Audition Problems (That i've encountered)

Percussion specific issues:

1. Orchestra does not provide adequate information on the instruments that will be provided for the audition (both on stage and in warmup areas). Exact make/model descriptions should be given, and for mallet instruments the heights from top of bars to the floor should always be listed.

2. Committee members sit too close to candidates. If you sit on stage and then complain that everyone plays too loud, maybe you should've sat out in the hall where you could've heard the sound as the audience hears it. I've even played a timpani audition for a regional orchestra that was held in a small rehearsal room, and every candidate was told they were too loud.

3. Committee creates an absurdly long and obscure repertoire list and then only uses 50-60% of that list during the audition rounds. Classic example: listing 6-7 excerpts deep on bass drum and triangle, listing a difficult contemporary mallet and snare drum solo, and then calling Scheherazade, Porgy, and Sorcerer's Apprentice (all super standard) in the prelims. Not a good way to find the best candidate. If you're gonna put weird stuff on your list, people are gonna prepare it, so ask for it. This will tell you more about your pool of applicants than who can play Porgy the best.

4. Top orchestras should be making all their candidates play the orchestra's cymbals. If the ensemble owns good instruments that the committee members know and like, then tell candidates exactly which cymbals to play for which excerpts. It's so much easier for non-percussionists to judge between two candidates when they play the same equipment. If every single candidate comes in with a different pair of plates, the committee will be constantly adjusting to the sound of each instrument instead of assessing the players' abilities.

General issue:

1. Not interacting enough with the candidate. If you felt something was not the right dynamic, or if the rhythm was unclear, etc, why not ask the candidate to make an adjustment? This only adds another 30-60 seconds to the audition, so it could be worth doing even in prelims, and the committee stands to learn a LOT from this interaction. If the player nails the adjustment, that's a huge point in their favor because this will happen ALL THE TIME on the job. If they fail to adjust, they should be cut because making immediate adjustments is an essential skill for the job. Instead, the norm is that the committee just allows the candidate to play down the list with zero response and then critiques things the candidate could've easily fixed on the spot.

Being told this will be the final playing round, then having another round.

Putting all transposed parts on the stand for a horn audition.

Proctors walking in and out during your audition.

No carpeting.

Proctors announcing the wrong number for you.

No union steward at a union audition.

Recorded prelims should be the norm. Having sat on committees for small regional orchestras, it's usually quickly apparent when a candidate is not performing at the level needed for a successful audition, and I feel it's more respectful to the candidate to filter them out before they spend time and money traveling to the audition. I assume this is even more apparent for major orchestras with hundreds of applicants.

Of course there are issues of fairness regarding recording quality and editing tricks, but the prelims should generally filter out rudimentary issues such as rhythm and intonation where this is less of an issue (issues of cuts and edits could be addressed by having a video recording watched by a proctor). Plus, I'd argue there are already major issues of fairness in regards as to who can afford the expenses of a traditional audition that outweigh the cost of a modest recording setup (which can be obtained for less than a plane ticket and a hotel).

In virtually every other industry with a national search, travel expenses for the interview are paid for by the employer. The fact we have a system that routinely requires the candidate sending a *deposit* to the employer is completely backwards and favors those with the financial means to sustain taking auditions until they find success.

I'm going to second the idea of having a tape option be mandatory for all orchestras, and I'm only basing this on my following experience as a foreigner living in the UK and attempting to get work here. I want to stress that in no way is this an indictment of the PEOPLE who run things in orchestra admins here, but rather a harsh consequence of the unfortunate situations that orchestras are faced with, and a proposal for what can be done to make things better.

- Here in the UK, auditions are run on an extremely tight budget. IF the orchestra owns the hall (unlikely), they will usually run their auditions from there. HOWEVER, in London and other major cities the orchestras are usually "residents" of a hall, which means they don't have complete control over the bookings and must therefore resort to hosting auditions in third-party venues at the expense of the orchestra. I've seen everything from holding auditions in the basement of a church, to the practice studios of a major conservatoire, to renting out a rehearsal space with dead acoustics in the middle of nowhere.

- As such, UK orchestras are incentivized to hear as few candidates as possible during the audition rounds so that they can get it all done in a single morning and reduce costs. I'm not sure if it's correlation or causation, but it fits into why the UK operates on a "trial basis", wherein rather than having a 3-round eliminatory audition they instead offer trials to likely candidates who will rotate in the vacancy for several seasons until a winner is selected. That's a good way to test exactly what is required from a candidate, but it also means that committees get hyper-selective about which CVs are even offered an audition. What will usually happen is that you can only receive an invitation to their auditions if you've a) played in their section before as a sub, b) played in another UK orchestra as a regular sub, or c) have already won a job elsewhere. Case and point: I applied for a non-London major orchestra vacancy, and my CV was rejected stating that they were specifically looking for candidates who had played in x number of top tier professional UK orchestras (which was not specified in the vacancy advert). My CV, containing 2 major internationally based groups, did not make the cut. Everyone who was invited was a recent sub with the orchestra in question.

- This in turn means that there are far too many smaller "regional" UK orchestras who have to shortlist their audition candidates down to about 10-20 for an audition. These would be jobs that are perfectly suited for young early-career musicians (and these are also orchestras where many of the major pros have held their first jobs) but the auditions are only given out to seasoned pros who are already highly active in the major cities. The claim here is that they can't afford to invest their money into running a full-scale audition procedure, so they cut their candidates list down to those whose CVs indicate that they could perform a great audition.

- However, as we all know succeeding in an audition and succeeding as a freelance sub are two different skillsets. My belief here is that while they mean well, they're unintentionally shooting themselves in the foot. How many excellent applicants get turned around at the CV round because they just haven't been given the opportunity yet to sub with a UK orchestra? Along those lines, there have been a lot of vacancies lately due to COVID-related resignations, retirements, etc. Not to mention that post-Brexit, a lot of the better players who came from Europe have jumped ship and gone on to pursue opportunities on the continent to be closer to home. If they're really looking for the best players to join them, it's a bit of a mismatch that they turn so many candidates away considering that there are now an over-abundance of players who are British citizens or residents but who don't have as lengthy of a CV as their european counterparts. If anything, this should be an incentive to give an audition to more under-experienced players.

I think the mandatory inclusion of a tape round with the application could really help even out the playing field between those who are established freelancers and those just starting out. I can only speak personally, but I don't have the money nor the incentive to fly to Asia or America to make a career there in order to get invited to audition in the very country where I reside. I've seen some major orchestras (BBC Philharmonic and Royal Opera House) have started to ask for tapes as part of the application, and I'm hoping that this is a trend we can see continue, for the better.

But those are just my two cents...

• Different committees for multiple days of prelims. I've heard recently about an audition with multiple days of prelims having multiple different committee members. I am aware that this is 'normal', but it SHOULD be changed. It is clearly difficult to be available for multiple days at a time, while being paid little to nothing, but it's NOT FAIR to change committees during a single round. The committee on day 1 might advance 15, while the committee on day 4 advances nobody. Some thoughts on ways to change this: • Orchestra's are pickier on who they invite to the prelims to reduce the number of candidates, but allow a tape option for strong players without much experience to have a chance. • Orchestra makes sure the audition committee is committed to being at all days until the next round. • Orchestra pays the audition committee more, to not take other obligations during the round. I am totally ok with the committee members changing between rounds, but it should remain the same during rounds to make the process more fair.

-Screen&committee

Sometimes the committee is far in the Hall with the screen in front of them. Other times the committee is in the Hall and the screen is on stage in front of the candidate. Or the committee is on stage 10 feet away from the candidate. This changes A LOT of things about dynamics, projection, etc. It is hard to tell how loud to play in a boomy/dry Hall that you've never played in.

In a recent audition, I was the only finalist and it ended up in a no-hire. From the comments received, the reasons for not hiring was because I was not playing loud enough in the fff dynamics. The committe was sitting on stage 10 feet away from me and the Hall was boomy.

Also know someone that once got cut for the opposite reason of playing too loud in the ff dynamics when the committee was sitting 10 feet away.

Committees need to be more helpful when they hear a great candidate overplaying/underplaying a Hall. Most candidates are able to adjust dynamics on the spot, if the committee would take the time to ask for it.

I think comments should be much more available than they are. It was stressed to me in school and further study that you should always ask for comments. I have asked for comments for every audition I have ever taken, and received a reply from less than half of the organizations. I have especially received no comments for any round I have played past a preliminary round (Semis, Finals). I’m not sure if this is a “luck of the draw” experience that only I have had, but I feel as though all great players tell people to ask for comments, but then when people do ask for comments as they are told, the same great players who stress this do not provide any feedback. It’s always said that some committee members will write cold, unhelpful comments (Yes, No, Good, Bad, Check mark, etc.) but I think this should be more stressed by the organization to the committee, and the committee should make it a point to be helpful as possible, within reason to the people who are currently climbing the ladder, as they all once had to.

I know this is more of a one off issue, but back in the Phoenix 2nd horn audition back in october they called the wrong name for who advanced and then later went back and corrected it. It devastated person who didn’t actually advance.

Something I wish people recognized is the difference between how things are and how things ought to be. Yes, if you want to do well in auditions, it's a good idea to prepare for unexpected events (long waits, room too hot or too cold, bad acoustics, etc.). You probably should only commit to auditions that you are able to prepare fully for. You shouldn't have made those three mistakes.

But is the way things are good? Some people aren't willing to ask this question because they are too invested in this world as they know it (maybe they have won a job, maybe they have already spent lots of time preparing for auditions in a particular way). Why do we need to test a players resiliency in bad acoustics and with unstable waiting periods? Does this in any way measure the skills of playing in an orchestra? All of this is pinned on the musician - you should just prepare better. You should be unflappable, etc. But what should orchestras do? Why don't we hold them to as high of a standard?

I agree with OP that these are issues for organizations, not the musicians who are trying to join them. Some orchestras run their auditions like it's fear factor when they are really just an alright per-service group. I've seen orchestras advance one person out of a competitive prelim while a dozen people stroll in (auto-advanced) for the semi finals. Not every orchestra is like this, but I think it's pretty common to experience the attitude that 'we don't respect you or your time. Our standards outrank the quaility (and pay) of the group itself, and we are really just interested in hiring the players we already know anyway.' It's because they have all the power and have no incentive to wield it fairly. Musicians will turn on each other and say that their audition results are their own responsibility and suggesting changing the system is just lazy complaining.

I think part of the reason people get so defensive is because it sounds like this criticism diminishes their own accomplishments if they won a job. Jobs are so shiny and on such an exalted pedestal that, once you have one, you feel beholden to the process that led you to it. That doesn't mean we can't imagine a more humane system that thinks critically about what we are testing when we ask someone to audition.

“Players who would have advanced in a hall, are now being cut.”

this is not real

Of course I agree that committees ought to do everything in there power to permit candidates to play their best, but two counterpoints:

1) It's no secret that you should prepare in such a way that some of these things are non issues. Someone will be able to play well in a terrible space or under unexpected conditions. It is possible and desirable to account for these things in your preparation.

2) Maybe there are a handful of individuals out there who sit on committees and vote to cut anyone who makes a few mistakes, but almost everyone I talk to who has either won auditions or sat on a committee says that this just isn't a thing. We need to differentiate between a) errors that happen because we're human and b) errors that sound like they're happening because we don't have control over our instrument. I know the difference between these in my own playing, and a committee does as well.