News article on Alan Baer


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Posted by STEVE PERRY on January 19, 2004 at 12:25:14:

Great article on Alan Baer about auditioning. Alan, your dedication is note worthy!

STEVE



All ears for perfection
Musicians spend countless hours preparing for a 10-minute audition with
a major orchestra

By ELAINE SCHMIDT
Special to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
January 18, 2003


No four words can crush an orchestral musician's spirit quite like
"Thank you. Next please."

Orchestral musicians prepare for years, beginning with childhood lessons
and continuing through college or conservatory training, practicing
countless hours along the way. Then on audition day, musicians are given
five to 10 minutes to impress a panel of listeners, in the first step of
a grueling, multiround process that will end in disappointment for all
but one player.

Only 25 to 30 American orchestras offer full-time, living-wage
employment to musicians, said Jack McAuliffe, vice president of the
American Symphony Orchestra League. An orchestra may have three or four
openings in a year, or perhaps none for several years, with players in
the larger orchestras holding their jobs for decades.

Some instruments, such as tuba, piccolo and harp, are used on a
one-per-orchestra basis. Wind, brass and percussion sections each
require just a handful of players. Even the cello section of a large
orchestra holds only about 10 players. Doing the math is disheartening.

Despite these odds, three members of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra,
all of whom beat the odds once already to win jobs here, have done it
once again. Each has moved up the musical food chain to orchestras with
longer seasons, better pay and other perks.

MSO principal tubist Alan Baer won the same job with the National
Symphony in Washington, D.C., this fall only to turn it down a few weeks
later when he won the tuba spot with the New York Philharmonic.

Last spring, assistant principal bassoonist Shawn Mouser won the
associate principal bassoon spot with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. A
few months before that, MSO assistant principal clarinetist Diana
Haskell won the assistant principal job with the St. Louis Symphony.
Both players are on leave from the MSO while they earn tenure at their
new jobs.

"Winning an audition is a life-changing event," said Rip Pretat,
assistant principal bassist and assistant personnel manager for the
Milwaukee Symphony. "It's like winning the lottery, except that there is
a great deal of skill involved."


Study in superstition

Preparing for an audition is an all-consuming and extremely personal
process. Players have to find their own means to perfect their
performances and hold up under the pressure-cooker of the audition.

"I like to take as many variables out of the process as I can and live
the audition process over and over again," tubist Baer said.

No detail escapes his attention.

He begins, as do most players, by making a book of all the excerpts that
the orchestra has requested and any additional excerpts he thinks he may
be asked to sight-read in the audition. In his practice he always uses
the same music stand and tuba stands (one for a tuba in the key of C and
one for an F tuba), and sits on the same stool.

He sets up his equipment in exactly the same way every time he practices
and takes it all with him to the audition, in a box weighing about 250
pounds, where he sets it up that way again.

"I create a comfort zone, where everything is automatic," he said.

Baer and Mouser, good friends from their years together in the MSO,
coined the term "boot camp" to describe the process of getting ready for
an audition.

"It's just like preparing for a big race or a big game," Mouser said.
The bassoonist's preparation includes working out at a gym, switching to
decaffeinated coffee and taking vitamins to stay healthy.

Baer gave up all alcohol. Because he was spending less time in the gym
and more time practicing, he also modified his diet to stay fit and
healthy and began taking vitamins.


Practice is key

Setting up comfort zones, eating right and taking vitamins may help get
players in shape for an audition, but nothing takes the place of plain
old practice.

Baer likes to work on the excerpts and etudes that relate to technical
issues the excerpts present. He works on musicianship by playing Brahms'
Lieder, expressive vocal pieces with piano accompaniment. He works on
pitch by playing notes against a drone tone.

Baer will play pieces written for C tuba on the F instrument, and vice
versa, to avoid the musical and technical ruts that repetition can
create.

Mouser focuses on the excerpts, starting out slowly with a metronome to
ensure that tempo is constant and rhythms are exact. Over the course of
days and weeks he gradually speeds them up, taking them faster in small
metronomic increments. Once they are up to tempo, he slows them back
down and starts over.

He also likes to work on fundamentals, scales and arpeggios, that keep
technique fluid, and he spends a lot of time listening to recordings of
pieces on the audition list.

Haskell said she "becomes a hermit for a couple of months" as she
prepares.

"My audition preparation has changed dramatically," she said. "When I
was young I really didn't know how to prepare. I would practice
excerpts, but I was kind of haphazard about it."

Now in her 40s, Haskell has had to re-examine her approach to the
clarinet, both mentally and physically.

"Warming up is really crucial for me now," she said. "I pay much more
attention to my body than I used to when I was younger. I have realigned
what I did with the instrument to change some technical aspects of my
playing that I could get away with in my 20s and 30s." She has included
taking Alexander Technique classes to rid herself of unwanted physical
tension.

All three players try to play for other musicians as much as possible,
taking their comments to heart.

Playing for musicians who don't play your instrument brings a different
perspective, one unclouded by knowledge of the instrument's technical
quirks and difficulties.

"I played in the concert hall at Wisconsin Lutheran College as I was
preparing," Haskell said. "I made sure it was really cold in there and
asked the people listening to me to make lots of noise while I played. I
tried to create any unpredictable circumstances I could, because
auditions just never go the way you think they are going to go."

She recalled an audition a few years ago in which a stagehand walked on
the stage while she was playing, slamming a door loudly in the process.
Someone else kicked a soda can down some stairs as she played. She was
allowed to play again but was rattled by the distractions.

Baer likes to practice outside, saying, "It's the largest hall you will
ever have to fill." He said that all of the major auditions or
competitions he has won have included lots of outdoor practice.


In tune with rejection

Part of successful auditioning is learning be a good loser.

The New York Philharmonic received more than 300 resumes for the tuba
job Baer recently won, according to Eric Latzky, director of public
relations for the orchestra. More than 100 players showed up for live
preliminary auditions at Avery Fisher Hall. Numerous others sent tapes.

A smaller full-time orchestra such as the MSO will receive about 150
resumes when a string opening is announced, according to Pretat, with
about 100 players reserving a spot for a live audition. The number drops
just a bit for winds, brass and percussion auditions.

"Auditioning is not just a crapshoot," said Dean Borghesani, principal
timpanist with the MSO. "It's hard work, perseverance and dealing with
rejection." He knows whereof he speaks. Borghesani took 28 auditions
before he won his job with the MSO and is currently in the early stages
of writing a book on the audition process.

"I know that auditions are very difficult to win and I figure if it's
meant to be, then it's meant to be," Haskell said. "I am not saying I
get to that point on the first day after the audition. I get kind of
tired and droopy for a little while after an audition I don't win, but
then I am fine."

Mouser and Baer used not winning in auditions for the Boston Symphony
Orchestra to hone their audition skills. They took comments from the
audition committee to heart and purchased new instruments, which changed
their sound tremendously.

But rejection isn't permanent. Haskell auditioned for St. Louis and was
rejected, only to win the job a couple years later. Mouser auditioned
three times for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, over the course of several
years, before winning.

Pretat added that after all the preparation, emotional upheaval and
considerable expense of taking an audition, "A lot of it is just who had
a good day and who had a bad day."


######

Here's a look at the audition process for a big orchestra:

Orchestras preparing to hold auditions typically place an announcement
in the International Musician, the monthly newspaper of the American
Federation of Musicians, a branch of the AFL-CIO.

Applicants are required to submit a one-page resume.

After reviewing the resumes, many orchestras will select the players
they would like to hear in the preliminary round of the audition
process. Some orchestras will accept recorded auditions in the
preliminary round; a few others, including the Milwaukee Symphony
Orchestra, will hear anyone who wants to play an audition.

The orchestra sends each player a list of excerpts taken from the
orchestral repertoire. The excerpts represent prominent or difficult
passages the player might expect to play in an orchestral position. A
sight-reading component is also usually included.

Hopeful musicians, most of whom have worked on these excerpts and played
in orchestras for years, practice and prepare.

Players travel to the city of the audition at their own expense. Some
arrive several days early to allow their instruments / reeds to adjust
to the humidity and / or altitude in which they will be playing.

On audition day, those auditioning arrive at the hall, sign in, warm up
and wait their turn.

Playing behind a screen to prevent any chance of discrimination, and
cautioned not to clear their throats or make other sounds that might
betray gender, each player has five to 10 minutes to play for a panel of
players from the orchestra.

A few of musicians advance to the semifinal round in which they play
another round of excerpts, and sometimes with members of the section for
which they are auditioning.

A final audition is held in which the winner is selected or the decision
is made to start the process over again.

Winners perform with the orchestra for one to two years, with their
performance under constant evaluation. At the end of that time, the
players are granted tenure, meaning the job is theirs, or the orchestra
re-auditions the job.



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