Hi all, I wanted to create a thread of any & all audition problems that I have personally expierenced, in a way to discuss & hopefully change the way auditions are run in the future. Please feel free to add to this list, and to discuss what I listed just below. 1. Audition announced only one month in advance. (Not enough time to prepare, will either not take the audition, or will show up ill-prepared.) 2. Audition list too long, or too difficult, or both. (Instead of deep-diving, on cleanliness, and musical decisions, forced to spread time thin on everything, leaving out a lot of details.) 3. Audition list unclear/excerpts not provided. (Orchestra does not send the same excerpts that the committee will have. Sometimes markings & dynamics DON'T line up, and candidates can be cut for this. Sometimes the candidates need to search for music that's NOT on public domain.) 4. Overly picky committee: ("This candidate was close to advancing, but they made 3 mistakes". Commitee members are sometimes 'over-judging', with little to no remorse over some inevitable minor mistakes during a high pressure situation.) 5. Poorly run audition: (You're told you had 50 minutes to warm-up, SURPRISE, committee needs to hear you NOW." - "We need you to wait an extra 30 minutes because the candidate before you was asked to come back & play again".) 6. Poor audition room choices: ("We couldn't book the hall, so lets do our 'bass trombone' audition in a small practice room". Players who might've advanced in a hall, may not advance in a smaller room.)
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Percussion specific issues:
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.