Auditioning the Audition Process

Many agree that while auditions may be extremely ineffective, they are at the same time indispensable. Why is this?

Why do we use auditions and what purpose do they serve?

Before setting out to fill a vacancy in your ensemble, first ask yourself:

* Who chooses the new musician?
* Who is responsible for the success or its
failure of the choice?
* What qualities are being looked for in the successful candidate?

Then decide upon a search and engagement procedure. This may very likely include an audition, but not necessarily. Decide on a process that holds the best promise of success for your ensemble.

Be prepared to change processes, if you find it necessary.

Be pragmatic, not dogmatic.

Be subjective, not objective.

Common practice in London in the past was to rely on trial periods, not on auditions. Today the two are often combined. Pragmatism.

Holding an audition can be a useful time-saving process. It helps bring most or all of the decision-making individuals together at the same time to make a choice from among a usefully large number of potential candidates.

In other places, an audition serves not only as a search and selection process but also as a rite of initiation. Membership of the orchestra is predicated on having gone through the same ordeal as everyone else.

Yet another important role of the audition is to give both the ensemble and candidates the impression that the selection process is objective and fair, that everyone is given a chance. In the American attempt to demonstrate freedom from prejudice, the requirement for anonymous, screened auditions has to a certain extent disempowered orchestras of their right to make a subjective judgment.

Apart from the fact that in the USA virtually every candidate is given the chance to be heard once, nowhere are auditions actually objective or fair. That is because the choice is, and should always be, a subjective one. Chamber ensembles, jazz groups, rock bands and married couples don’t rely on a public competition to dictate their choice of partners.

In summation, I believe the whole subject of auditioning for orchestra positions is, at root, a political one. How it is done will usually be decided by the “owner(s)” of the orchestra. The members of a co-operative London orchestra or those of another kind of self-directed orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, assume the responsibility. A music director appointed by, and employed by the board of a typically American orchestra on the other hand, will be expected to have at least the last word.

The fact is that hiring procedures and authority are powerful internal and external signals about who “owns” the orchestra. The ability to decide if, when and how to pragmatically modify search and hiring procedures in the interests of the ensemble, will be determined more by the power structures within the organization than by artistic factors.