reflections upon the polished surface

I have my dead, and I have let them go,
and was amazed to see them so contented,
so soon at home in being dead, so cheerful,
so unlike their reputation. Only you
return; brush past me, loiter, try to knock
against something, so that the sound reveals
your presence. Oh don't take from me what I
am slowly learning. I'm sure you have gone astray
if you are moved to homesickness for anything
in this dimension. We transform these Things;
they aren't real, they are only the reflections
upon the polished surface of our being.

- Rilke, from "Requiem for a Friend"

I opened by book of Rilke's collected poems at random and started reading this one this evening. Almost immediately I had that sense of reading my own experiences and thoughts, only written much more beautifully. Lately more and more I feel like music is something that actually haunts us - some visitor from another dimension, perhaps, or a memory from another lifetime. In any case, it comes to us like a dream, but one so urgent it makes this waking life seem like the illusion.

Reading further into the poem, I realize it's a very deeply felt and personal message to a friend Rilke lost - perhaps it shows my peculiar obsessiveness that I most readily connect these sentiments to music, not to any actual person! Still, it strikes me as a very close analogy to my relationship to music - it can sometimes feel like a close friend whom I've lost, but who I knew so well that I am able to recreate her presence on some level. Maybe it doesn't happen all the time, maybe hardly ever, but in those rare moments when this lost person comes alive in me, it makes all the struggle worth doing.

My apologies to anyone who was hoping for the continuation of my audition story today. I seem to have gone all pensive and philosophical instead, but I promise to take it up again tomorrow!

Calgary audition odyssey, part I

Before I get started on my Calgary audition story, I wanted to congratulate some New World Symphony musicians who just won jobs within the last 48 hours - violist Chris Fischer at the North Carolina Symphony, librarian Julia Thompson at UNC in Chapel Hill, and violinist Marc Rovetti in the Philadelphia Orchestra. There has been a lot to celebrate as our season finishes, and all these people deserve every bit of their success.

I'll start my own story with the weeks leading up to the Calgary audition. I am not sure if you can ever prepare well enough to ensure audition success - that kind of control over destiny may not be granted to us mere mortals! - but I am pretty sure it's possible to ensure audition failure. That, in a nutshell, was my experience at the Cleveland Orchestra in early January, and I returned home feeling quite discouraged. I had pretty much fallen on my face, I thought, but I was more determined than ever to figure out this whole audition puzzle and do my best.

I was fortunate that the week after I got back, January 15th, the Cleveland Orchestra itself came down to Miami. This was the orchestra's first residency at the Carnival Center, and we at New World got to join the orchestra for two days of readings, under Andrew Grams and Franz Welser-Most. I didn't play for anyone in the orchestra - I probably wasn't in any shape physically or mentally at that time - but I did enjoy sitting next to Max Dimoff and Tom Sperl, seeing how they contribute to the orchestra and picking their brains about articulations and stuff. Kevin Switalski and Bob Vernon both had very kind and encouraging things to say about my audition as well, helping me to see that I hadn't totally bombed after all. I think after any audition, and particularly one in which we're extremely disappointed in ourselves, it's important to get some feedback, if only to begin to regain some perspective and confidence.

I hadn't yet decided which audition to take next - but I knew there would be auditions in Calgary and Bergen, Norway at the end of March, so I was considering the prospect of my first international audition. That's not quite true, I auditioned for the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Singapore Symphony, which offered me a position I turned down. Both of those auditions were held here in the US though, in Chicago and New York respectively. Auditions are pretty high stakes gambles to begin with, and travelling so far can seem like madness - who knows if people in Bergen, Norway are listening for the same qualities we listen for here? Luckily, though, I had some good sources of information and advice about both those orchestras.

One of our NWS flutists, Alice Dade, had actually just returned from a month of sub-ing in Bergen. She had very enthusiastic positive things to say about the Bergen Phil - though strangely, most of them concerned the orchestra's lounge, where people hang out during rehearsal breaks. (I envisioned that scene in the Fellini film "The Orchestra Rehearsal", with all the orchestra members drinking, smoking, and wildly dancing around.)

Another NWS musician, horn player Roslyn Black, grew up near Calgary and was just about to take their horn audition, which was in the middle of February. She had equally enthusiastic things to say about the Calgary Phil - even though they didn't take anyone at the horn audition, she played in the finals and heard the orchestra in concert afterwards. She told me a lot about the hall and the city, and she even had a good friend in the bass section, Jeff White. Another bass player here in Miami, Adam Franklin, knew the principal and assistant principal bassists in Calgary, Charles and Sheila Garrett, and raved about them as players and people.

So I was starting to feel some sense of connection with this distant place in the Canadian Rockies. When I told my parents I was deciding between Bergen and Calgary, they were also much in favor of Calgary, for obvious geographic reasons (I am originally from Tacoma, Washington.) And the prices on Expedia pretty much clinched the deal - not to be cheap or anything, but the dollar really is not strong against the Euro right now!

I think it's important to do a bit of reconnaissance work in advance of an audition - where do they play? are people generally happy there? what kind of programs do they perform? who is the music director, and what kind of work is he or she known for? Perhaps none of these questions will directly affect how you prepare and play in the audition, but they will start to add dimension and realism to the picture you're forming about this potential job. I find that even random facts about the town and the musicians help me to start to humanize them, see them as potential colleagues and neighbors, rather than scary foreigners who are going to judge me.

I've written a lot here about attitude and research - though I don't mean to overlook the musical preparation, which is at the core of the whole story. I probably can't write about every excerpt I prepared, my specific ideas and goals and the evolution and influences that led me there - though that might be interesting, to some... But next time I'll write about a few very important people who I had the chance to play for, and who helped me with both general and specific advice in my preparation for the audition.

Facebook derails my plans

I'm sorry my plans to post part one of my audition story this weekend went astray! I've gotten quite busy with - embarrassingly enough - Facebook! I know I'm not the first addict to social networking websites, and it does have its positive aspects. It's a great feeling knowing I now have 76 actual, official friends, willing to expose themselves as such! Then again, it makes me realize other people are as desperate as I am for real, meaningful connections, so much so that we're willing to tap our keyboards for hours in the quest.

Please don't give up on me though, I'm going to beat this addiction and write all about Calgary very soon, I promise! In the meantime, if anyone caught the New World webcast yesterday, I would love to hear what you thought. Please send me a comment or e-mail. Thank you!

Letters to a young(ish) bassist

One of the happiest aspects of audition success is sharing the news with friends and teachers, past and current, and all the reconnections and exchanges that can result. Lately I have been in touch with Michael Hovnanian, Chicago Symphony bassist and my teacher at Northwestern. These days, Michael is teaching at Roosevelt and blogging at CSO Bass Blog. His writing really gives a flavor for his thoughtfulness on all subjects, his dry wit, and his delight in unexpected analogies.

Now that I am employed, and Michael is blogging, he suggested we start a dialogue about transitioning to life in a professional orchestra. With his typical self-deprecating humor, he described it as an exchange between "the young and enthusiastic vs... the old and jaded perspectives." I happily agreed and came up with a couple of questions about the qualities that make for a good orchestral colleague - you can read the result at the CSO Bass Blog today: Letter From Matt Heller.

Matt Heller recently emailed me with the good news that he had won the bass audition in Calgary. I had also read about it on his blog. Anyone who hasn’t checked out Matt’s blog should do so. I hope he keeps it up and chronicles the transition into the next phase of his career.

Perhaps in a fit of blog envy – Matt writes well, and with insight – I suggested we might compare notes. His perspective from near the beginning of a career and mine somewhere in the middle might make for an interesting counterpoint. (...)

Now that we've started the conversation, I am excited - even enthusiastic! - to explore this topic and others that come up. I hope readers here and at the CSO Bass Blog will feel free to offer your own questions and thoughts on the subject of joining a new orchestra and bass section.

And I haven't forgotten my promise, I am still going to write a full account of my audition experience in Calgary. My apologies for taking so long with this! The first part, which I hope to post this weekend, will cover some of the pre-audition stages: how I decided to take this audition, what my preparation was like, etc.

Thanks for reading, and thanks so much to Michael for his entertaining and insightful take on orchestral oarsmanship!

multi-tasking

Cutting through the clutter and experiencing the present moment fully is part of our job requirements as performing musicians. In a world equally full of attractions and distractions, I think of this as something we're uniquely able to offer people - two hours of focused, impassioned contemplation. Still, we're not immune from distractions ourselves, including the tendency to multitask. Even as I write this blog entry, I am also eating dinner, listening to a recording, getting dressed for a concert, and teaching a lesson. Use more bow! Oops, not you.

The other day in a rehearsal MTT even caught himself doing it - he was conducting a complex section of Petrouchka, featuring a prominent flute solo, and meanwhile making comments and adjusting balances in the previous section. Once he recognized everyone's confusion, he quickly stopped the orchestra, made the correction, and told us, "I'm sorry, I think I'm multi-tasking when actually I'm just being rude!"

I think this is usually the case when we multitask: we think we're being extra productive and generous with ourselves, when actually we are just short-changing one or all of the activities we're engaged in. And ultimately we are short-changing ourselves, because none of those tasks gets as much attention as it deserves. Conducting might seem to require a certain amount of multi-tasking, with all those parts to listen to, people to cue, adjustments to make - and yet it is amazing how an orchestra responds to someone who is fully and deeply engaged in listening and being part of the music-making. There are musicians who you can just watch in the act of listening - how intent they are, how responsive - and already you're inspired to play your best. MTT is one of those, and our soloist this weekend Christian Tetzlaff is another.

I'm wondering how people will deal with the pressures of multi-tasking during this Sunday's live New World Symphony webcast. It's one thing to ignore distractions in the concert hall, the occasional unsilenced cell phone, noisy wrapper-removing, etc. But listening on your computer I imagine as a blizzard of distractions, e-mail, pop-ups, alerts and dialogues. Hopefully our online audiences won't take it upon themselves to also cook dinner, teach a lesson, and redesign their Facebook profiles at the same time, as I am right now.

Anyway, have a great weekend everyone, and try not to do too much! What's that, I didn't mean to write on your wall - how much garlic was that? - who's poking me? - use less bow! Oops, not you.

Charles Noble, blogging the audition circuit

These past couple of days I have been enjoying "daily observations", the blog of Oregon Symphony violist Charles Noble. My friend and fellow bassist blogger Jason Heath drew my attention to Charles' account of the Seattle Symphony Assistant Principal Viola audition, which he took a couple of weeks ago. I won't give away the outcome here - Charles did a fantastic job of developing all the suspense and intrigue, as well as the humor and mishaps in his audition story. As he notes in his last post,

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.

Each of those anonymous candidates has a unique story - and reading Charles' account was an inspiration. My experience of auditioning has been that, even when you don't get past the prelims, you go through lots of rounds: there's the "convincing yourself you can win" round; the "making travel plans round"; the "not getting too freaked out by all the other candidates" round. Any one of these can knock a person out, sabotage our audition hopes before we've played a single note!

I love reading about how another musician has struggled with all these steps in the process - and realizing that maybe there is another round I hadn't considered. Maybe call it the "framing your story" round, and it happens after you leave the hall, get home, unpack your bags. Of course you're going to have to tell a lot of people how it went, what you played, who you saw, what you learned... Most important though is what you tell yourself - how honestly you can appraise your own attitudes and performance, and use those insights to build your hopes and confidence, not destroy them.

It's worth reading Charles' posts as he wrote them - but once you read one, you probably won't be able to stop until you've finished all four! Here they are in order:

1. auditioning for middle-farts
2. auditioning for middle-farts, part deux
3. auditioning for middle-farts, part troix
4. a.f.m.f - climax and dénouement

I have also just added a couple of blogs to my list over at the right - if you haven't visited them yet, please check out Michael Hovnanian's CSO Bass Blog and Gabrielle's Lone Oboe blog!

NWS Petrouchka poster