I was just reading along here, and thinking that I’d much rather whiteboard for the rest of my life than ever take another orchestral audition, although each of these practices is only loosely related to what you will do on the job itself. I recently switched to software development from a professional career in classical and jazz music. Here’s the view from the performance hall: A top five orchestral audition (the ones that pay a sort of "living wage") comes around 2-4 times a year these days, if you’re very lucky. Typically, around 200 players of that instrument apply for this rare opportunity, and they come from all over the world- language is no barrier-we welcome international competition, and they will have no problem working here if not from the USA. Conversely, Americans can’t really audition in the EU, with rare exceptions for principals and special situations. There are no even slightly weak players anymore; everyone at the audition has a list of around 20- 30 complete symphonic pieces (we don’t get these from books- we buy the complete scores, and are prepared with pieces not on this list— we have to take the other 2 that year, remember.) rock solid memorized, along with at least two of the required/allowed concertos, a Bach Suite, and possibly some longer solos that come up in the orch. repertoire. Each piece is around 15-20 pages long, and represents tricky “algorithms" in performance technique. (think of it like this- one might be: “performing Dijkstra’s algorithm in the manner of a Shakespeare monologue, but in his accent, using his exact vocal inflections, breathing points, and slang ornaments to show you understand the linguistic trends of his time and heritage-but yelling it from a stage on demand through a fussy megaphone prone to glitch, while evoking the feeling of a whisper in an office”, and that would be one of 20) There is always sight reading at major orchestral auditions— I never took one that didn’t have it. Every single player at the audition is a graduate of Juilliard (or another one of the top 5 private conservatory programs in the US) and the age range is from about 20-50 because there are no jobs. (think the top 5 CS grads of Stanford, MIT, etc… dating back to the 90s) We have all known one another since childhood, because it takes that long to learn the required repertoire and technique. At the audition, zero-1 mistakes are allowed, because there is no other way to cut people from rounds- everyone is prepared to an Olympic level, and many are on beta-blockers or complex drug cocktails so they can handle the pressure of doing this several times a year. This has all been the case since the early 90s. Younger auditioners who don’t already play in major orchestras (yes, these players are competing too, so think- top professor in CS/AI at Stanford against you at the whiteboard) must put in 4-7 hours every day for 5-7 months before the audition (players know it will come up before it is announced and practice old lists- like for the MET Orchestra or others). In addition to this, a string player can not compete acoustically in a hall with colleagues who play Strads on an instrument that costs less than $30,000. (this has nothing to do with their technique) To think that someone could win one of these with just an undergrad degree is ludicrous. Orchestral rep is not really covered in this fashion in undergraduate work. In addition, the orchestra often selects no one at all from these highly qualified people, each of whom paid for a plane ticket and hotel room for three nights, not to mention a $100 set of strings a bow rehair, and perhaps a $200 instrument adjustment, and perhaps a “lesson” with a member of the section- also $120-200. Taking a single audition is very, very expensive. Auditions at lesser orchestras that do not pay a living wage often have much longer repertoire lists and demands (insecurity with their status/ignorance about what separates the wheat from the chaff), but one still has to fly/hotel there.
All that said, orchestra auditions didn’t used to be like this. They started out in the 40s and 50s resembling more of a whiteboard kind of a thing. Just saying— we need to think about where this might be going one day...