Auditioning the Audition Process

I am totally fascinated by Fergus McWilliam’s description of the Berlin Philharmonic’s audition procedures and I thank him for taking the time to elaborate after Nathan Kahn and I made references to Berlin’s process.

“The vacancy belongs to the orchestra” and “The orchestra decides who is chosen – all musician-members vote on the basis of one musician – one vote” Two powerful statements almost unimaginable to most American orchestras.

Although one can imagine the criticisms such a system might promulgate here (what does a tuba player know about violin articulations?” or “why should the strings hold a majority of the votes for a second oboe audition?”), the sense of ownership (the reality of ownership!) that such a system grants to the orchestra membership and the responsibility it demands is more than a little intriguing.

Regarding the challenge of the day (the tenure process), I believe that the moderator’s first and third theories both have merit. The first, that Berlin’s process is more impersonal and therefore makes a non-renewal decision easier to make is probably true. Tenure review committees tend to have a larger representation from the individual section or instrument family, where close personal relationships have had a chance to develop over the probationary period. Some probationary musicians may also have had the opportunity to develop a friendship with the music director. It is natural that people would be reluctant to recommend the non-renewal of a close friend unless it was obvious that the musician was incompetent. On the other hand, it would be difficult to develop a close relationship with fifty or more colleagues in the course of a year or so, and so a vote of the entire membership of an orchestra would likely be more objective. That said, it would also be much more difficult for the majority of the members of an orchestra to vote with personal certainty about the qualifications of a section string player.

The third theory (that the granting of tenure, absent strong evidence to the contrary, is, for many orchestras, merely a confirmation of a decision already made) also rings true. Clearly, Nathan Kahn disagrees, and I would be interested in knowing what the rate of denial of tenure has been for ICSOM orchestras over the last ten years, and whether that rate has indeed been growing.

While it seems unlikely that hiring decisions will be taken from the domain of the music director, given that most musicians will be around long after the music director has departed, perhaps it is time that orchestras give some thought to the idea that the granting of tenure should be in the domain of the orchestra musicians……on the basis of one member – one vote!