Curious to know people's thoughts on the concept of a chamber music round at the end of an audition ... like in finals or super-finals ... obviously this isn't something you can do with the screen up, so anonymity is lost if this is brought into play. But many of my low brass friends feel strongly that this is the only way they'd be able to choose a colleague, solo excerpt rounds just aren't enough to make that decision. Has anyone come up with a way to do a section playing / chamber music round while retaining anonymity??
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In my orchestra there have been more than one hire of a musician into a position who may know someone on the committee or already sub, so to reduce bias only the members of the section will step from behind the screen to play with the candidate. Thus leaving the majority of the committee still blind to the identities of the finalists. Although not perfect, I feel it's a compromise and works in some situations.
If the people playing with the candidate were also the panel and were all wearing blindfolds facing the candidate, who is facing them, maybe they would be able to discern the direction from which the sound is coming from? I don’t know, maybe it’s too silly. Or if the chamber music round is for the candidate’s instrument plus instruments from different groups, like clarinet plus viola and piano, flute plus violin, viola, cello, then the screen can still be up