The Trumpets shall sound!

Well, it’s been an interesting week. To my surprise I found out that there are actually some people who read this blog, and I found out the hard way………

My last post was on the Principal Trumpet Audition that we held last week at the Edmonton Symphony. I was expecting the post to go “quietly into that good night” but that’s not what happened. No indeed, I got responses, many responses. There were the responses by those who got the intended tone of the piece:

“Ha! Isn’t this the same guy who got in trouble for that butt shaking incident? It’s not often you find a conductor with such a great sense of humor. I’m starting to like him.”

Then there were the very unexpected responses. There was the very thoughtful:

“The reality is, you are hiring a person, not an robot programmed in instrumental manipulation. The finest excerpt player will not necessarily be the best colleague or even musician. Playing excerpts is like preparing an olympic gymnastic or skating routine. There is nothing unplanned happening, if all goes right. Well, actually playing real music is just the opposite. The union wants auditions to be fair, but orchestras at some point have to be fair to themselves. Like you said, the person could be around for 40 years.”

Then there was the completely irate:

“I have a problem with you – a music director – being so dismissive of the audition process itself (which you describe as “ridiculous”). It would be one thing to acknowledge its flaws along with its ultimate fairness and effectiveness (the fact is, pretty much every major orchestral player working today got their job this way) but you seem to deride it completely.”

Etc., etc. Well as I said, I was surprised, and I have some explaining to do. For those who took the post in the tone intended: Thank you. For those who didn’t but who felt the need to use it as a way of working towards a better audition process: Thank you as well. To those of you who were offended by the post: My heartfelt apologies. That was NOT what was intended at all. I would hope that if you re-read the post you would see that I am trying to comment on the process itself. Obviously I failed miserably for some folks. My apologies to them, the candidates, my colleagues @ the ESO, and the audition committee. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

On a personal note: To that one person who felt the need to call me all sorts of unprintable names and infer that I don’t care at all about musicians – where were you when the orchestra in Jacksonville was being locked out and I “took a stand against The Man” as someone put it? I’m sure that post did not do wonders for my career, but I was at least willing to stand up and say what was necessary.

To my great joy I think we’ve also exposed some holes in the audition process at the ESO. One can just imagine how pleased I am about this (note: since my tone has been mistaken in the past let me be perfectly clear – I am being sarcastic). Some things about the audition process I don’t like – some orchestras require the use of their own music, some don’t. We don’t, but I suspect that isn’t explicitly clear. That will change. There’s also some question as to who the Proctor reports to, what exactly his/her duties are, etc. I do not like ambiguities as they can lead to screw-ups. I don’t like screw-ups. I also notice that other than verbal “how was it”s there isn’t a feedback procedure for us. That will change as well.

This much I’m willing to say: I am committed to making sure that the ESO runs the best, cleanest, and fairest auditions in the business. If anyone can legitimately claim that something that our staff has done has had a negative impact on their audition I will personally refund their audition fee out of my own pocket. Someone has to be responsible and I think it should be the Music Director.

Meanwhile, I still think that the audition process as it exists in the orchestral world today is inhumane. But that’s just my personal opinion. Gee, isn’t their some orchestra facing a lockout I could comment on? That would be a lot easier.