I was number 55 at the Met audition, and I won

Hugo A. Valverde, a 22 year-old student from Costa Rica, pulled off an astonishing coup last month by winning the second horn seat at the Metropolitan Opera.

He tells Audition Cafe how it happened:

‘I took 3 auditions before this one. I auditioned for The Florida Orchestra, The Phoenix Symphony and The Sarasota Orchestra…

‘I was in shock when I heard I made it to the finals, but I didn’t let my mind affect the way I was feeling at that moment. I said “ok man, you are prepared, you have out a lot of effort in this audition so, now you just have to go a focus on the music, sound, clarity, intonation, etc; I didn’t even run the entire excerpts before my final (prelims and semis as well) round, I just played the very first note and that was it….

He sounds pretty cool. Read more here.