Posted by A Guy in CA on June 04, 2000 at 15:00:15:
In Reply to: Re: Arnold Jacobs Poll posted by Richard on June 04, 2000 at 13:09:52:
I beg to differ with Richard, my impression is that there is always a very preferred player who is generally "invited" to "audition", several other highly-regarded players are invited to audition, and often others are "welcomed" after being culled from an applicant pool. At least thats my impression about auditioning for the bigs. Surprisingly, that preferred individual generally doesn't go for it! They're happy with their current gig, probably have a home and family and wouldn't want to move to a god-forsaken place like Chicago (or Tulsa, for that matter!) For example, it's a rather popular belief that the first earliest preference of CSO wasn't willing to be available for auditioning way back when. NOT to imply that CSO's preferences didn't change later, nor that when they finally made their selection that they had to "settle" by ANY means. Whatcha gonna do? Intentionally opening such a can of worms question will blow the minds of the ITEC throngs when they return home and log on on Monday. I think this is REALLY the kind of question to ask your teacher, not some faceless BBS posters like, well...like me for instance! As a player you eventually recognize you cannot deny that there's more to "it" than truly 100% objective anonymous behind-the-screen auditions. Heck...the invitees are subjectively picked, the applicants are subjectively screened, the bass trombonist may have a lot (or no) say in whom they want to work with, the musical director may be a gem (or a prick.) And this is true in the regional orchestras as well as the bigs! Thankfully I have a career outside of music, for me now it pays my bills, I would HATE to be one of the couple hundred really fine tubists out there stedfastly competing against each other 3-4 times a year for a 12K/year job in a city where the relative humidity is 100 or there's more dust on the sidewalks (or in the practice halls) than in the streets, my heart goes out to them.
Since anony - mouse framed the bait as "the Tulsa audition" (obviously hypothetical)
I'd suggest that Mr. Jacobs wouldn't be "invited" to "audition" ... only because the avaerage regional orchestra cannot fathom the level of grace, substance, and humanity of such a player...they're forced into survival modes and their focus is on budget so often, so I guess Mr. Jacobs or any current player of his stature wouldn't be considered because they'd know they couldn't afford him!