St. Louis Contrabassoon/Utility Bassoon?

I don't even play contra, so no skin in the game. I was actually hoping someone with knowledge of the situation might explain how it was handled.

I agree. SLSO doesn’t let anyone in unless they are very good. I think the concerns are understandable because this is a tough field to find success that has a long history of audition shenanigans. At least it wasn’t a no hire. I think all auditions should be blind until a candidate is chosen as a winner but that’s just me.

As someone who took this audition I think the committee was as fair as they could be. Before a round we drew numbers for the order as usual, but when we entered on stage the proctor called out a different number (random and didn't correspond with the one we drew) in order to keep each player even more anonymous. Ellen was the only candidate to get enough votes to qualify for the job, so she was the only candidate in the unscreened chamber/superfinal. As stated Ellen already holds a position in another ensemble, and has been in finals for this job previously and for 2nd, so I think it's best we stop with the unfair rhetoric. She won, so let's cut it out with the speculations...

Other finalists included Andrew Genemans and Jaquain Sloan.

Blind until there was only one candidate left standing sounds pretty fair to me.