General Discussions

San Francisco Symphony just sent out a message saying that their committee has opted to do a recorded preliminary round in February, with semis and finals in April for their Section Viola audition. As far as I'm aware, this is a novel approach to have a time-limited recording period, and one that I hope other organizations emulate to respect the time and financial constraints of applicants.

Below is from their message to applicants:

Here is how the Recording-Only Preliminary Round will function:

• Candidates will receive the preliminary round repertoire list at 12pm (Noon) PST on Tuesday, February 24. 

• Candidates will have until 12pm (Noon) PST on Thursday, February 26 to submit their recording. 

• The recordings must be done in one take and in the order of the list with no editing.

I was in an audition for a full-time position in a well known ensemble where we did not draw numbers in any round, and the audition order remained the same for advancing candidates in the semifinals, finals and super-finals. Is this a normal thing that happens or does it go against some rule (written or implied)? Should drawing numbers be something that is mandatory in auditions to keep things, at least on the surface, random and more unbiased?

The only candidate pre-advanced to finals was a frequent sub and went first, and that was the candidate who ended up winning. I don't want this to sound like sour grapes or that I believe it was fixed. The winning candidate is a fine player and could have won had candidates drawn numbers for each round.

However I've taken over a dozen auditions at this point and this is the only one…

I recently took an audition where the proctor(s) [librarians] did not adequately move the candidates from the green room to their private warm-up rooms resulting in some candidates having 1-5 minutes of preparation to others having around 45 minutes of time in their private room. I asked for more time than the 3 minutes they provided and they said they cannot give more time. I did not play my absolute best, and did not advance. Can an audition run like this be reported? I don’t have much experience with this, but am looking for answers from those with more experience.

So I’m all signed up to take an audition in Philadelphia next month and I got an email from the PM last week that includes this ominous line:

“The list continues to remain subject to change and we encourage you to check our website periodically for updates.”

I will be emailing them to ask what that means and why, but in the meantime:

Has anybody else seen this before? I’ve heard of lists being altered without notice—generally due to some flavor of management miscommunication or incompetence—but to state deliberately in advance that it will/may change after an initial list being publicized is…a choice…?

Is this a committee decision? A capricious music director situation? A contract issue in desperate need of revision? A sneaky way of weeding people out of the process? What’s going on here?

Everything about the audition process is challenging under the most favorable conditions. Introducing variables like…