We just held our preliminary round of auditions for two section viola positions at the Oregon Symphony. The following are the thoughts of myself and my colleagues from a long day in the foxhole listening to excerpts coming in under the wire.

1. If you're going to play the Walton Concerto because you think that it's "easier" than the Hindemith or Bartok: it's not. Unless you can nail it, don't play it. Our committee by the end of the day viewed the Walton as a warning sign that said "Danger: poor technique ahead".

2. A well-developed, fully-controlled spiccato stroke is absolutely essential to pass the prelims in a major orchestra audition. If you are not seriously comfortable playing a clear spiccato stroke in the Brahms Haydn Variations variation 5 or Mendelssohn Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream, you may wish to reconsider attending a major audition.

3. Please, take a small amount of time to gather yourself between excerpts, even if you don't think that you require the time. The committee can always use the time to jot unfinished notes on the previous excerpt. Also, it helps you to visualize what you want to happen in the next excerpt and also to hear the orchestration leading into the next excerpt as you begin. By the same token, don't space out and spend 30 seconds or more building a pregnant pause. If you do that, whatever you play had better be good, because the committee is certainly on tenterhooks by that point. Around 10 seconds is a good healthy amount of time, and it will seem like an eternity to you onstage.

4. Rhythm and pitch count for a lot in your solo piece as well as your excerpts. We all know how your concerto goes - so being willfully obtuse in your interpretation will not earn you any extra points at the beginning of your audition. Conservative is best at auditions: be a slave to the markings the composer has supplied. That is your audition bible.

5. Imagine that you are booked to play a recital at a prime venue in your city. The terms are thus: play well and please the audience and you will be paid $75,000 dollars. Play poorly and you will have to pay the producer $1000. This is exactly the situation you'll face in an audition - so why come unprepared? I know that even if you're impeccably prepared you won't necessarily win the job, but you'll also be better of for the next audition you choose to take. Don't humor yourself - be sure to be as well prepared as is humanly possible, and if it's really not good enough to go and spend the money, cancel your ticket, get your deposit back and plan for the next one.

6. It is unwise to challenge a lawful policy of the orchestra you wish to join, unless you're already a tenured member of that orchestra. Remember, an audition is a job interview, which primarly exists for the benefit of the orchestra, not the auditionee. A good rule of thumb for dealing with the personnel manager or audition coordinator by phone or email is imagine you were face-to-face with them: would you still say it? If not, then hold your twitching keyboard fingers for another day.

7. Learn your concerto to bullet-proof security, and practice it to keep it constantly under your fingers. I've yet to hear (in ten years of hearing auditions for violin, viola, cello, double bass, tuba, and trombone) a candidate with a sub-par concerto performance knock me dead with their excerpts. I have heard the opposite, but at least I knew there was a good player having a bad day with their excerpts.

8. If you are unable to play an audition without debilitating symptoms of stage fright or performance anxiety, you might wish to look into a beta blocker through your doctor. It's a short-term fix while you work on the issues that are making auditions untenable for you, and it will save you from throwing money down the drain in the hopes that you'll play well once in spite of it all.

Piece-specific advice:

Brahms Haydn Variations, Var. V: please, don't kill your viola on this one. We heard a lot of machine guns today, and they are not quiet by nature! This is a piece which should feel generally light with lightning-like accents and subito fortes. There were many times today when the committee was wincing at the super high-powered readings of this excerpt. Also, no orchestra plays this variation at lightning speed, vivace is an emotive marking, not a tempo marking.

Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 - 1st mvt solo: please, choose fingerings which allow you to vibrate on every note (not super vibrato, either) and avoid portamenti between notes.

Mendelssohn Scherzo: it is about light and gossamer fairies, not fat, drunken trolls. Keep the p and pp places light, and forte dynamics should be taken lightly. Don't accent or whack the ends of phrases, either.

Hindemith Der Schwanendreher: Louder does not mean more in tune. Let the instrument resonate and create a large, open sound. Don't saw it in half!

Bartok Concerto: The opening is mf, not ff, don't kill it - create an open sound and let the dynamic build over the course of the page.

Walton Concerto: Don't start painfully slow, and please take care not to slam the upper notes on the leaps at the close of each octave accompaniment figures on the first page. Practice the sixths on page two, 'nuff said.

Tomorrow (Oct 11) are the semis and finals. I'll have an entry about that tomorrow night.

UPDATE: The semis and finals were held yesterday (Wednesday). We had 10 semi-finalists and whittled the field down to three finalists. We ultimately offered a position to one of the finalists. Thanks to everyone who came and played for us - the level was quite good and it was gratifying to be able to hire at least one person.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Charles Noble,

Bravo Charles!

Outstanding post and essential reading for all who frequent MyAuditions. I look forward to reading your posts during the final rounds as well.

Yes, thank you so much for posting that, Charles! Wonderful and insightful blog entry!

I don't really think it is appropriate to be posting these comments as the audition is still in process. Your job as audition committee member is to judge what works for YOUR orchestra. Your opinions, while all very individual and maybe well thought out, are just that: your opinions. Unless you have permission to speak for the entire committee, it comes off very arrogant and unprofessional.

Be careful about how you dish out this help, I would be rather ticked if I came across this posting after being advanced to the next round. It would have been more fair of you to have your "stipulations" expressed to all the candidates BEFORE the actual audition. You know, a level playing field. What if the the semi and finalists have internet access while others don't. You have just created a unfair advantage favoring musicians that have internet this week.

I would recommend you remove this blog until after the audition is complete, if ever. Typically, if one wants comments bad enough, they will get them through the normal channels.

Katinfiddle, you're entitled to your opinion, and I'm entitled to mine. Even if I waited until after the conclusion of the entire audition, I'd still be giving someone an "unfair" advantage for the next audition we have. Since my orchestra does not allow specific comments to be given to individual candidates after the audition, I took notice of things that were common throughout the day, as well as items that our principal noted to me, and gave the feedback as a service to those who want to learn from the audition experience.

Perhaps it is arrogant to tell someone what to do or not to do, but if so, we're in a business that's 100 percent arrogance. I would think that it would be valuable to know what a member or members of a committee were thinking about during the course of an audition. You'll note that I have not singled out any one candidate's playing or mentioned who or how many advanced, nor indicated all the excerpts played or what was coming up in the future rounds.

Inappropriate: Posting specifically that candidate #432 was out of tune on the concerto, out of rhythm on Beethoven 5, and out of luck on Don Juan.

Appropriate: Posting information that any good teacher with orchestral and audition committee experience would tell you. Charles' ideas have been said in many ways on these forums by many other people, but here at least we have a succinct and supremely relevant version.

And what are these "stipulations" Charles is unfairly giving? Play in tune with solid rhythm, pay attention to the music on the page, and take your time between excerpts. Wow, if only someone had told me that yesterday, I might have advanced. Please, katinfiddle, get off your high horse. In my experience, there is very little technically that you can (or should) mess with in the midst of an audition. At that point it's nearly 100% mental. But when you fly home, wondering where $500 and the last two months of your life went, and you need an honest appraisal of where to go next, read this post!

I have played too many auditions in which the candidates were told in advance that there would be no chance for comments, so don't even bother to ask. This post is the next best thing, and I didn't even take this audition. Charles, I think your post is excellent, and I look forward to the next one.

I also agree that it is a great post and a great reminder for things to keep in mind for that next audition for either teacher or player. Its great to hear what a member of an audition committee thinks while it is going on. As someone who has flubbed an audition by playing the Walton (those d*** octaves!!) or who has had trouble with the Brahms variations, its nice to know that these are common or somewhat common problems that quite a few people have.

Good Job Charles!! I really look forward to reading the next entry.

This is a great post - wish there was one for clarinet specific excerpts, but it is all relative.

To this Kat person - I seriously doubt the auditioners for today's round will find their way to my auditions, read this post and then become the super terrific violist they were not yesterday. In Fact, I seriously doubt any of the violist who are classified in #1-8 made it to todays round anyway. Perhaps they will read this post and become better prepared for the next audition.

Great post, Charles. I think your points are well made and would be a great help to those who are on the audition circuit. The list of dos and don'ts is a long one - one that should be committed to memory.

gloria

Was Katinfiddles post a joke?????\
Hope so

I don't know if it means anything but Mr. Noble looks like such a violist...

I love the blog by the way, and find nothing unprofessional about it. In fact, I find the overly PC nature of autitions and the whole ivory tower thing really annoying. It's nice someone can tell it like it is.

Great insight. I've sat on a few auditions behind the lines, and I think comment no.5 is one of the most important. I can't tell you of how many candidates I've heard that really weren't honest with themselves on that.

Good luck for the semi and finals! I have a couple of friends over there trying to get in!

I loved the blog- it was amusing as well as informative. Thanks for the insights!

Great blog! If you want to win a job you must be willing to hear the honest truth - and you probably won't like it.....but if you listen to it and take the info to heart you will grow. This was great! I have a friend that signed up for MANY auditions and cancelled all but one becuase he didn't feel ready. The one he took - he won the job. So Charles - right on for telling it like it is!

As a side note - I once sat on an audition committee of over 100 applicants - only one played a whole note for 4 complete beats - they got the job (they did other stuff well too).

Charles-

Never have I heard such specific comments, and for these I and many other thank you. After having been told by a concertmaster that I must be able to play spiccato with confidence I have spent the past seven months working on various strokes and it seems to be coming together. Very good advice.