Posted by Rick Denney on June 06, 2000 at 10:18:06:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Arnold Jacobs Poll posted by Dale on June 05, 2000 at 23:28:10:
What about Sumner Erickson in Pittsburg? He won that audition when he was about 18, with only Austin's Rick Colvin (and a little bit of Steve Bryant) on his list of teachers. That was in the early 80's, and I don't think things have changed that much since then.
My understanding of the story is that Sumner was up there for an audition to enter Curtis, and answered the cattle-call from Pittsburg on a lark. But that story had gone around the campfire three or four times by the time it worked its way down to me, even though I was living in Austin at the time.
As with anything, you have to account for the surprise candidate who dominates the audition, whether it's held for invitees only or in a cattle call. And the world's greatest players tend to have a high representation of getting jobs earlier than most, because, well, they're the world's greatest players. Schmidtz, Cooley, Sanders, Jacobs, Torchinsky, and so on all got orchestra gigs unusually early in their careers. Statistics and trend analyses are confounded by the small number of full-time orchestra gigs.
Sure, Jacobs may have been pursued and invited, but if he didn't deliver the goods during the private audition, he would not have gotten the gig. And if he didn't deliver the goods in the job, day after day, he wouldn't have held it.
Rick "An interested outside observor of the process" Denney