- I'm gonna talk about the role of the committee here.
When you go to an audition,
the committee is comprised of members of the orchestra,
and then at the very end,
the music director joins that committee
for the final vote.
Now just remember this,
the committee is probably paid very poorly,
or not paid at all,
to come in on their free time
and listen to between 70 and 180 people
play the same repertoire over and over again
to fill a position in their orchestra.
And this committee is further challenged by the fact
that when they come in in the morning,
it's usually before their normal service time.
Most normal orchestra services are about 10 a.m.
And when they come in they have to report around
8:30 or 9:00 in the morning,
which is really early for professional musicians.
To make matters worse,
the management in the orchestras will
then give really strong, really bad coffee,
and really sugary donuts
in some sort of peace offering for
bringing the musicians in early.
So you've got a bunch of, sort of angry musicians
donating their time
with too much sugar and too much caffeine,
starting their day listening to
what could be 60 to 70 people
play the same stuff in one day.
All right, that sounds rather cynical and bitter,
but it is the truth.
And their job is to fill that position
with someone they believe can do the job.
And when we get into the different rounds,
it becomes further complex because
their not really looking for
who their going to hire in the beginning,
their looking for who their not gonna hire.
They've got a lot of people to weed through,
and the eliminatory process,
the elimination process,
is the important thing in the first and second rounds.