Auditioning the Audition Process

Jan 25 2007
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Neal Gittleman
Neal Gittleman

The 2011-2012 season is Neal Gittleman's 17th year as Music Director of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. Gittleman has led the orchestra to new levels of artistic achievement and increasing acclaim throughout the country. American Record Guide magazine has praised the orchestra's performance as has the Cincinnati Enquirer, which called the DPO "a precise, glowing machine." When the Orchestra christened the Mead Theatre in the Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center in March of 2003, the Enquirer reported that "Gittleman has brought the DPO to a new level." During his tenure, the orchestra has received nine ASCAP awards from the American Symphony Orchestra League for adventurous programming.

Prior to his arrival in Dayton, Gittleman served as Music Director of the Marion (IN) Philharmonic, Associate Conductor of the Syracuse Symphony, and Assistant Conductor of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, a post he held under the Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductors Program. He also served ten seasons as Associate Conductor and Resident Conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

Neal Gittleman has appeared as guest conductor with many of the country's leading orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago, San Francisco, Minnesota, Phoenix, Indianapolis, San Antonio, Omaha, San Jose and Jacksonville symphony orchestras and the Buffalo Philharmonic. He has also conducted orchestras in Germany, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Japan, Canada and Mexico.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Neal graduated from Yale University in 1975. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Annette Dieudonné in Paris, with Hugh Ross at the Manhattan School of Music and with Charles Bruck at both the Pierre Monteux School and the Hartt School of Music, where he was a Karl Böhm Fellow. It was at the Hartt School that he earned his Arts Diploma in Orchestral Conducting. He won the Second Prize at the 1984 Ernest Ansermet International Conducting Competition in Geneva and Third Prize in the 1986 Leopold Stokowski Conducting Competition in New York.

At home in the pit as well as on stage, Neal has led productions for Dayton Opera, the Human Race Theatre Company, Syracuse Opera Company, Hartt Opera Theater, and for Milwaukee's renowned Skylight Opera Theatre. He has also conducted for the Milwaukee Ballet, Hartford Ballet, Chicago City Ballet, Ballet Arizona, and Theater Ballet of Canada.

Neal is nationally known for his Classical Connections programs, which provide a "behind the scenes” look at the great works of the orchestral repertoire. These innovative programs, which began in Milwaukee 22 years ago, have become a vital part of the Dayton Philharmonic's concert season.

His discography includes a recording of the Dayton Philharmonic in performances of Tomas Svoboda's two piano concertos with Norman Krieger and the composer as featured soloists. Gittleman has also recorded a CD of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F with Krieger and the Czech National Symphony. Both recordings are available on the Artisie 4 label. The DPO's second CD, A Celebration of Flight was released in 2003 as part of the celebration of the centennial of the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight. The orchestra’s most recent CD, of live archival performances from four eras, released in 2008 in conjunction with the DPO’s 75th anniversary.

When not on the podium, Neal is an avid player of golf, squash and t'ai chi ch'uan and has added yoga to his regimen. He and his wife, Lisa Fry, have been Dayton residents since 1997.

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Robert’s report of the rarity of un-granted tenure jives with my experience, too. A few thoughts….

1. Perhaps this confirms that for all its flaws, maybe the current system in the US works pretty well.

2. It may also reflect the fact that the talent pool is so deep and so accomplished that to paraphrase an pol from many years ago, “there ain’t a dime’s worth of difference” between one audition winner and another. We may just be hiring the person who happens to have their skill, nerve, stamina, biorhythms, and luck all line up on one particular day. And there may, indeed, be other candidates who had one little star just a bit out of alignment who would have been just as good (or maybe even better) than the winner. But if that winner proves good enough at the day-in-day-out job to win tenure, then who’s to say the audition yielded anything but the (or a) right result?

3. We don’t make music with droids. We make music with human beings, who are, of course, human. And so are we. So unless someone REALLY doesn’t fit in (or unless their stars aligned in a totally anomalous way on audition day), it’s likely that by the time we’ve shared however long the probation period is, very few probationers have risen (or sunk) to the level where we just can’t bear to live with them.

Having had the chance to read Nathan’s most recent post, a brief reply regarding “politics”. While I’m sure there are some deserving musicians who’ve been denied tenure because they didn’t kow-tow sufficiently, I suspect that “politics” is more often than not a fig-leaf for the person who feels wronged.

I’ve heard rumblings that “politics” is the reason that many of my orchestra’s string openings are won by members of the orchestra auditioning to move up in the section. But we almost never drop our audition screen, and especially not when there’s a chance that a candidate could be “one of ours.” If insiders are winning, they’re winning fair and square.

We were once accused of “politics” at a harp audition — someone was SURE that a local harpist had fixed the audition, and the “proof” was in the audition list. The list did, indeed, have “harpist” written all over it, but that’s because I had vetted the list with the Milwaukee Symphony’s fabulous Danis Kelley — who wasn’t a candidate. And no, the local harpist didn’t win the audition!

About the author

Neal Gittleman
Neal Gittleman

The 2011-2012 season is Neal Gittleman's 17th year as Music Director of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. Gittleman has led the orchestra to new levels of artistic achievement and increasing acclaim throughout the country. American Record Guide magazine has praised the orchestra's performance as has the Cincinnati Enquirer, which called the DPO "a precise, glowing machine." When the Orchestra christened the Mead Theatre in the Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center in March of 2003, the Enquirer reported that "Gittleman has brought the DPO to a new level." During his tenure, the orchestra has received nine ASCAP awards from the American Symphony Orchestra League for adventurous programming.

Prior to his arrival in Dayton, Gittleman served as Music Director of the Marion (IN) Philharmonic, Associate Conductor of the Syracuse Symphony, and Assistant Conductor of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra, a post he held under the Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductors Program. He also served ten seasons as Associate Conductor and Resident Conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.

Neal Gittleman has appeared as guest conductor with many of the country's leading orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago, San Francisco, Minnesota, Phoenix, Indianapolis, San Antonio, Omaha, San Jose and Jacksonville symphony orchestras and the Buffalo Philharmonic. He has also conducted orchestras in Germany, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Japan, Canada and Mexico.

A native of Brooklyn, New York, Neal graduated from Yale University in 1975. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Annette Dieudonné in Paris, with Hugh Ross at the Manhattan School of Music and with Charles Bruck at both the Pierre Monteux School and the Hartt School of Music, where he was a Karl Böhm Fellow. It was at the Hartt School that he earned his Arts Diploma in Orchestral Conducting. He won the Second Prize at the 1984 Ernest Ansermet International Conducting Competition in Geneva and Third Prize in the 1986 Leopold Stokowski Conducting Competition in New York.

At home in the pit as well as on stage, Neal has led productions for Dayton Opera, the Human Race Theatre Company, Syracuse Opera Company, Hartt Opera Theater, and for Milwaukee's renowned Skylight Opera Theatre. He has also conducted for the Milwaukee Ballet, Hartford Ballet, Chicago City Ballet, Ballet Arizona, and Theater Ballet of Canada.

Neal is nationally known for his Classical Connections programs, which provide a "behind the scenes” look at the great works of the orchestral repertoire. These innovative programs, which began in Milwaukee 22 years ago, have become a vital part of the Dayton Philharmonic's concert season.

His discography includes a recording of the Dayton Philharmonic in performances of Tomas Svoboda's two piano concertos with Norman Krieger and the composer as featured soloists. Gittleman has also recorded a CD of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F with Krieger and the Czech National Symphony. Both recordings are available on the Artisie 4 label. The DPO's second CD, A Celebration of Flight was released in 2003 as part of the celebration of the centennial of the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight. The orchestra’s most recent CD, of live archival performances from four eras, released in 2008 in conjunction with the DPO’s 75th anniversary.

When not on the podium, Neal is an avid player of golf, squash and t'ai chi ch'uan and has added yoga to his regimen. He and his wife, Lisa Fry, have been Dayton residents since 1997.

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