Discussion Panel: Page 26

I am totally fascinated by Fergus McWilliam’s description of the Berlin Philharmonic’s audition procedures and I thank him for taking the time to elaborate after Nathan Kahn and I made references to Berlin’s process. “The vacancy belongs to the orchestra” and “The orchestra decides who is chosen – all musician-members vote on the basis of […]

My Berlin Philharmonic colleagues would be flattered to learn that our search/hire system has attracted the interest of the panel participants and the readers. However I must point out that we are not alone in this. Other German orchestras use much the same system, a fundamental feature of which is that the conductor has much […]

I strongly disagree with the moderator’s assertion that “orchestras over here view it as merely a confirmation of a decision already made.” Quite the contrary, denial of tenure is occurring much more frequently than the moderator’s example. And from my viewpoint at the AFM, I have received far too many calls where the unexpressed reason […]

Robert’s report of the rarity of un-granted tenure jives with my experience, too. A few thoughts…. 1. Perhaps this confirms that for all its flaws, maybe the current system in the US works pretty well. 2. It may also reflect the fact that the talent pool is so deep and so accomplished that to paraphrase […]

From the candidates perspective, (and I speak not only for myself but for numerous friends who have won jobs over the past 5 years), it never feels like receiving tenure is a guarantee. The audition process is so harrowing though, that anything after that feels like it will be somehow easier. This is merely an […]

For Day 4, I’d like to focus on an aspect of the hiring process that happens after auditions – namely the granting of tenure. I’ve spent the past 33 or so years (except for a sabbatical year and a year in a quartet) in four full-time orchestras. During that time, exactly two of the many […]

I first interpreted this idea to mean (as some others did as well) that all candidates would go to one (or perhaps one of several) location and play an audition of standard repertoire to be taped and sent to any orchestra holding an audition that season. Nathan Kahn pointed out the difficulties of standardizing a […]

In partial response to Rip Pretat and Nathan Kahn re Berlin: Since its founding in 1882 the Berlin Philharmonic has enjoyed three critical and inextricably related advantages, when it comes to auditioning new musicians. None of these is, or should be, unique in the orchestral world, however the combination is uniquely powerful and effective for […]

Consider an alternative to the present system. It could look something like this… What would be the advantages and disadvantages of this system compared to the current system? At the preliminary level, the advantage would be that candidates would (assuming sufficient satellite locations) often have much less travel to do. In particular, those who play […]

The question: Could Robert’s alternative audition procedure work better than the “current system”? The definition: “work better” = be more likely to give you the best player/musician/colleague from a given candidate pool My answer: Yes, maybe. I think Robert’s proposal could very well work better. It certainly would make possible deeper scrutiny of more facets […]