Cleveland

[MKainuma]

Cleveland Orchestra
Tuba

Resume Date - November 4, 2005

Audition Date - January 3, 2006

Starting Date - Employment will begin at the earliest availability of the successful candidate.

General Information - The Audition Committee reserves the right to dismiss immediately any candidate not meeting the highest professional standards of the Cleveland Orchestra. The winning candidate will be required to show proof of US citizenship or eligibility to work. Only a limited number of highly qualified applicants will be invited to audition. Please indicate your instrument on sent materials. Repertoire will not be given over the phone. The Cleveland Orchestra is an EOE.

Contact Information - Please send a one-page resume by mail, fax or e-mail to: The Cleveland Orchestra; Orchestra Personnel Office, c/o Steven Witser, Severance Hall; 11001 Euclid Avenue; Cleveland, OH 44106.

Fax - 216-791-4150

Email - snwitser@clevelandorchestra.com

Website - www.clevelandorchestra.com

[sc_curtis]

Was this advertised in the International Musician?

I checked around online, and can't find it posted anywhere. Couldn't even find it on their website.

Thanks,
Steve

[MKainuma]

It's posted on the AFM website.

[sc_curtis]

Thanks!

[anonymous4]

Will they be accepting tapes, or is this going to be an invite based on resume deal?

[anonymous4]

Anybody gotten a list for this yet? (or invited to audition for that matter)

Thanks!

[sc_curtis]

I'm still waiting for my rejection letter. I sent my resume about 2 weeks ago.

[anonymous4]

Is it soup yet? Did Cleveland send rejection notices via email last time? Has anybody heard anything?

Taped Audition Repertoire for
PRINCIPAL TUBA

I. SOLO:

Selection of your choice, not to exceed five minutes (no accompaniment required)

II. ORCHESTRAL EXCERPTS:

WAGNER: MEISTERSINGER OVERTURE
Letter J through K (Breitkopf Edition)

WAGNER: RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES
Bars 125 – 142

STRAVINSKY: PETROUCHKA
3 bars after #100 through 4 bars before #101

PROKOFIEV: SYMPHONY NO. 5
First Movement: #3 through 3rd bar after #4

MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO. 1
Third Movement: 4 bars before #3 to #4

BERLIOZ: SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE
Fourth Movement: #56 to 6 bars after #57
(Kalmus Edition)

All excerpts should be played in the above order. All individual excerpts are to be played continuously, however, breaks between excerpts are allowed.

[pierre]

I received it in an email from the personnel manager's office.

[happyroman]

Based on the composite list I have collected from more than 50 auditions, these are the top 6 excerpts asked. Amazing!

[Tubadork]

[/quote]Seeing as how the list was only given to a few specific invited individuals, I would assume that randomly sending in tapes would be uncouth. Yes?[quote]
It seems like anyone that sent a resume was sent the list (Unless I'm wrong). That's pretty standard practice.
Good luck to all, I hope they choose someone!
Bill

[Alex C]

A random tape may be "uncouth" but if you are in audition shape, send in your tape anyway. What have you got to loose?

The only really uncouth thing to do is sending a tape which doesn't represent an acceptable performance for a major sympony audition.

[windshieldbug]

these emails "inviting" tapes due Nov 28 barely give people 2 weeks to record...

Forgive me for butting in, but 2 weeks is more than enough time for a qualified player. As a matter of fact, in any orchestra of this caliber, you better be able to make a decent performance in one take. That's what the people in the seats are paying to hear.

I found a huge gap in what a school was able to provide you with in 4/6/8 years and the experience, talent, and capability that are required for a full time, major orchestra gig. It is kind of like people expecting to be able to be considered for the president of General Motors as an entry level job. Could the extremely rare person pull it off, for more than an hour? Maybe. But you sure gotta kiss a lotta frogs if you're going to go that route...

[UDELBR]

... the recording (two weeks to record and submit four minutes of extremely standard rep.) leaves the door open quite widely enough for a young aspiring "Bobo" to earn an invite.

Also, folks who are truly gunning for a big job never let these excerpts slip too far away from 'em (doesn't mean they practice them three hours a day, but they have practiced them to the point that the excerpts are somewhat 'hard wired', and should only require some dusting up).

Assuming said candidate is in any sort of shape to actually play the job, then ten days of tidying up excerpts and two days of recording oughta do it.

[UDELBR]

... the next aspiring "Bobo" as you derisively put it.

Bloke refers to Roger Bobo, one of the most incredible tuba virtuosos ever. Hardly a derisive term.

[happyroman]

I agree with the others who stated that two weeks should be plenty of time to make a tape of the excerpts Cleveland requested. These are the most commonly asked excerpts for tuba, and anyone seriously considering winning this job should be able to put them on tape in a very short time, perhaps in as little as a day.

Knowing that auditions occur periodically, sometimes with little notice, a serious applicant should have these excerpts in their daily routine, at a minimum.

[Tom]

There is little doubt that an orchestra in the league of Cleveland is looking for "the very best available player". However, from past results it is pretty clear that orchestras of this size are looking for "the very best available player" who already has some sort of widely-known reputation.

Posts such as this one may greatly annoy hopefuls (perhaps some remarkably fine players) who do not fit into this category, but history consistently demonstrates this to be so.

True.

This is exactly what resumes are for...to weed out all the people that are not "the very best available with a widely-known reputation." Cleveland is looking for exactly the type of tubist you describe as "the very best available" and with a "widely-known reputation."

May I inject some cynicism...these emails "inviting" tapes due Nov 28 barely give people 2 weeks to record...correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't the Cleveland audition earlier this year a zoo? As I recall reading, the original list of invitees to live auditions was fairly small, but the ranks of first rounders grew greatly when people complained, teachers wrote recommendations, etc...now here is the cynical thought: I believe that they are doing this to placate the masses (in other words, to tie people up with tape making instead of bombarding the personnel manager with requests for the first round).

Maybe some people will get a live audition solely as a result of the tapes, but I doubt it.

They are doing it to placate the masses, in my opinion. Instead of telling (perhaps) 75% of the applicants (fine players at that) they don't have a realistic shot at the job, they invite them and let them waste their time and Cleveland's time. Cleveland already knows exactly the kind of person they deem qualified (as do most orchestras when they hold auditions...that's the point of sending resumes...ie, they know if you're qualified before they ever hear you make a sound). The people they have in mind don't need to fall back on a tape to get in the door.

My cynicism with the Cleveland audition has to do solely with inviting applicants who sent in resumes 2+ months ago to now send in a tape with less than 2 weeks notice - I am simply highly skeptical that anyone will actually get a 1st round invite, much less win the audition itself, as a result of sending in a tape under these circumstances.

The rep is standard faire for tubists these days. Two weeks, while not a long time, is plenty of time for a truly qualified tubist to record the excerpts or submit a pre-existing recording that may have even been required for the position they already have.

An absolute unknown will probably not end up coming out of nowhere and winning the audition based on their prelim tape, but it could happen (see the Roger Bobo comment from Bloke). Their thinking is that anyone qualified for their job won't be an unknown.

My $.02

Tom "who can play and record the rep but knows he isn't qualified" B.

[anonymous4]

A younger player possibly wouldn't get this job even if he/she played better than everybody else at the audition. In the later rounds, when the committee is able to look at resumes, they could say: "Yeah, he's/she's a great player....but we have no proof that they'll be able to hold this job for the next 40 years. They've never done it before." If they decide this...fine, that's life. The days of somebody selling used cars for a living one day and then going on to play in a major orchestra the next day are over. People just play too well.

Now I know there are no such thing as moral victories and all, but to give a little encouragement to some younger chaps out there:

If somebody in college were able to play well enough to get past the tape round, and possilbly into some of the later rounds, that's quite an accomplishment in itself. Earlier, Bloke was talking about an "established reputation"...well what better way to start building yours than by showing you can hang with the best.

The bottomline...ignore all this TubeNet prattle and just make your very best tape. That's the only thing in your control.

[windshieldbug]

what better way to start building yours than by showing you can hang with the best...

The bottomline...ignore all this TubeNet prattle and just make your very best tape. That's the only thing in your control.

That's it in a nutshell! And if you want the gig, be ready to do it in on 2 weeks notice. Then get ready for step 2...

[MikeMason]

sounds like a fantastic opportunity to focus like a laser,internalize some bread and butter exerpts,and be heard by a top flight committee,all with a huge prize on the line.worst that can happen: you get better. not so bad...