Posted by David Carter on September 12, 2003 at 00:13:16:
In Reply to: orchestral snobbery? posted by JacksonesqueQuestion on September 10, 2003 at 23:40:56:
Many audition committees use the same old list each time. The experience and training of orchestral musicians inbreeds conservatism. I bet across the instruments in the orchestra, most auditions have no required pieces on the list that are less than 50 years old. I play bass bone and except for the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra and the Neilson flute concerto most of the list is from the 19th century and this is the 21st century. Often it happens that the list is put together not by a tuba player but a music director whose conception of the instrument and its important literature may be different from yours. Also it's true that committees want to listen to music that they know well. You may play the Kraft Encounters well but what does that tell the Audition committee how you will play in the Orchestra? The committees such as I've been on don't really like listening to most of the candidates, or even the music they have selected for the candidates to play. They want to quickly pick a few finalists and move on. The audition repetoire can be seen as test pieces, do everything right and you move on to the next level. The standard pieces do a reasonable job of testing various skills you need including familiarity with 19th century orchestral literature. This isn't very original or creative, but neither is playing the 1812 overture for the billionth time. And that's why music schools try to turn out students who are clones of the teachers who are clones of their teachers. The whole rationale behind proffesional full time and high paid American orchestras is that they deliver the best possible quality of product, I don't think any of them try to sell themselves as the most original or creative groups ever. They emphasis the best quality product becuase the audience they have grown old with prefers the music of the past. And if your not doing it better then there's nothing special about it. Unfortunalty this attitude of quality will often come across as snobbery. And Orchestras (just like madison avenue) have been known to use snob appeal to help sell their product.