Auditioning the Audition Process

As I received the request for an opening statement after the other panel members’ statements had been posted, I have the advantage of having read their excellent remarks prior to composing my own, so please excuse me if my remarks sometimes sound like a response to their comments.

I think the obvious should be stated first – there is no method that will ensure that the most qualified musician/instrumentalist will be hired to fill an orchestral vacancy. This is due in part to the limitations of the various selection processes (which I will discuss further below), but also because the most important criteria by which candidates are judged are inherently subjective, ensuring that conclusions as to the ideal candidate will vary from musician to musician as well as from orchestra to orchestra.

I believe that, in formulating the most appropriate process for hiring a symphony musician, the core issue is one of balancing inclusion and exclusion with the constraints of time and budget. The current system, used in slightly modified permutations by the majority of orchestras today, acknowledges the impossibility of the most inclusive option – having the entire orchestra hear every applicant for the job play the “equivalent [of] a full recital combined with musical Olympics for [that] instrument”. While the Berlin Philharmonic may use this method to try to determine the best musician from a handful of finalists, they clearly have another method to winnow out the hundreds of musicians who might consider giving up their first-born for the opportunity to be a member of that orchestra.

The “twelve minute shoot-out” (I don’t care for that analogy – my experience has always been that audition committee members are rooting for the candidates to perform well, rather than looking for reasons to shoot them down) has been adopted by the majority of orchestras because it has been recognized as the only workable method that allows an orchestra to include all interested candidates in the process. And by electing or appointing an audition committee of 5-12 orchestra members, orchestras are including what they deem to be a representative sample of the orchestra’s musicians in the process, without imposing an undue burden on their entire membership.

Some orchestras, in recognition of the fact that the majority of candidates who apply for a given audition are probably not highly qualified, have chosen to be less inclusive by limiting the audition to a smaller number of invited candidates. While I don’t quibble with their desire to spend more time hearing the more qualified candidates, the downside of invitation-only auditions is that a stellar candidate with a meager resume might be passed over for the sake of efficiency.

Other orchestras attempt to rectify this problem by allowing candidates with marginal resumes to send audition tapes or CD’s. While this may be a relatively efficient way to give all candidates a shot at a job, there is the danger that preference will be given to candidates with access to a sound engineer with great editing abilities.

There is one serious flaw in the traditional audition process, and that involves the candidate who might have the ability to be a wonderful section player, but who is consistently unable to control his/her nerves in the high pressure conditions of an orchestral audition. There seems to be no good solution for them on the audition administration side, and so they are left to find a solution on their own.

Going back to the Berlin method, I believe it begs the question as to whether the ability to play a fabulous recital is a direct indicator of a musician’s ability to be a great section player in a symphony orchestra. One’s ability to blend and interact in a chamber music setting would seem to be a better predictor of one’s qualification for orchestral work. Particularly when there is no clear winner in a final round, we have found that chamber music can be very revealing as to the relative suitability of the candidates.

In sum, I believe that our traditional, “all candidates welcome” audition, when run considerately and ethically, is the fairest and most effective method of choosing the best possible future colleague from a large pool of unfamiliar candidates.