The New Yorker covers a bass audition

In this week's The New Yorker magazine, there is a "Talk of the Town" piece about the recent Metropolitan Opera Orchestra bass auditions. Click here to read it online.

a last look back after the Met audition this May

I met the author, Ryan D'Agostino, and talked to him briefly while waiting for the semi-final results. It would have been nice to have come up with something quote-worthy to say, but at the time I was too absorbed in worrying about how I had played and hoping I might advance!

The piece is quite good, and sad in a funny sort of way. It's a peculiar strength of that magazine's writers, I think, capturing people in fascinating situations and showing the wonder and the humor of it all. It would have been nice to have made it into the New Yorker (and even nicer to make it into the Met Orchestra) but I suppose those will have to wait!