Pacific Symphony’s Auditions Were Anything but Five Easy Pieces

The 200 candidates for the 14 openings at the Pacific Symphony have come and gone, leaving behind memories, broken hearts, seven happy potential new hires and many fatigued audition committee members.

“It was tremendously exhausting,” said concertmaster Endre Granat, who heard about 75 musicians try out in the last 2 1/2 weeks for just 11 spots in the string section. “It’s a tremendous responsibility. The person’s fate is in your hands. . . . Also, the orchestra’s future was in your hands.”

About 500 musicians responded to the orchestra’s ad for string and trombone openings in the May issue of International Musicians newsletter. About 200 took the next step of confirming dates to play before audition committees (made up of orchestra principals) at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. They had to pay their own transportation and hotel costs.

To ensure anonymity, applicants auditioned from behind a large black screen. Those who survived the preliminary cuts repeated the process at the finals, at which music adviser Kazimierz Kord joined the committees.

Seven were expected to sign contracts offered to them.

“Our aim was to the hire the best for this orchestra at this particular juncture,” Granat said. “Everything is so crucial. The orchestra is progressing from the little ugly duckling. . . . It’s tremendously important to do everything right.

“We have an opportunity that probably will be never again repeated. . . . The musicians will be there to stay. Conceivably, they could be staying with the orchestra for 45 years.”

Violinist candidates began with a movement from Bach’s Partita No. 2, “so we had objective comparisons,” Granat said.

They followed that with excerpts from two of Mozart’s violin concertos and orchestral passages from symphonies by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann, plus Strauss’ “Don Juan” and Britten’s “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.”

Granat said the quality of the applicants ranged widely, as they auditioned anywhere from three to 20 minutes.

“Some had three minutes and we saw it was hopeless. Forget it. But when they showed some promise, we had to (decide) whether the person was nervous or inept. If we thought they were nervous, we went straight back to the Bach. We passed quite a few people onto the finals that way.

“We kept asking more and more, tougher things, trying to find where are the limits.”

Committee members took notes and at intervals would discuss the applicants, whom they knew only by numbers.

Principal trombonist William Booth said: “The one satisfaction in this process is that there was generally agreement at that particular moment on who sounded very good or who were the better candidates.”

Committee members then voted.

Principal cellist Stephen Erdody said that in the preliminaries, “generally the vote was 5 to 0, 4 to 1. Very few times it was 3 to 2. . . . We could tell within the first 10 to 15 seconds of the audition. It was real clear when someone came and had something to offer. Only occasionally--and it was very occasionally--did someone come back (after a poor start) and really knock our socks off.”

Erdody said the most common problems among the string applicants were playing rhythms incorrectly and not following the dynamics indicated.

“It was very surprising,” Erdody said. “People would play forte from the word go. . . . It was really nice to hear some play who followed the dynamic scheme and played the right rhythms.”

The trombonist applicants shared these problems, according to Booth, “but most of all it was a matter of concept, of the appropriate character or style of the various excerpts.”

The committees and Kord decided not to offer a contract for the post of assistant concertmaster because “we didn’t come across the right person,” Granat said.

“For that position, we expect a little more. There is no room to be nervous as assistant concertmaster. One first (requirement): The guy has no nerves. . . . No question, you have to be able to play every single note just right and not just well, but in a musical manner.”

Generally, the committee members thought that the auditions were handled as fairly as possible.

“I’ve never been involved in anything so careful on that level,” said tuba player James Self, a member of the trombone committee. “Most top orchestras don’t really get that assertive about (maintaining anonymity for the applicants), especially in the finals. Almost all of them take the screen down. . . . Here, I had absolutely no idea who anybody was. I liked that.”

But Granat, who also called these auditions “the fairest I have ever been involved in, on either side of the fence,” said there is one drawback to the strict anonymity:

“What do you do with someone who plays the solos beautifully but not the orchestra excerpts? If that person is 18, that’s fine. They can play with the orchestra and grow. If they’re 55, that’s another matter. But we had to go by strictly on what we heard.”

Booth too had some reservations about the system.

“I think we were rather careful not to be overly harsh,” he said. “I’m sure, though, that there were some good players (who were) not passed onto the finals for one reason or another. It may have been they didn’t have a good day or were nervous. That’s always possible.

“Yet, when looking for the best musicians, you can only go on what you hear at the time.”