News from Philly

[TubaRay]

I also wonder how long it will be before tuba is a "sissy girl instrument" like flute!!! And all the heavy guys with fat cheeks will have to play something else, like violin, because of all the grade school girls who will take up tuba now.
MA

Interesting thought!

[kontrabass]

I agree with you for the most part, Gator...I think Fountains is emphasized way too much compared to its importance in the repertoire.
But the purpose of the audition is not only to find the best musical fit for the orchestra, although that's the main goal - sometimes, with as many as 100+ applicants showing up for a tuba position, there just has to be a quick way of weeding out those who are less qualified. Fountains is HARD, unless you've got great technique, and even then it's not easy. So it should stand to reason that those players who can't put forth a good effort, making a solid sound in the low register on Fountains in an audition setting, are not going to win the job. Fountains, like Bydlo, can be a really convenient way to weed out those players who don't represent the "total package".

[Chuck Jackson]

Seems to me that Fountains is kicking enough butt to be whined about. Suck it up and practice. Carol is a phenom who practices. That is the only inspiration anyone needs.

Chuck"who admits his failings openly and who feels that Fountains is a GREAT leveler(in the literal and figurtive sense)"Jackson

[Steve Marcus]

Fountains was not on the list this time. (which is actually a good idea).

Everything is always on "the list".

sightreading

Besides, Carol will be playing Fountains with the orchestra in their 2006-2007 season.

[UDELBR]

An impressive piece for the stupid

I've heard Warren Deck play this excerpt alone in a room. I don't think he's stupid, and I don't consider myself stupid for being impressed with his ability on this excerpt, both technique and musicianship.

What exactly are you trying to say?

(thinking it's probably not so "stupid" after all if you're able to nail this particular excerpt...)

[UDELBR]

To be quite honest Fountains is not that difficult

Hmmm. I'd be interested in hearing your next concert, cktuba. When is it?

[windshieldbug]

When is it?

Got a hankering for Tiger Rag?

[UDELBR]

To be quite honest Fountains is not that difficult

Hmmm. I'd be interested in hearing your next concert, cktuba. When is it?

So why the sarcasm directed at me?

'Cuz you had it comin', cuz.

("not that difficult"? REALLY??? Truly accurate? Truly consistent? )

[windshieldbug]

Compared to a violin part?

How about a VIOLA part?

[MartyNeilan]

Compared to a violin part?

How about a VIOLA part?

Does the viola part to Fountains burn longer than the violin part??

Marty "Who played Pines of Rome once and remembers a lot of loud low notes and a cheesy birdcall recording" Neilan

[windshieldbug]

Does the viola part to Fountains burn longer than the violin part?

No, but the violists actually think it's in-tune ...

[bttmbow]

Back on topic...

Carol is an amazing musician who happens to play the tuba; the Philadelphia Orchestra won this audition, if you ask me.

Brava, Carol!

CJH

P.S.
Say hi to FK for me; I owe him a call (oops.)

[Steve Marcus]

Sean,

When is the last time that you had 15,000 views of one thread?

[Tubaryan12]

Sean,

When is the last time that you had 15,000 views of one thread?

The Bloke thread comes to mind

viewtopic.php?t=11934

[gwwilk]

Sean,

When is the last time that you had 15,000 views of one thread?

The Bloke thread comes to mind

viewtopic.php?t=11934

The Bloke thread took a lot longer to reach that number of reads than the 10 days that this one has been around. Not that people don't care about Bloke, mind you, it's just that this thread probably has a broader interest base.

[MikeMason]

Not that this should be taken the wrong way but isn't there enough kissing the ground of Carol. Yes she's a great player and congratulations for winning the Philly audition. All i'm saying is that extreme idolization of someone or something makes that thing/person more than human. We all have the capacity to become who we emulate. Less focus on the greatness of others and more focus on the journey to becoming great ourselves. Again, this isn't a slam on anyone, just a random thought.

Yeah,but, in this case, i think we can make an exception.

[anonymous4]

Perhaps Mr. Self is confused and ALL of these wanna-be studio tubists do have the capacity (talent?) to play at the requisite level and all that is required is more effort and experience.

When people start putting boxes around themselves and using words like "can't", then it doesn't really matter how much inherent talent they have, the battle's already been lost. There was a time when the Pros were the Joes. God didn't just come down one day and say "Here's all the talent and ability you'll ever need, go forth and conquer". They had to work for it. Some people have to work harder than others, but the ones who really want it don't let a little detail like that get in the way.

[MaryAnn]

Some people have to work harder than others, but the ones who really want it don't let a little detail like that get in the way.

You are wrong, O tuba-breath. There are a plethora of people out there who really want it, who encoutered the brick wall of the limit of their talent. Apparently you have never put intense effort into something you have more love than talent for; when it happens, you might find your eyes opened just a crack.

For example, how about someone with cerebral palsy who would like to be a slalom skier in the Olympics, and who was willing to put unbelievable amounts of work into achieving that?

I'm not saying that even with prodigious talent work is not required, because it is. It's just that someone who is "gifted beyond belief" is able to get farther with that work than someone who is comparatively a klutz.

MA, who is familiar with several brick walls

[windshieldbug]

MA, who is familiar with several brick walls

What she said.

MK, who got REAL familiar with one particular brick wall

[Tuba-G Bass]

Female student wins tuba chair in Philadelphia Orchestra
By: TOM KRISHER (Tue, Mar/14/2006)

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - It's 9:30 on a Saturday night, and Carol Jantsch's cell phone is ringing.

She's 20 years old, she's in State College, Pa., for an ultimate Frisbee tournament, and she has no idea who'd be calling from the 215 area code.

On the other end is the personnel manager for the Philadelphia Orchestra, one of America's finest symphonies.

"He told me that they'd like to offer me an audition," recalled Jantsch, now 21, a tuba player in her senior year at the University of Michigan.

The call last April began an arduous process that involved multiple auditions and performances with the orchestra before Jantsch won the tuba job last month from a field of 195 musicians.

Orchestra officials say she is the first woman to earn a tuba seat with a symphony considered to be among the top five in the United States. She also may be the youngest person ever to win a top-five tuba spot, although memories and records are fuzzy before the early 1930s.

That she won the seat at such a young age is remarkable by all accounts, but was expected by those who have taught her.

"This is no surprise for us," said Michael Haithcock, Michigan's director of bands. "Over four years, we've just been accustomed to Carol's depth of talent."

The soft-spoken Jantsch, daughter of an Ohio emergency room physician and a vocal music instructor, said her parents unwittingly started her tuba career when they forced her to take piano lessons at age 6.

It didn't take long for her mother, Nancy, who teaches at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, to hear her daughter's talent.

"She could make the simplest stuff sound very musical," Nancy Jantsch said.

Carol Jantsch became interested in low brass when she was 9 at an arts camp in northern Michigan. She picked up a euphonium, the tuba's smaller cousin, and could play it immediately, she said.

"I always knew I was sort of ahead of the game," Jantsch said.

She began playing consistently in elementary school and started to dabble in tuba in seventh grade. When her family moved to Worthington, a Columbus, Ohio, suburb, she switched to the larger horn. But high school there was difficult for her.

"Everyone who was there had been there since they were zero years old," she recalled. "They didn't need any friends."

After her freshman year, Jantsch returned to summer camp, where teachers encouraged her to attend the Interlochen Arts Academy, a boarding high school for talented artists near Traverse City, Mich.

Her instructor, Tom Riccobono, said she auditioned against two upperclassmen for first chair in the top band.

"She just wasted them," he recalled.

Interlochen helped her grow socially, Riccobono said. Instructors marveled at her math skills, and she discovered ultimate Frisbee, a game similar to football.

Although she plays an instrument normally reserved for males due to their larger lung capacity, Jantsch said she has never felt out of place.

Tuba professors say that Jantsch's lung capacity may be less than male players, but it doesn't matter.

"You still have to be efficient," said Don Harry, associate professor of tuba at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. "She's the most efficient person, probably on the planet."

Jantsch decided to attend Michigan largely because she was impressed by Fritz Kaenzig, the school's tuba instructor.

She won a seat in Michigan's top symphony band, one of only two or three freshmen to do so. Kaenzig recalled that in Jantsch's first studio class, she played a difficult sonata from memory. "All the graduate students kind of looked at each other and rolled their eyes and said 'Oh, no.'"

As a sophomore at Michigan, Jantsch auditioned for the New York Philharmonic, finishing as a semifinalist.

She kept looking for jobs, though major orchestra tuba posts open only once every two or three decades.

When Philadelphia's opened in 2005, Jantsch applied but was summarily rejected for lack of professional experience.

Her breakthrough came when she sent a compact disc to apply for Bar Harbor Brass Week, a summer program for college students in Maine.

Blair Bollinger, the Philadelphia Orchestra's bass trombone player and chair of its tuba audition committee, is Bar Harbor's music director, and he listened to Jantsch's CD in his car.

It was a performance of a difficult violin concerto she had transcribed for tuba.

"It really was expressive and technically brilliant," Bollinger said. "I was just sort of flabbergasted."

He played the CD for his colleagues, who agreed to bring Jantsch in for an audition.

She made the first cut, but no one emerged as a solid favorite in round two.

So six musicians, including Jantsch, were asked to fill in for the orchestra's longtime tuba player who retired in May.

Before her performances, Bollinger said they told Jantsch that she played great, but they questioned how well she'd fill the bottom of the orchestra.

"She absolutely rose to the occasion," he said.

In February, the committee called back 25 tubists for final auditions.

In the initial rounds, musicians were behind screens so the judges couldn't see them.

Jantsch advanced to the finals, and on Feb. 22 played without a screen against two men with far more orchestra experience, Bollinger said.

"I was happy with what I did," Jantsch said. "I knew it was representative of my playing. That's all you can really ask for."

At 11:30 p.m., the personnel director told all three that Jantsch had won the job, which pays around $102,000 per year.

"What an awesome feeling," Jantsch said. "It was so great to be daydreaming about something for such a long time and actually have it come true."

She probably will start in Philadelphia in September.

Kaenzig said although it's unusual for such a prestigious orchestra to take on someone so young, he knows Jantsch has the talent to succeed.

"I feel like the Philadelphia Orchestra is getting somebody who is going to bring them great honor," he said. "They're taking a chance, but not really."

Article's URL:

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/ ... 25871.html