Orchestra Auditions

I had a dream about this last night.  Like Scrooge it must have been an uncooked morsel of meat. Forty years (give or take) ago I had my first fully professional orchestra conducting audition.  It started on a Sunday morning in Chapel Hill, NC.  I was a band director at the University of Kentucky at the time and the basketball game (I was in charge of the pep band that weekend) ended at something like 10p and by the time I got all the post game stuff done it was midnight and got home, changed and drove all night to get there by 8 the next morning. (VW bugs really aren't high speed or mine wasn't).

Auditions are something that everyone needs to do once in their life so as to convince yourself that you really don't want to go into this line of work.  They are musical job interviews and the fewest mistakes win - or at least get you to advance.  They used to be set up with the express purpose of terror and humiliation.  So I found my way to the waiting area - highly resembling a cattle holding pen - with 20 others, all equally freaked out and doing their best to remain oblivious to the tension.

If you remember the latest version of War of the Worlds when a "machine" had snatched up Tom Cruise and his daughter and was pulling victims out of the holding cage one at a time for liquidation - well that's what it is like.  Round one was in front of two pianos pretending to be the orchestra.  Getting one pianist to follow a conductor is climbing Everest. Getting two to play together, particularly when they are being paid to be naughty on purpose is agony.  The rules were announced before hand.  You get 10 minutes give or take. If you are selected to stay, there was something of a speed dating set of interviews with the regular conductor, the administration and some of the orchestra members.  If you make it through that and only 3 of you will, then you get 1/2 and hour with the orchestra.

I got through the piano part and was tired and cranky enough to upbraid one of the pianists about something so that was a positive I guess. I went to the interview part and since I was connected with the basketball rival to North Carolina we talked basketball at most of the stops.  Never figured that out.

So I made it to the orchestra - there were two other guys from New York and one I knew slightly from Julliard. He was a flute player and composer and very sure of himself. The other guy conducted on Broadway in pit orchestras and then there was me, a band director. Oh brother.

100 musicians, professional musicians, make a huge sound and that is the thing that strikes you most about orchestras. The sheer volume.  Your ears and the mind that is somewhat attached shuts down - think about being in a nightclub with a very loud band - it is often so loud that you can't hear it or anything.  Playing in such organizations gives you an appreciation for it. Standing in front of it, at the focal point of the sound is something extraordinary.  I was lucky enough to have been conducting bands of 100-250 players for the last 4 months so big sound in a confined area was something I could deal with so I didn't shut down like the flute player did.  The pit orchestra guy was just plain good and experienced and got the job. There was no soothing of feelings and the flute guy was just told "thanks - you can leave now" after his half hour. (we were all in the room together).  Mr. House, you can stay until after the next candidate.  Mr. House you can leave now.

Anyway that is an orchestra conducting audition from 40 or so years ago right about now in fact.  Why I dreamt about it is a question for the day.  I have a friend, Stewart Taylor, one of the world's greatest trombone players (seriously) and now the orchestra manager of the Israel Philharmonic after a career there. He went to 40 trombone auditions before he got his first job. 40.  After that, nothing scares you.