“Aspen Audition” from The Many Stories of Bill Fitzpatrick. (Video no.2/54)
Channel: Bill Fitzpatrick's Videos
Date: 09/10/2021

Video Transcription …
It was 1971 and this was my first audition at the Aspen Music Festival. I was very nervous so I decided to read quartets with my Nashville friend Lennie and some students to calm myself down. We read this particularly difficult last movement of a Haydn quartet and when we finished I decided to look at it more carefully. The next day in my audition I played part of my Tchaikovsky concerto and then the music director, Jorge Mester, placing some music on my stand, said with a twinkle in his eye, "Read this". I looked at the music and sure enough it was the same movement I had looked at the night before. So I thought, “Should I tell him” and then I thought, "No,"! I got the highest chair a student could get in the Festival Orchestra, fourth chair, in the first violin section!