MyAuditions March Special Report - "How to become an NSO Musician"

How does the National Symphony Orchestra decide among more than 200 applicants it receives for each position advertised? It's a complex process designed to make sure that every new musician is the very best possible. Here's how their audition process works.

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This is an EXCELLENT story!

Perhaps Sam (MN orch), Charles (Oregon Sym), Brad (St. Louis Sym), Kevin (Detroit Sym) can comment on their process at their orchestras and what differentiates their auditions, or do they all try to maintain the same type of standard?

I can see how the NSO strives to make the process as easy as possible and allow candidates the time to compose themselves right before they go on stage.

Should get the personnel manager, James Hewitt to join this discussion. might be nice.

I would have hoped that this would be a more active thread considering the wealth of information the NSO provides on their audition process? are people getting lazy or they've already heard it all before.

I particularly like the comment from their new french horn player "auditions posted in that little paper, the International Musician." Is it so fair that the AFM sponsored paper is the only one where orchestras are "required" to advertise their postings. I think their collective bargaining agreement requires it.

The rest of the talk is very interesting and walks you through the process but I don't think it is any different than any other audition you might go to with a big orchestra. It seems to me that they are simply using it as a promotional vehicle.

I can't speak for the NSO, but I've never heard of any orchestra being "required", by collective bargaining agreement or otherwise, to advertise in the IM. It's just what we do. Basically, it's a matter of getting the ad in front of as many musicians' eyes as possible, and back before the internet, the IM was the only resource that truly reached most classical musicians in the U.S.

With online options now available, I would imagine that the IM will eventually be replaced by a lower-cost online service like MyAuditions as the standard repository for all audition ads. But experience would suggest that there continues to be a relatively high percentage of classical players who just aren't totally comfortable with online technologies yet, and we certainly lag behind other, more technology-driven industries in this regard, so I wouldn't look for the IM ads to be supplanted anytime soon...

Sam Bergman, viola
Minnesota Orchestra
news editor, ArtsJournal.com
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Sam, you raise some very important points.

Correct me if I am wrong. There are many orchestra's CBA contracts that state that a union-affiliated orchestra must advertise an open position in a union-approved publication (like IM) or one that specific demographics target orchestral musicians (like MyAuditions).

Now, for argument's sake, let's say that your gig, the Minnesota Orchestra decides to stop advertising in IM and chooses MyAuditions instead. Reason being their audience base is now larger than IM, it is more open (not just to subscribers of IM who pay to receive a paper each month) and it's just more cost-effective (from what I see $15 bucks a month for one job posting). So, IM loses a big client and ad revenue as a result.

IM is not very pleased by this. So, next time around the CBA is reviewed and changes are made, can the AFM change the clauses regarding advertising to make sure that the orchestra can only advertise in the IM? Can they do that? Can you say anti-trust suit. And if so, what service, including MyAuditions, would be crazy enough to take the AFM to court?

quote:

With online options now available, I would imagine that the IM will eventually be replaced by a lower-cost online service like MyAuditions as the standard repository for all audition ads. But experience would suggest that there continues to be a relatively high percentage of classical players who just aren't totally comfortable with online technologies yet, and we certainly lag behind other, more technology-driven industries in this regard, so I wouldn't look for the IM ads to be supplanted anytime soon...

Sam Bergman, viola
Minnesota Orchestra
news editor, ArtsJournal.com
Minneapolis, Minnesota

I beg to differ. Classical musicians are highly educated and with the Internet, comes an additional vehicle to promote themselves (like Sam's profile on myauditions and his artsjournal blog) and find out about jobs rather then waiting once a month to get the IM.

I have yet to meet any musician that does not have a computer (especially when systems are now less then $500) or no access to the Internet. Perhaps some of the older musicians (over 65) don't have them but it would be a great surprise to meet someone younger than that who doesn't.

Most of the conservatories now have full fledged Internet access and I hardly think any of the up-and-coming orchestral musicians don't have at least a laptop.

Having access and knowing what to do with it is another story.

AFM should partner with MyAuditions by licensing their technology. AFM gains considerably by using their technology to automate the job postings more effectively, ease of use for their members, and they have an additional outlet from which to promote the AFM cause through MyAuditions.

MyAuditions gains from the partnership from a credibility perspective.

They split the revenue somehow. MyAuditions has AFM orgs that would not have otherwise advertise on their site and the AFM has a new revenue channel that did not exist before.

Just my two cents.

tommyboy, sounds like you should work for myauditions! hey, thought this thread was about the NSO audition process?

I agree. AFM would benefit greatly by use myauditions development but it would have to work where AFM could maintain their ad revenue stream without cannibalizing their membership.

I have not looked at the report, yet - but will take a look and put up some comments on my blog.

I was hoping to move this conversation towards discussing the CBA agreement but perhaps that should be a separate topic altogether.

I'm proud to say that I survived the NSO audition process and won a position with them...and I've been on their audition committee several times....Jim Hewitt, the personnel manager, and the audition committees work very, very hard to make sure that the process is fair, humane, and professional. I'm really proud to be a member of this orchestra.

Gosh, I'm afraid I scared everyone away from this topic. I re-read my answer and I sound like such a goody-goody. Sorry about that.

How about a topic called "How to become a Cleveland Orchestra Musician"?