Due to our shortened 30 week season as well as hall availability issues (the city makes more money presenting ‘Cats’ and ‘Lord of the Dance’ as well as numerous school graduations so we get the boot), we were laid off for four weeks in April.

Now we’re back for a three week ‘mini season’. The first week was a Masterworks (subscription series) concert with guest conductor Alasdair Neale- Adams ‘the Chairman Dances’, an excellent Khachaturian Violin Concerto with our concertmaster, Iggy Jang, and that old war horse Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony. That piece is always a challenge, both emotionally and physically, no matter how many times you play it; this time was no exception.

The next week started with a reading session of compositions by University of Hawaii students, then the final Masterworks concert of the year which was also Sam Wong’s final concert as our music director. Yet another program with an overture (Rimsky-Korsakoff’s rarely played ‘May Night’), a violin concerto (Shostakovich with Sarah Chang) and another war horse symphony (Beethoven’s 5th).

Although the program order was at first to be overture, symphony, intermission, concerto, which would have been a nice change of rhythm; at the last minute the order reverted to overture, concerto, symphony. I suppose the comfort level of some is enhanced by the ritual of sameness, I personally would have to say that it’s high time the orchestra world start experimenting with alternative programs- different times, length of concert, and repertoire. In this day and age of so many entertainment options it’s no wonder our audiences are declining. (Fodder for another blog entry.)

The audience really seemed to like the concert, and gave Sam a big standing ovation sendoff. He will be returning to his other career as an eye surgeon, teaching at Columbia University and will work with us for two programs next year as conductor laureate.

Yesterday was a grueling marathon of a day, no matter how you look at it. Due to our location (and pay scale!) our auditions are unique, and yesterday was our big annual audition. Most orchestras fill openings one by one and have the luxury of hearing only one instrument per audition. We must tour as part of our audition process. In the past we’ve gone to LA, Chicago and New York, but due to financial constraints, this year we’re only going to New York. As we can only tour once annually, all openings per year must be heard in one swell foop.

This year there were less openings than usual: Principal Horn and English Horn (auditions for both positions were held last year but not filled), core orchestra First Violin, per-service Bass, ‘Cello, Violin and Viola. Local auditions were held in the morning, and in the afternoon applicants from the mainland who elected to fly to Hawaii and audition here were given a hearing. All in all there were 28 auditions to be heard yesterday , in both preliminary and final rounds. Approximately 30% went on to final rounds, so we heard about 40 rounds in one day.

Due to scheduling constraints as mentioned above, our management inserted a reading session giving local singers with the Hawaii Opera Theater an opportunity to sing an aria with an orchestra into our schedule- the plan was for the service to start at 7:00 pm, but as it turned out, the auditions didn’t end until 6:45, so the reading started at 7:30 as the stage needed to be reset. What with auditions starting at 9:00 am, and a quick half hour for lunch, those of us on the committee had a work day (unpaid for the audition part) of 12 and a half hours straight.

It’s always tough to stand in judgment of one’s colleagues; the use of the screen makes it a lot easier for everyone. The Honolulu Symphony uses a screen for both preliminary and final rounds. For the second year in a row, the entire horn section auditioned for the principal chair. That’s a tough situation that I certainly don’t envy. A number of people who have been playing with the orchestra in one-year positions were auditioning for permanent positions. All of these auditioners were there for the evening opera reading session as well as the committee members. (Our local auditions involve a large committee- yesterday we had over twenty participants since there is one representative from each section, plus the principal of that section or the next ranking member of the section if the principal is a member of the committee.) Bleary faces all around were just one aspect of the surreal experience we were ‘enjoying’. At least the singers seemed to be having a good time!

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, a contract is a collection of grievances of past abuses. You can be sure that an item that we will be bringing to the table at our next negotiations will be a clause that prohibits a service following an audition day. At least the auditions ended earlier than last year, which went until 11:30 pm.

All of this is a long way of getting at the heart of the issue of today’s blog: how does one play an audition that catches the ear of a committee that is distracted by work (as well as a heavy teaching load to make ends meet), and then inundated with 40 rounds of auditions in one day? It’s hard to play an audition, all of us performing musicians know that. What the auditionees can profit from realizing is that it’s almost as hard to be on the other side of the screen, sitting in judgment.

One important thing to remember is that the committee WANTS you to do well. After all, we want to have the highest level of musicianship in our orchestra. These days, there are so many highly trained musicians in the market that the committee will be hearing many qualified applicants.

What makes one candidate stand out among so many others- how does the committee choose? We have a ‘comment sheet’ that each committee member fills out for each applicant. At the top is a graph available for (optional) use so that one can rate such factors as musicianship, intonation. rhythm, tone quality, and so on. We do not use a numerical evaluation, although some orchestras do.

After hearing years of auditions, and having freshly heard forty rounds yesterday, here’s what I have to share. Obviously, technical perfection is the goal. However, it is possible to be too perfect, if in the process one is too cautious. What stands out is someone who can be both technically accurate but also artistically imaginative. Someone who displays musical intelligence.

Musical effect is aided by such factors as long phrasing (structural in nature) that goes over many measures, and bringing out the metric framework by accentuating the metric pattern. (For example, a passage in 3/4 time sounds better if the first beat is stronger than the other two. This is especially true in more advanced situations such as hemiolas, etc. This may seem obvious, but it’s easy to forget these and other basics as one repeats and repeats passages in pursuit of technical perfection.)

Dynamic contrasts are good; adding additional variations such as the use of many tone colors and vibrato styles are even better. Stylistic appropriateness as a must- if your Mozart sounds like your Brahms, you’ve missed a chance to show your musical know-how. Articulation continuity is a basic aspect of musicianship- notes of differing lengths in the middle of the phrase without a musical reason will stand out like a sore thumb.

The best advice I can give to a young auditioner is to listen to recordings of the music- as many as you can get your hands on. This will help in picking the appropriate tempi, and will help the auditioner to be able to play the individual part in it’s proper context.

The best auditions that I’ve heard are the ones where I don’t hear one instrument playing; instead I can hear the whole orchestra playing. This is a sign that I am listening to a musician who knows the repertoire, who can listen and fit in to the group, and who can listen to his or her own playing and make the instant and minute adjustments that will contribute to the group and improve the quality of the overall product of the orchestra.