I just want to preface this by saying that this is what I have personally seen, and they are my thoughts about this. I absolutely welcome differing views and ideas!
As of this post, I have taken around 10 or so auditions now, with differing amounts of success, including winning 1 audition. From what I've seen, there is a lot of problematic thinking among a lot of the musicians that show up to auditions and may not do as well. In my opinion, these thoughts that go through people's heads are incredibly diminishing to their own playing and success. Here are some statements I have heard from many people concerning not advancing in auditions-
"They are probably looking for a certain person in particular" Is this possible? Sure. However, it is INCREDIBLY unlikely that every single person on the committee is thinking about a specific person to fill the spot, even maybe half of the committee members. I have seen this kind of thinking destroy people's auditions, and they always blame it on this instead of self-reflecting on what they could have done better.
"They are trying to force a no-hire" In every audition I have seen, There is absolutely no way. Speaking to people that have served on committees, they hate no-hiring. It just adds more work for the musicians later on, and it ***** sitting in a cold room for 8 hours straight for maybe 2, 3, or 4 days? Imagine doing that, hearing the same exact excerpts being played over and over again. Who wants to do that?
These statements bring me to my hot take, which I am hoping it isn't as hot as I believe it is: Musicians that don't advance in auditions need to self reflect significantly more on what went wrong in their auditions. Sometimes it may just come down to the committee's preference, but I find this more likely in the final rounds of auditions. Musicians quick to jump onto shifting blame for their audition performance need to significantly reevaluate what they are thinking in their heads before auditions or else I find it unlikely that they will ever find the success they are looking for. Go into your auditions with a positive attitude, and trying to actively perform for the panel. Record your audition. Didn't advance? Listen back to your audition. Was your timing, intonation, and sound solid throughout? Were there consistent problems that arose throughout the audition(timing off, intonation off?) Let's be better musicians by actually self reflecting on these things before quickly jumping to blame other factors instead of yourself.
I agree with your hot take, though I don’t think it’s a hot take, I think it’s just the truth.
I also agree with what someone else said about there being an aspect of luck involved. While most of what we do is hard work and perseverance, we cannot control a lot of what happens at auditions (the room, who’s on the panel, how people play, the time of day, etc.).
What frustrates me the most about auditions is the lack of feedback given. I always ask for feedback from my auditions and sometimes I get no response, sometimes I get a no, sometimes I get feedback, but I believe that if orchestras really wanted us to succeed in the future, they would offer some sort of feedback at these auditions to provide insight on what they are looking for. I record my auditions, (which I also find ridiculous that orchestras don’t “allow” you to do that) and I listen back to them but sometimes I play them back with a tuner or metronome and start to wonder where I went wrong in the fundamentals. I get that isn’t always the answer to why you won’t advance, but I would know that unequivocally if I had feedback from that specific orchestra panel. There’s only so much I can assume myself from listening to my own recordings. And since this is such a subjective occupation, you can never really know what is “correct” to someone. Hence why I brought up the luck aspect earlier.
At this point I’m just rambling but I do agree overall with your point of people needing to read into what the real problem is. I just think sometimes you need help and maybe put into the right direction and just getting a “thank you” from the committee isn’t really helping out the orchestral community.