Klarinet Archive - Posting 000135.txt from 1998/04

From: "Jason Hsien" <jasonavhs@-----.com>
Subj: Re: very young principal cl's
Date: Sat, 4 Apr 1998 03:01:09 -0500

-----Original Message-----
From: peter.stoll@-----.ca>

|Hi all,
|
|One of my students asked if it ever happens that a very young player wins
|a 1st audition, and is technically "the boss" of older, experienced
|orchestral clarinetists. Of course this does happen (I remember hearing
|about a flutist winning prin.flute in I think Cleveland at an age barely
|into the 2O's) and it got me thinking; what do you all think of this fact
|of life, versus say a situation where a young, brilliant player is started
|as say Assoc.1st or 2nd, and then as others retire, moves up. Might it not
|lead to real long-term tension if there's a more experienced and obviously
|great Assoc.Principal (no small achievement as jobs go) in a big
|orchestra, who may have been hoping to move up to the Principal job for a
|while, and then is bypassed by someone potentially a lot younger? A couple
|of years ago the Toronto Symphony denied tenure to a great young
|percussionist who'd won the Prin.Perc.job while still a student at
|Eastman, but didn't have the support of his section, or enough prof.
|experience. Just wondering.

I believe the issue here is simply the process of social promotion,
something that has also been highly debated in high schools and colleges,
where a student is promoted to the next grade level, regardless of how well
he or she does.

Why is it that social promotion to some of these players is just so much
more important than skill? By definition of social promotion, the worst
player could become lead chair, simply because he or she is older, has had
more experience as a professional (a bad professional, but a professional
nonetheless), and is more familiar. How can anyone justify this? Granted,
most of these attacks are by second chairs who are much older and have had
more experience towards the lead chair, but it's the same thing. The lead
chair earned the spot and is obviously more talented than the others.

true, I am only a high school student, and therefore, my perspective on the
music industry as a whole is limited, but I have seen social promotion in
the works before, and it's just really insane. In some cases, the worst
player is chosen to be lead chair and section leader, but is incapable of
playing the part, wheras his or her supporting section is abviously better
than he or she is, but is limited (sometimes, depends on the piece) by the
type of music, and is therefore, being held back from reaching their full
potential.

I also understand promotion by skill and can accept it. When I was in middle
school, and had really started working around with my clarinet (hadn't
started bass clarinet yet), my goal was to be lead chair of the section.
Yet, however hard I tried, I was always 3rd chair and the people in front of
me were one to two years younger than me. I accepted it.

Personally, I think this is all an ego thing, but people do differ about
this.

Jason Hsien
Student, Amador Valley High School
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