a.f.m.f – climax and denouement

[As you may recall, at the end of my last post I was a ‘potential’ finalist – not dead, but also not alive, in an audition purgatory. The story continues:]

About 4:00 p.m. I receive a call from the personnel manager: I am officially advanced to the finals! I must report to the hall around 9:00 a.m., as I am to play at around 10:00 a.m. It sounds suspiciously like I might have been drawn as the first player in the round…

There is a good deal of superstition and “strategy” involved in where one plays in a round or group within a round. Some people like to go first: no waiting, get it over with. Others like to go at the end: you’ve heard the rest, now hear the best. Still others prefer being in the middle of the pack. I prefer to get things over with – my profound hatred of waiting overrides my fear of going first.

The day starts like the others. Drag myself out of bed while fighting a sense of dread and impending doom which are conspiring to have me turn over, shut off the alarm, and sleep though the whole damned audition. Take the shower, get dressed, then choke down part of a power bar. Now comes the 30 minutes of playing some scales and just generally noodling to get things loosened up, which only makes me more nervous: why can’t I play a D major scale in tune? Oh, because it’s 8:00 a.m.

I leave the house around 8:20, stopping at the last gas station before the interstate for gas when my Virgo self sees that the gas tank of the rental car is below 1/4 tank and visualizes that it would be endlessly mortifying to run out of gas on the way to my first final round showing in 11 years.

I show up at the hall on time and learn that I am indeed the first person to play in the finals. Gulp. I go to my deluxe dressing room royale-with-cheese and await my marching orders in the form of the excerpt list for the round. It comes in short order, and it’s pretty extensive. First movement of the Mozart Sinfonie concertante is the solo selection for today, but I’m advised to bring the other solo pieces in case the conductor asks for them on a whim (more thoughts of doom intrude at this point). The list is balanced, some stuff that I’ve already played in the other rounds, some that I haven’t, with a good mix of solo and tutti excerpts and a variety of tempos and dynamics.

I go over the excerpts, paying particular attention to how I’m going to both set the mood for the character of each one, and how I’m physically going to begin each excerpt. I find that starting is the hardest part, especially if the excerpt has very quick passage work (Don Juan or Tannhäuser) or is very soft (Mahler 10, Mozart Haffner). Things seem to be going well as far as my fingers and bow are concerned, so I keep my practicing to a minimum: I play through the list and wait the five minutes until the p.m. comes to my door.

The personnel manager (actually the assistant p.m.) comes and leads me to the door to the wings, and I’m suddenly and completely filled with this sense of being totally out of my element. I’m about to walk on a stage I’ve never seen before, either from the stage or the auditorium. I haven’t made it past the semi-finals at an audition since I won my job with the OSO, which was the only other time I’ve made it that far. It’s a humbling feeling, and not one to inspire confidence, but I feel prepared and ready – I’ve accomplished what I set out to and more: this is all just gravy now.

I walk out on stage and music director Gerard Schwartz asks me to begin with the Mozart. I start, and since I’ve played the piece with orchestra several times in the past, it feels comfortable and reassuring to play in this situation. As I get farther into the movement, I begin to wonder how much of this they want to hear. I get back to the recap and there’s still no sign to stop, so I keep on going. I finish the body of the movement and wait a moment. I hear the conductor’s voice as he asks “why don’t you go on to the cadenza, ok?” I’m somewhat shocked that they want to hear this, but I know it and am comfortable playing it, so I do.

Next come the excerpts. Each seems to come relatively easily – not perfect, but comfortable, and seemingly musical in my execution of them. I especially enjoy playing each of the solo excerpts: I never get a chance to play them, so it’s nice to get to show what my ideas are about them, especially the Don Quixote excerpt, which illustrates the character of Sancho Panza. He’s a character who seems simple, but is actually wise and complex, and that appeals to my violist soul very much. He’s one of the great characters of literature brought to life through music, and it’s an honor to try to do him justice as a violist. Next, I am asked to play a few of the excerpts again with some suggestions on alterations from the conductor. I try to do as asked, and it seems that I’m successful in accommodating his suggestions about phrasing and dynamics. Next comes the sight-reading.

We’d been advised that there would be a sight-reading component to the audition, and this is something that they take very seriously in Seattle. I’ve never played as much sight-reading at an audition as I did at this one. There were no less than six excerpts to read at sight, including passages from Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, Wolf’s Italian Serenade, and works of Brahms and Ravel. I try to basically view my readings as being at work only I’m playing by myself with no one to cover me, and since I at least have at worst heard all the pieces before, and at best have played them several times either in orchestra or for other auditions, I am able to get through them all, sometimes it’s not pretty, but I think I show tenacity and experience in my attempts.

Finally, I’m done. I’ve been on stage playing continuously for just over 30 minutes. I’m sweaty, can’t see straight, and by now just want some sort of beverage in a glass that could double as a swimming vessel. I pack my stuff and head to the by now well-known musicians’ lounge. A proctor tells me that they should be done hearing the whole group by around 2:00, so I decide against going back to my hosts’ home and will walk around the Pike Place Market and get some lunch after doing so. I return to the hall around 1:30 and learn that the committee has only just returned from their lunch break and there are four remaining candidates. That will take another two hours for them to accomplish, but I have nowhere to go now, so I settle in with my half-finished book and all of the out-of-date magazines a musician’s lounge can provide (which is a lot).

The round finishes around 3:30, and by now all of the candidates (nine of us in all) are sitting in the lounge looking frazzled, tired, and apathetic all at once. Now comes the worst of the waiting periods: waiting to hear of your fate. A half hour goes by, then an hour, then 90 minutes. Someone has to leave to catch a cab to the airport. Now there are eight of us. Finally, just past the 2 hour mark, the personnel manager comes in. He asks for two people to come with him. Five minutes passes. Then he asks me to come with him. We go to one of the empty practice rooms and he tells me that the music director does not wish to offer me a position at this time. He thanks me for coming and for my good audition.

It’s over. That’s the climax. The dénouement is the drive home. That’s what sucks about auditions. I am fortunate: I have a job that I like in a city that I love. I rented a car and stayed at a friend’s house. I was able to get paid time off from work to take the audition. I wasn’t in this for a win from the get-go, even though by the time I made it to the finals I very much wanted to be offered a job. How could I help it? The Seattle Symphony assistant principal position pays almost twice as much as my current job, the hall is superb, and Seattle is a great city of the world. However, others in the audition didn’t have the advantages that I had: some hated their current jobs. Others were in school and desperately wanted that first big break. Others were already in the orchestra’s viola section and wanted to move up to a coveted titled position. And most people payed a lot of money to travel and lodge at this audition.

And that doesn’t even cover the scores of people who auditioned in the four days of preliminaries that didn’t make it any further. It was good to be in this position again and realized that every one of those anonymous players behind the screen is a real person with dreams and obligations. They desperately want the job that they’re here for, and as a past and future audition committee member, it is absolutely essential that I keep that in mind the next time I’m listening to a long round of auditions and get impatient or arrogant.

I had a different set of expectations coming into this audition than most of the others. I set myself the challenge of a limited amount of time to prepare and still trying to prove that I was competitive and relevant. The fact that I got all the way into the finals with such a high level of fellow players was a big boost to my confidence. Though I’m disappointed (much more than I thought I’d be) that I did not get offered a position, I’m glad that I’m in Portland and a member of the Oregon Symphony. I love them both.