Editorial: It’s time to change orchestra auditions
OrchestrasTwo posts this weekend about auditions in Europe and the US drew a tsunami of responses, mostly defending the current administrative practice of seeking to balance – that is, manipulate – new entrants to orchestra to assure a better general and ethnic distribution.
Worthy as that ultimate aim is, the rigging of auditions can be unfair to candidates who have expended money and time in pursuit of a position in a respectable orchestra.
In one case, the Minnesota Orchestra demanded demographic data from candidates. Why would this be necessary when the auditions are supposedly ‘blind’ and usually held behind a screen?
In the other, at an international European orchestra, candidates were told that two of their number had been pre-selected for a very shortlist. In other words, they might just as well have stayed at home.
Unfairness is embedded in the audition process. Our suspicion is that the situation is getting worse – at least for non-diverse applicants. The system desperately needs reformation. Some orchestras talking of scrapping blind auditions. Good idea, or not?
Do you want an orchestra with the most proficient applicants, or the most ethnically balanced?
Incredible that Norman is perpetuating the lie about Minnesota.
Countless readers pointed out that these questions are standard for job applicants in all sectors, whether you’re applying to be a server at a restaurant or work at a law firm.
People were asked to voluntarily participate **after** they applied. **Thus, everyone applied without providing this information.** The orchestra did not “demand” that anyone provide the information.
And if you click the link, I’m certain no personal identifying information is requested that would link people to their application.
This is just shameful.
Yes potential employers can collect race information for a variety of reasons. However, to ensure that they are incompliance with US Federal regulations, there needs to be a legitimate business reasons (which they did not articulate), the collection needs to be voluntary (which was not disclosed) and the collection needs to be anonymous (which may not be true based on clicking a link to a survey in a communication that identifies the person by instrument – the same way you are identified when you click links in emails sent to you). Legal and technical details are important.
So, in order:
1- It is considered legitimate to collect demographic data to monitor equal access to work and applications. In fact, the EEOC mandates it for a number of businesses, a category in which the Minnesota Orchestra, as a large employer, very possibly falls.
2- It is voluntary – nothing indicates it is mandatory. Those questions are ALWAYS voluntary.
3- It is explicitly stated in the email that data is stored separately from applicants’ names and instruments, and not linked to their identities. Unless you suggest they are lying (in which case, evidence?), that is not an issue if you actually bother reading the email.
As a side note, literally pretty much every major organisation in the world does this, in pretty much every country.
You’re being incredibly disingenuous, and you know it. Shame on you.
1. They do state the business reason — it is to inform their recruiting. They do not have to write a paragraph explaining they why.
2. While they do not explicitly say this is voluntary, they also do not say it is mandatory. Further, because people applied back in the winter, meaning 10 to 7 months ago, there’s no way that someone could think their application could somehow be impacted by this if they do not participate **because the hiring process is likely complete.**
3. They say the information will not be connected to either the name or instrument of applicants. You have zero evidence to show that the orchestra is knowingly lying or collecting the information in such a way that it could be connected back to individuals or instruments.
Just how did it happen that two commenters, Emil and Chiminee, independently wrote similar talking points, in the same order, and decided to number them in the same manner? Time for a “conspiracy” theory.
And the request came long after the audition had actually taken place!
You clearly don’t understand how demographic data is collected and handled by U.S. employers. Why do you keep misrepresenting the Minnesota Orchestra’s practices?
Well for once, and surprisingly, Chicago is ahead of the game here. They have already found a solution to the problem of orchestra auditions.
They hold “blind” auditions, and hire the daughter of the concertmaster.
Or, the committee members choose a principal oboe winner, but then they undo their choice, ostensibly under veiled threats, to hire the pupil of the music director’s Philly buddy instead.
Or, they don’t let re-audition the best principal horn in two generations, waving a lawyer’s letter that says he’s not a member, and kick him out of the orchestra instead because he’s simply too good.
Pretty straightforward.
David actually did re-audition for the horn position, and unfortunately had a bad day. Beyond that, I will not speak to that issue; I was sorry to see David go, although I was not part of or privy to the process.
But if you have a shred of actual evidence indicating that the auditions that hired Bea Chen and Will Welter were somehow rigged, it’s time to put up or shut up.
What a contemptible little man you are, making wild unsubstantiated allegations hiding behind an anonymous screen name!
amen. rats prefer to scurry in darkness.
Always so self-righteous. Always so disingenuous. People close to the situation know well that they tried very hard, with the cover of Muti, all kind of maneuvers, to not make him re-audition. Imagine how Cooper felt the day of the audition, being “assessed” by the same losers who wanted him out. I’m sure he was very relaxed and ready to give his very best. And by the way, I take his worst day over the very best day of the current principal, a hundred times over.
Wasn’t Bea Chen the one who lied about an injury to go play duo concerti with her father overseas and then got fired? I bet THAT wasn’t done behind a screen!
There remain only a few areas of human endeavor that haven’t been harmed by political correctness and the damaging effects of unearned rewards. We diminish the value of a meritocracy at our own peril. In the scheme of things having more minority representation in orchestras may not seem like a big deal, but giving a lesser player a position a coveted position because of some non-musical aspect will eventually lower the quality of the group. Stick with what has worked so well: may the best player win. If he/she doesn’t work out you dismiss them and try again. And I speak as a gay Latino.
If the Minnesota Orchestra accepts any public money or other fiscal benefits from the state or US Federal government, then the hiring approach likely violated Minnesota law (The Minnesota Human Rights Act) and the US Constitution (14th Amendment) and law (The Civil Rights Act of 1964). Leftist ideologues have been violating statutory and constitutional law in pursuit of their agenda, mostly via DEI programs that are similar to these auditions. The US SCOTUS started ruling against these programs with the 2023 case Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. The only legal way to achieve the goals of the Minnesota Orchestra is to educate musicians of all races and genders so that they have the skills to be selected based on merit, rather than their race or gender.
Joe,
The Minnesota orchestra *has* to send these surveys precisely because of requirements instituted in 1966 under…the 1964 law you cite. If you’ve ever worked for an employer in the US with more than 100 employees, you too have been sent these surveys when applying, or have sent them out yourself if you’ve hired. And you too were free to ignore them, as most do. This is not a 2024 DEI fad – it’s been the law of the land for fifty-eight (58!) years.
I have worked in the USA for 50 years for companies with far more than 100 employees and never have received a survey. Employers are not required to submit data on job applicants who are not hired for an EEO-1 report. Employing people based on race or gender is an illegal DEI “fad”.
Congratulations Joe! You’re part of the vast swaths of Americans who haven’t even noticed these surveys and still were gainfully employed.
Why stop there? Throw in the 13th Amendment and the Magna Carta too. How about the Constitution of Athens as listed in Aristotle’s Politics? The Ten Commandments? The Code of Hammurabi?
As for the SCOTUS case, apart from the fact that the institutions, situations, contexts, facts and applications are all different, it’s the same thing.
Wrong. The demographic survey went out months after the audition and hiring process was already completed, so had nothing to do with it.
Stop with the disinformation already.
Re: Minnesota: “Why would this be necessary” – it’s not necessary; it is required BY LAW for any business or public sector outfit in the USA with over 100 employees, which the Minnesota Orchestra certainly is, and has been required as such since *1966*. The Minnesota Orchestra didn’t institute this of their own volition any more than Exxon Mobil did, because, again, it is not optional for employers to have to send these surveys (but entirely optional for candidates to ignore, which most people do!). At this point, it’s clear you won’t admit to jumping the gun but at least any of your readers can come to these comments and leave with actual information.
“Do you want an orchestra with the most proficient applicants, or the most ethnically balanced?” – I think there’s only one right anwser and it’s the most proficient applicants!
It’s not true equality that ethnically will be one of the criterians that who will got the job.
True equality is that all who have required musical skills can take part to audition and the best player aka who can handle instrument most best will got the job. The musical / techinical level of professional musical ensemble will never grow / go forward if there would be players who are ethnically x but they are not the best players of their instrument.
And we audience / public members / non-musicians are coming concerts to listening well played music – not calcilating how many men, women, white, black, Asians etc are in orchestra. William Osbourne and Katherine Needleman would be propably only ones who would do this but they are spesific cases (unfortunately in negative mind). If I would be musician and e.g. black woman musician, I would want win job(s) because my playing was technically and musically best – not because I representing particular ethnically.
There is not “one right answer” because it is a bogus question that no one asks. It’s like asking whether you prefer a restaurant to serve you fish from the Pacific Ocean or plastic trash from the Great Garbage Patch.
No one – absolutely no one – is arguing against talent and merit. That’s just a simple invention.
No, it’s time to eradicate stupid Trials in the UK. It’s a scam – you’re now “one step closer” to getting a job in a Pyramid Scheme. If they actually just took the best player on the day perhaps their orchestras might even BEGIN to compare to their European counterparts. Sad but true.
The American system of orchestra auditions, with all rounds increasingly held behind a screen, is the fairest system we have in the business. Sure, is there nastiness and attempts to game the system and force out unwanted people in the trial/tenure process? Of course. And I can think of at least five or six auditions in America in the past few years that many have suspicions of being gamed or rigged, either transparently or not.
The fact remains, though, that the vast majority of blind auditions, however brutal they are, are fair and impartial and hire one of the best candidates for the job. (I don’t think, philosophically, a committee of 7-10 can choose a “best candidate” in a subjective field). Other industries, in fact, follow symphony orchestras as a model for removing bias in hiring. The blind audition is taught as a case study in MBA programs here. I don’t think anyone serious is talking about tearing this down because of one or two bad actors and nobody should be.
Well said. I’ve been a member of the AFM since 1971 and don’t remember hearing about charges being filed with them because an audition was improperly managed.
BTW, at one point in my career I managed a non-union orchestra. We used screens, though we obviously didn’t have to, to make sure that the process was a fair as possible.
Haha
Cleveland has one of the least fair auditions out of any orchestra in the US. Everyone knows it. If you didn’t study with a Principal or member there, you have a way smaller chance.
Look at the viola section. Every single player for decades besides Ramsay studied with Bob Vernon.
But that may change due to CIM’s drama.
Misunderstanding the Minnesota orchestra’s form benefits the status quo. The point of the firm is for them to TRACK applicant demographics, not to SELECT based on applicant demographics. In order to address a perceived problem, one needs data to define the problem. If the issue turns out to be there were no diverse applicants, for example, then a status quo result should be expected. Going beyond this, is fear-mongering, and projecting into the letter, rather than interpreting the letter. Journalism should elucidate the news, not further obfuscate, just my two cents.
Plus the form went out long after the audition was over.
I was filling in some medical documents several weeks ago that contained more than a few areas related to sex/gender. It included questions about whether I identify as “non-binary.”
Moreover, I’ve read that certain medical schools, such as reflected in their textbooks, are now frowning upon the idea that sex (ie, male or female) is determined by DNA. This is also related to presumably hard science, not the subjectivity of creativity, such as in art or music.
The politics or ideology is becoming an unwitting (or intentional?) parody of itself.
Perhaps this practice should be extended to other areas of human endeavor. Sports, for instance. Maybe it’s time the [insert name of favorite professional sports franchise here] look more like America.
Yeah, let’s give Asians a free pass onto every sports team. Just one spot please?
Am I alone in finding the suggestion that ethnic diversity and artistic merit are incompatible just racist and wrong?
Where do you read incompatible? They are, however, be clearcut choices.
What about the possibility that there are 6 candidates at the audition who are equally qualified? Is it better to choose the one who happened to play 0.01% better that day? Or should orchestras choose the one who will improve the diversity of the ensemble? Or should orchestras choose the one who has, in addition to a winning audition, skills in self-promotion that could be leveraged usefully by the marketing efforts of the orchestra?
Maybe the diverse candidates could practice .01% more and maybe that would alleviate their lack of representation…..as laid out in your very contrived, unrealistic situation.
You know everything (including musical genres) has a demographic. The demographics of classical music and country music are pretty white. Why are people in the classical world losing their minds about this about this? No one in the country world seems to care. And is it okay that almost every rap musician is black? Or do we need to try to coerce labels to release music by Hasidic Jewish rappers?
It’s really not fair.
For instance, some orchestras, like Charlotte, AUTO ADVANCE black or Hispanics to the Semi Finals. Ridiculous
if minorities want to be at the top of this slowly dying industry, have fun.
more dei and lower quality.
There is either a lot of willful disingenuousness or ignorance in these post. I’ve taken lots of auditions and never ONCE encountered a survey like this, even though many posters are claiming it’s required by law.