LA Phil concertmaster: I failed more auditions than I won

Nathan Cole, associate concertmaster in Los Angeles, has some good advice for people contemplating an audition for an orchestral place. Play to win, he urges. But what if you don’t?

Let’s make one thing clear right away: to win an audition, you have to play musically. This isn’t power lifting, and you can’t crush the competition with machine-like precision. If you’re going to win, it’s got to be with great violin playing. By definition that’s musical; I’ve never been part of a committee who thought otherwise. So you don’t need to sacrifice creative playing to go for a win.

But what about the slim odds of victory? Let’s say that 150 people take your audition, you all play at an appropriate level, and you’ve all made your goal a win. At least 149 of you will leave the audition having failed to achieve your goal. Yet I believe that this is the healthiest of all possible audition scenarios, for all 150 candidates.

Read on here.