Klarinet Archive - Posting 000933.txt from 1998/04

From: Roger Garrett <rgarrett@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: National Symphony 2nd Clarinet Job
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 19:18:57 -0400

On Thu, 16 Apr 1998, Jonathan Cohler wrote:

> The arguments I have seen so far don't wash.

Um, they don't wash with what? If you are upset, contact your
congressman. You can't change the way symphony orchestras audition by
complaining to all of us and yelling at us for not agreeing with your
position.

> The fact that businesses don't interview every resume sender is irrelevant
> and not even vaguely comparable to the situation of the National Symphony.
> When one applies for a job in a "normal" business, there are hundreds if
> not thousands of jobs available from hundreds of companies in that business
> that open up on a regular basis.

See above statement.

> Symphony orchestra jobs for clarinetists in the U.S. are quite rare indeed.
> In fact, I recall a posting that said there are only 18 (or so) full time
> orchestras in the U.S. Each of these has only three or four clarinet jobs,
> so we are talking about a total field of 50 to 70 jobs.

So what? They don't have to consider your personal student just because
she has won two awards and you say she is great. I won two awards also,
one as soloist with one of the major symphonies that is part of the 18 or
so full time jobs you mention.......but I was not qualified then to
audition for the National Symphony.

> I also believe that the average tenure in these jobs exceeds the average
> tenure of, for example, a software engineer by a factor of five or more. A
> few examples are Pasquale Cardillo (2nd clar BSO ~48 years), Stanley
> Drucker (1st clar NY Phil 50 years), John Bruce Yeh (Asst. Princ. Chicago
> ~19 years), Loren Kitt (1st clar National Symphony ~28 years), Harold
> Wright (1st Boston Symphony, ~24 years). Someone from the ASOL or the AFM
> could probably tell us the average tenure of a clarinet player in a
> full-time orchestra.

Where are the Principal Second Clarinet players listed above? How long
did each of these players stay in their first job? Principal first is
much different than Princiapal second......the turnover is much
greater.......you are comparing apples to oranges. For someone who relies
so intensely on statistics and numbers and double blind tests you now rely
on "I also believe....." and compare numbers of a few......let's get some
real statistics back - then the argument will be more credible.

> While the argument that principal clarinet positions should be more
> exclusionary might seem more reasonable on the surface, but that would
> exclude people like Ricardo Morales, for example, who won the Met position
> at age 21. That said, I understand perfectly well the practice of inviting
> certain highly experienced, well-known players (presumably principal in
> some other orchestra) directly to the second round of a set of auditions.
> But this does not preclude letting anyone who gets on the airplane to
> audition at the first round.

Are you saying your student is as talented as Ricardo Morales? If so, by
all means complain. Fly to the city of the audition and make a stink.
Prove your point! But......trying to convince us isn't going to do any
good. Many of us have had extremely talented students lose competitions
and/or not be allowed to audition for something. I had a student actually
win a position in one of the top service ensembles only to show up for the
job and be turned back because he had asthsma and wasn't allowed to begin
basic training.

> When I was a kid, which was the same time when John Yeh was a kid, no
> orchestras (major or minor) excluded people from auditions based on
> resumes. And yes, they got the same 200 applicants for every job back then
> too. (In fact, I believe they used to get more applicants, on average,
> twenty years ago than they do now, as music school enrollments have
> declined for wind/brass/perc players).

> The argument made by Roger Garrett that some get into the audition over
> others because some teachers pushed more or more successfully, or were
> somehow better connected to the audition committee, is precisely the kind
> of biased "old boys club" hiring practice which gives our music business a
> bad name.

If you want to make changes in a system you feel is unfair, griping here
won't help. Find a way to professionally, intelligently, calmly approach
the people who make such changes and visit with them about it. Become
persuasive......you may be right in the way you feel....it is the way you
go about resolving it (blasting a personnel manager and demanding to have
Loren Kitt call you!) that hurts your case.

> Of course, if this exclusionary practice is common among full-time
> symphonies now (which I refuse to believe until shown the contrary), and I
> would love to know which other orchestras do this, then as teachers we
> should advise our students to make "creative" resumes, and pull as many
> back-door, "old-boys-club" strings as we know of every time we send a
> student out for a first-round audition into these old-boy-clubs.

Well, now you have a project......go out and see if you can fix the
real-world problems we face in every job we have held. I support your
cause.....if not the way you go about it. But, passion counts for a lot.

Good luck to you!

Roger Garrett
IWU