidates.
If the committee already knows who is advanced to the final round and the criteria for auto-advancing someone THAT far is that narrow, you have to admit there is a higher chance for the committee to not be objective--especially if they like the people who were auto-advanced.Had the auto-advance been limited to the semifinal round where there is still a screen, the committee would be much more careful in combing through the field. You could argue that they still had a screened final round, but if nobody from the open audition made it what’s the point? If the farthest anyone can be auto-advanced is the semifinal, the committee would make lists that would give better compromise in measuring someone's ability versus giving the musicians the best chance to sound their best, because they still would like to have their favorites be in the finals. BTW, as far as I know, the CBA of the Minnesota Orchestra has it so that each committee set their own criteria for who gets auto-advanced to the semifinal and final rounds. USUALLY it's limited to people who are already in the orchestra or have played one-years before, but then you get into the question of a candidate who received one-year contracts without any auditions. I am happy for Jaclyn! She is a strong player, has a stunning resume, and works well with people, but you can't blindingly say the committee did everything they could have or their hands were tied in not making the audition as fair as possible. Multiple semifinal rounds ARE UNSUAL and that's a fact. Combined that with the committee clearly knowing who were auto-advanced to the final round where nobody from the open audition made it, you can't blame people for being sour.
"...the committee just felt that none of the semi-finalists merited consideration..."
"...A person's playing is scrutinized every which way before being offered the position..."
Obviously, the committee thought that a few of these semi-finalists merited further consideration after the first semi-final. They then continued to scrutinize their playing every which way in more and more "semi-final" rounds, without subjecting auto-advanced finalists to that same degree of scrutiny.
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"If you just think that all auto-advancing should be done away with, then prelims will go on all day, or for multiple days..."
There are a lot of worthwhile arguments to be made in favor of auto-advancement, but this is the weakest BS I've ever heard. The highest numbers of auto-advanced candidates I've ever heard of at any audition is somewhere below 20. That's two or three more prelim groups, 2-3 hours, to hear all those candidates. I've attended plenty of auditions where prelims stretched across two days that seemed totally fair and unobjectionable to me. In this case of only having 1 or 2 candidates auto-advanced, hearing them in an earlier round obviously adds even less time to the schedule.
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The matter of the CBA is that it allows the committee to CHOOSE how to run their audition on a case by case basis, and this committee chose to run a horribly unfair audition. The issue in this particular case is not just that candidates were auto-advanced to an un-screened final, but that the committee then went out of their way to hold extra rounds to cut EVERY SINGLE other candidate. If they held a single semi-final and the committee agreed on one hearing that none of those candidates were up to *****, that would look a little sus, but it would at least be believable that if some of those candidates had played better, they could have been given a chance. The fact that some of these candidates evidently played well enough to merit further consideration not once, but TWICE, and then were cut anyway in a THIRD semi-final...? Ridiculous.
Absolutely no one is happier with this nonsense than if the orchestra had just announced Jaclyn's appointment out of the blue without an audition. At least that way, candidates wouldn't have wasted their time, effort, and money coming out to an audition where the committee was not interested in giving them a fair hearing.
There are tons of horn auditions happening right now. Any candidate who was good enough to advance through the prelim and two out of three(!!!) semi-finals with an orchestra as good as Minnesota is obviously going to be in serious contention for other jobs. One of those people could have instead prepared for (and won!) any number of other auditions this month (Sarasota, Oregon, Atlanta, Louisville, Rochester...) if they hadn't spent their limited resources on this sham.
There are a number of misconceptions regarding this audition that I’d like to clear up. For the record, I am a musician in the Minnesota Orchestra. I was not on this audition committee.
It is not true that the 2 candidates auto-advanced to the finals started in an unscreened round. The CBA says that the first round of the finals must be screened if it includes current members, and that is what happened at this audition as Jaclyn, who is on a one-year contract, is considered a current member for the purposes of the CBA. Furthermore, individual audition committees cannot simply hold an audition in any manner they like. Their rules and procedures are subject to orchestra committee and management approval. Both the orchestra committee and management have put these rules and procedures under a great deal more scrutiny for fairness and consistency in recent years, something our CBA requires.
It is more than a bit odd, and runs into the realm of conspiracy-level thinking, to suggest that the committee held multiple semi-final rounds for the sole purpose of wearing people out to eliminate all other candidates. Why would they want to waste their own time doing this? Is it truly reasonable to suggest that the entire committee, or even the majority of them, were in lockstep agreement on that plan and worked it out secretly ahead of time? Could all seven audition committee members, who disagree on things all the time by the way, really hold the same belief that Jaclyn or the other auto-advanced candidate could not possibly be bested by someone else and conspire to all vote no against everyone else, no matter what? Even if they heard someone truly amazing?
I can attest that the honest desire of every member of the orchestra is to find an amazing player for the position who demonstrates during the audition that they have the qualities needed to succeed. If that player is heard in a prelim or semi-final, they will generally get the votes to advance. If that didn’t happen at this audition, that doesn’t mean there weren’t really good players there. It just means that those qualities were not demonstrated in that single moment in time, which is all an audition is for any of us, ultimately - one moment in time.
As the to the merits of auto-advancing as a concept, we could talk all day about it. There are good arguments to be made for and against it. In this case and other Minnesota Orchestra auditions, it is something that has been done here out of professional courtesy out of recognition that these candidates have capably and admirably contributed to our artistic product (often times for many years) and out of the recognition that they already have many of the qualities needed to succeed. However, they still need to knock it out of the park in the finals to get offered the job. It has happened many times that candidates starting in the finals stumble in that moment and don’t get the job, so don’t assume that its pre-ordained that a “favored” candidate will always win.
I’ve been told Jaclyn Rainey won this position
I’d like to first extend my congratulations to Jaclyn on winning the audition. I heard she also won the 3rd horn spot with San Francisco and I’m so relieved she is dodging that bullet. (To be clear- I only say that because of how terrible the SFS management is to that poor orchestra.) No matter what round you start in, playing a fabulous audition (and likely working your behind off) is what will get you named the winner. Brava Jaclyn- you’re on a roll and we’re so pumped to see you get what you deserve!
My question, especially since someone from Minnesota Symphony was thoughtful enough to chime in, is how did Jaclyn get a one year in the first place? Was she a finalist from a previous audition? If so, did she start in semis or prelims for that audition? @Flutester
I think it is a huge foot in the door to start in finals. I certainly wouldn’t turn down an invite to finals! It seems naive to think that it’s not possible (or likely) that at least some committee members are potentially less incentivized to not advance people to finals when they’ve already voted on who’s starting in the final round. They might be less charitable or understanding towards more of the prelim & semi final candidates if they’ve put some people straight in to finals. This could also be done unconsciously as committee member’s patience begins to wear thin. Exhaustion is real!
Additionally, I think if a committee auto-advances anyone directly to finals, and then subsequently no one else advances to that final out of semis, the committee MUST screen the rest of the audition. It seems messy to me if the same committee that decides who’ll start in finals also can decide if they’ll use a screen when that committee also didn’t advance any other candidates to that final! Keeping it fully blind would also spare the winner and the committee any suspicion!
Just want to chime in how disappointing it must feel to be a super-semi or super-super semi finalist. Because of these extra semi rounds, those candidates don’t get to put this final on their resume or applications for OTHER auditions, they’re not put on the Minnesota sublist, and they’re not able to request being auto-advanced at the next Minnesota audition. I feel that these candidates truly advanced out of semis and that the committee moved the goalposts for these candidates. To me I would consider them finalists and my heart goes out to them. It’s likely the committee doesn’t think of these pointe. It’s also possible that the committee hasn’t taken a lot of auditions and/or hasn’t been on the circuit recently to know how TOTALLY unusual it is to have both a super-semi and/or a super-super semi. And, @2224 makes a really valid point about fatigue (especially for horn!)
I think it’s possible to ask these questions while not implying or assuming that anyone is undermining Jaclyn, or her successful result, in anyway. That is my intention here. It is possible to be sincerely proud and happy for her and to also ask basic questions in an effort to have an aboveboard audition process.
Industry wide, hiring and tenure processes have historically not always been fair. Candid discussion is one way to help our industry improve.
Again, cheers to Jaclyn and we wish you all the success in the world!
2 people were auto advanced to finals. As this orchestra has done in the past, multiple “semi-final” rounds were held until everyone that started in prelims was eliminated. Then the finals were held with just the two hand-picked candidates.