Auditions Revisited II: The Breakthrough

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Greetings from Vienna!

There is yet another reason for this long absence – one which has been taking pretty much all of my free time which I would have been spending on writing blog entries such as this – the Bass Trombone audition at the New York Philharmonic. And I’m delighted that, as a result of the orchestra’s extensive audition process, I will be starting the position beginning with our Summertime Classics concerts in June. This is a great opportunity to explain my decision to pursue this career change, as well as detail some of the preparation involved in preparing for the audition.

When I started at the Philharmonic in 1997, it was the fulfillment of one of my dreams – to play trombone in a major symphony orchestra. It was also the perfect orchestra for me; close to where I grew up in NJ and near much of my immediate family, it also gives me an opportunity to collaborate with my former teacher, Joe Alessi, with whom I have a great working relationship and friendship.

When I first joined the orchestra, the Associate Principal position at the Philharmonic was ideal for my professional situation as well. In my prior position with the Pittsburgh Symphony, I needed to perform at a very high level out of the starting gate with very little time to grow into the job: an incredibly daunting task given my age (20 years old) and lack of experience. Moving to the Philharmonic allowed me the opportunity to learn how to be a Principal player gradually, both by playing the First Chair myself and by watching the way someone who is arguably the best in the business do it. Over the years I have become extremely fond of both this orchestra and its musicians, who in many cases are my musical family, and despite recently auditioning for Principal trombone positions in other orchestras, my heart has always truly been in New York.

At the same time, after performing all the duties of the Associate Principal position for the last 10 years, I’m ready for a change. I liken my current position as Associate to being a backup shortstop for the New York Yankees. It’s a terrific position to be in – you play for what is arguably the best team in baseball (though in the Yanks’ case they may not be following their losing woes of last week), knowing that every day you have a chance to be a part of something very special, and function primarily as Derek Jeter’s backup. In addition, you fill out your season by subbing in at all the infielder positions, either because of injury or illness, or because of the need for someone to get a break because of the heavy workload.

In my case, the variety of playing Bass Trumpet, Euphonium, some second and bass trombone, and Principal for good rep from time to time usually keep me busy enough to have weeks to look forward to during the weeks that I might not be terribly busy. If I were to remain Associate Principal for my career, it would have been a highly rewarding and enjoyable job.

However, in baseball terms, you go into the position knowing that when the Yanks play the Red Sox in the AL Championship Series, you’re going to be sitting on the bench unless one of the guys you’re backing up just can’t make it onto the field. It’s part of the job description for you to be ready to play at any time for any reason with any given notice. It’s one of the challenges of the job – being prepared to play even when you might not get the chance for a while. It’s an extremely important position, and in an orchestra such as the Philharmonic a very necessary one. Yet at this point I’m ready to be a fuller participant in the on-field action.

Thus the question, why switch to Bass Trombone? And the short answer is, simply put, that I absolutely love playing the Bass Trombone parts at the Philharmonic. And, though my road to the position may have been unconventional (going around the block to get to next door, so to say), it was a road nevertheless.

When I was at Juilliard, some of my classmates might remember me practicing, from time to time, the bass trombone parts to Fountains of Rome or Ride of the Valkyries. Ever since my earliest studies with Joe, I worked on my low register, trying to get it both full and gritty – I love sinking my teeth into that low ‘D’ at the end of Berg’s Drei Orchestücke! This continued when I was in Pittsburgh, and I occasionally covered the bass trombone part for certain rehearsals or concerts (even though I didn’t have a bass trombone on which to play it!). In NY, playing Bass Trombone for Don Harwood was part of my job description; when he was off for a week, it was my responsibility to cover for him.

In this capacity (and in covering for him when he’s been ill or unable to make it to a rehearsal or concert for weather or other reasons), I’ve had the opportunity to play bass trombone for Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan, Shostakovich’s First, Fifth and Eighth Symphonies, Brahms’s First and Fourth Symphonies, Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony and Swan Lake excerpts, Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony, Prokofiev’s Fifth and Seventh Symphonies, Copland’s Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo, John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine, Stravinsky’s Complete Firebird Ballet, and quite a few others that don’t come to mind right now. These experiences have only served to reinforce the love that I have of the low end of the trombone register.

Over the past couple of years, knowing that at some point Mr. Harwood would retire, I had the chance to seriously consider the question: “Am I ready for a career change? Would I truly be happy playing bass trombone?” And from the first time I asked myself the question, my answer has been, “Are you kidding?! Absolutely!”

So, as this blog has gone on long enough, I will end by saying that I am thrilled to be taking on this new position with all its challenges. It’s something I have only been able to dream about, and I’m excited that this dream has now turned into reality.

Best to you all,

Jim

Teacher as Student, Student as Teacher

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

It’s amazing how, when you put something on the back burner for a while with the intention of returning to it, it can take quite some time before you actually follow through. As I have found with this blog.

I have to thank the person who e-mailed me wondering why there hadn’t been any updates to my site in months. I have to reply that it’s a very good question that can only be partially answered by the presence of a precocious two-year-old. The rest of the answer is in parts timing, busy-ness, and the aforementioned placing this on the back burner. So, I apologize.

However, I do have much to write about, and will start with what is on my mind at the moment. To begin, this year marks the first year in which I am teaching at the Conservatory at Purchase College. I have been deriving much enjoyment from working with the students at Purchase, and I often find teaching to be a time for me to learn, oddly enough. I often find myself asking myself whether I should follow my own advice more closely.

Most often times, practice time means slogging away at an issue until it slowly gets better; I regularly find this with articulations, high register, and others. However, this year I addressed the subject of embouchure with a number of students. After several weeks of discussing this topic with them, I decided to take a plunge into it myself. I find that every so often – it may be years in between – whatever I’ve been doing related to my embouchure begins to work less effectively than it did in the past. Whether it’s a bad habit which finally surfaces, or a generally good approach to something which needs some revision because of basic body or muscle mechanics, I have found some tweaking here and there to be helpful.

But this year, beginning towards the end of October, I began setting my mouthpiece much higher on my bottom lip, and using it as an anchor point for mouthpiece placement. For years, I had used my upper lip, and placed my bottom lip where it felt comfortable. But after some consideration, I figured that I had nothing to lose, so why not try something different, in order to help improve my playing. As I have always felt, we never stop being students – we just need to find the right time to make more significant changes.

Back to the topic, I have found this change to be remarkable. While things don’t necessarily feel as “comfortable” as they have (playing with the same embouchure for years makes anything different feel less comfortable), I am infinitely more pleased with the results. We are all intimately aware of our own strengths and weaknesses, and I am quite excited that this change helps me to address my own.

What’s so remarkable is that while it may seem there are many different opinions on embouchure and placement, those opinions boil down to the similar desire to improve one’s foundation. My approach of setting my mouthpiece on the bottom lip first, then the top, might yield the exact same result as someone else setting the mouthpiece on the top lip, then the bottom. Yet our anatomies require us to figure out which is the right call.

So what I have learned from this is: don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty! If you’ve learned to play with a bad embouchure from the beginning, you can learn to play with a good one – probably with (eventually) significant improvements in the results.

Happy practicing!

Life Revisited II

I simply can't believe it's been since December that I last posted. Granted, it was December 30, but it was DECEMBER!! Argh!! I even had to reread my last post to know where I left things off.

So, to finish on that last topic, I did complete a good portion of C.S. Lewis before my classes and teaching started up again. In fact, I got through The Great Divorce, The Four Loves, Screwtape Letters again, The Abolition of Man, and a good bit of the Weight of Glory. All in all, I found them extremely stimulating intellectually, and good for my psyche--pondering them keeps me in a good mindset, especially when I get busy.

Like, since the middle of January!

My schedule does make it difficult to keep up with my e-mail, especially things which need replies. This brings me to my topic: the use of e-mail.

I am thoroughly convinced that it's a terrific tool. It allows me to be in contact with anyone, anywhere, anytime. I can be communicating with someone from Tennessee just as easily as someone from Turkey. There is, though, one pet peeve I have, and it has to do with how people use e-mail.

Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but when I get on the telephone to talk to someone, even if it's a business related matter, I will take the time to say hello, ask about them (and their family if appropriate), and the like. Likewise with e-mail. When I e-mail someone, especially a colleague with whom I have not had contact in some time, and especially when it's someone I haven't personally met, I will introduce myself. However it often occurs to me that I receive an e-mail with only a question--not even a name to associate with the sender.

Perhaps in our society we are so worried about security (and in many ways rightly so) that we are reluctant to provide any information about ourselves in our correspondence. Perhaps this is just a generation gap (which, with me now in my 30s, I am finding is more and more real each day), between how I learned to use e-mail and how students use it.

However, using one's name can do a great deal to facilitate an interpersonal relationship. It helps us not live "on an island." (It also makes me much likelier to respond to the request for information or my opinion.)

So, there's my rant for the day. Of course, it's not of any great consequence; I still enjoy keeping up with people and fielding questions. It's just something that makes it a bit easier for me to do.

Ta ta for now.

Jim

Life Revisited

Ah, the smell of grass - yes, there's grass even in the Bronx. And the air...well, even though it's NYC I feel like I am enjoying the space to breathe for the first time in many weeks-even months.

I can't believe how long it's been since the last blog. Well, as you might imagine, there are always reasons [eg. excuses] for absences such as these. Since my last post I have found myself very nearly up to my eyeballs in work. Between student lessons (including trying to catch up for two two-week tours worth of absences), classes, then Thanksgiving Holiday traveling, then dealing with papers and final exams, not to mention preparing for a masterclass at SUNY Purchase and a separate performance with the Montclair Salvation Army Band, it has been a whirlwind!

But, here I am in the Brass Room at Avery Fisher Hall, writing this post as the rehearsal for our Live From Lincoln Center New Years' Eve concert continues upstairs. Right now it's La Gazza Ladra, but we're continuing on with some opera aria favorites, so we shall see how long I have for the composing of this blog entry.

I have had much time to reflect on things beyond music and work these past few days. Usually my commuting on the subway keeps me reading school work (as I'm finishing up with my MM in May), but I've had the chance to do a bit of extracurricular reading due to the break in the semester. And I'm on a C.S. Lewis kick.

I recently purchased as a gift for my wife several additional titles to add to our collection of Lewis; the 30 minutes I have on the subway allow me time to delve into these and others. Thus, I decided I would begin with a fresh revisitation of an old favorite, The Screwtape Letters. This book reaffirmed in me just why I like C.S. Lewis so much -- great wit and imagination, but a thoughtful perspective as well. The book is a collection of letters from a Senior Tempter (Screwtape) to a Junior Tempter (Wormwood), regarding the latter's dealings with his new 'patient'. The results are highly amusing, as well as incredibly enlightening, especially at a time when so much of my time and energy has been focused on work with little room for other (though admittedly far more important) matters. One of the [many] things that struck me was the concept of time.

My regular schedule for the Fall found me very much over-extended. This we can deal with. But why do we get cranky when other, unexpected, commitments require the use of time for which we had no other use? Lewis brought to light something regarding Man's perception of time: that it is our own. That the time which we have, and which we enjoy in this life, is somehow ours by right; that because we have been placed in our particular locations at this particular time in these particular circumstances, we somehow have a claim to our time, to do with it as we please.

However, every man moves along at the same rate as every other: 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 per day, and so on and so forth. There is no way to stop, or even somewhat control, the time that has been given us; we can only be stewards of it, spending it in whatever ways we warrant as most important. In this light, as I have no claim of ownership on time, even my time, it becomes far more important to use my time, as I have it, for good and noble purposes. Of course, Lewis presents it far better and far more amusing than I can. I highly suggest getting his own words first-hand.

To continue, having completed Screwtape Letters, I am currently in the throes of two other works - The Great Divorce, a recent acquisition, and The Four Loves, one which I have had for a while but never quite made it through. Since the semester starts up again on January 16th, I should have time to make my way through these, and others.

One of these days, probably soon, I will write a directly trombone or orchestra related post. However, it's far too much fun right now to reflect on other [albeit more important] matters.

:-)

Till next time...

Jim

The Audition Scene Revisited

Greetings all!

It certainly has been a while since my last post – just over a month – but there has been a good reason for it, besides being extraordinarily busy.

Firstly, I have been playing catchup with my 10 students both for the lessons that I missed due to our September tour, and for the upcoming lessons that I will miss on our next tour, beginning around the middle of November. Another two weeks of missed lessons and classes, a more considerable pile of makeup work to be accomplished between now and then.

However, by far the biggest factor has been my preparation for the Principal Trombone audition for the Cleveland Orchestra. This position has remained open since James DeSano’s retirement; though it was briefly filled for last year, it opened up once again, with the audition happening last Monday, the 26th of September.

This audition provided me with two great opportunities: first, the chance to audition for a Principal Trombone position with a “big 5” American orchestra (these auditions simply don’t occur very often), and second (as a side benefit), the chance to revisit my thinking on auditions and receive greater insight into the whole audition process, having been “off the circuit” for some time now.

As far as the actual running of the audition, I would like to mention that the audition support staff seemed to well understand the difficult nature of auditions; for me, they succeeded in helping make the very difficult process less intimidating.

I played in two rounds – a Preliminary and a Final. Both rounds included lists from the standard repertoire. The first round consisted of a portion of a solo of our choice (I played the 1st movement of the David Concertino), followed by the first excerpt from Mahler’s Third Symphony, the Tuba Mirum from Mozart’s Requiem, Ravel’s Bolero, Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, and the two major last movement excerpts from Brahms’ Second Symphony. The Final round consisted of the third solo from Mahler’s Third Symphony, Schumann’s Third (‘Rhenish’), William Tell Overture, the Kyrie from Mozart’s Requiem, Ein Heldenleben, and the soft chorale from Brahms’ Fourth Symphony.

With regards to auditions, there is one concept which I emphasize with my students: when all is said and done leading up to an audition and it is time to play for the committee, the last thing you can afford to concern yourself with is what others think of your playing. You must play the best way you know how; it is the only way to present yourself in the best possible light.

For the preliminary round, I believe that I achieved this idea better than at any other audition I’ve taken. Though my nerves were edgy, my focus was clear: not on the committee, but on my own playing, almost to the point that it felt a bit like just another practice session, with little pressure to perform on the spot.

Unfortunately, I experienced the opposite sense during my final round. In retrospect, I believe that once I had received a sign of approval from the committee by advancing to the finals, I became much more concerned with their perceptions of my playing; my attitude went from trying to play my best to trying to win both the job and the committee’s approval. In essence, I second-guessed myself for some excerpts and allowed slight miscues in others to become bigger issues than they ought to have been, simply by worrying about what I believed the committee thought.

Furthermore, even though a repeat performance of my preliminary audition in the finals would not have guaranteed my being offered the position, I would have been placing my best foot forward, which is all you can ask in any audition.

I can best summarize with the difference in feelings I had after coming off the stage for each round. For the preliminaries, I was so unconcerned with anything besides doing my job at the audition that I immediately thought that I couldn’t have played any better, regardless of whether I advanced or not. For the finals, my immediate thought was that, while I didn’t play poorly, I probably would not be offered the position, at least at that time. In retrospect, I made the committee’s judgment before I even walked off the stage or finished playing through the list. I tried to win the job, not to play well, and it backfired.

My experience served to reinforce what I tell my students. This often tends to be the case when you teach – you realize just how much you should follow the advice you give. What I learned from this audition is just how much a concern over outside factors can influence your playing. And while I knew this from other experiences, this audition, through its closely linked performances, only served to reinforce this belief.

Regarding the resulting continued vacancy, no committee wants to walk away from an audition with the position unfilled; it means that a tremendous amount of time, energy, and expense have been exhausted for little gain. However, sometimes a committee also feels an obligation to the orchestra to wait until they hear the best candidate for the position, rather than hire someone hastily. While this particular audition may have been unsuccessful in filling the vacancy, the Cleveland Orchestra will hire someone who fulfills their needs in a Principal Trombonist, and I think we all wish The Cleveland Orchestra the best in their future auditions.

Meanwhile, I am happy to continue in my position here at the New York Philharmonic, where I can honestly say that I work with the greatest colleagues in the world.

If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a line – my e-mail address is on my homepage!

Until next time,

Jim

On tour with the NYP I

Greetings from Luzern! The Philharmonic is now on tour—we’ve been on the road for about a week. In fact, it is 7 days today that we’ve been away from New York.

Today we had a rehearsal for the upcoming couple of concerts. On the program tonight is Berg’s Seven Early Songs on the first half, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony on the second half. So, I have the second half off, which gives me the opportunity to practice. On the docket for tomorrow is all Strauss: Don Quixote on the first half (on which I play Euphonium), and Don Juan and Der Rosenkavelier Suite on the second half. A good deal of great music.

For those that aren’t familiar, Don Quixote’s euphonium (Tenor Tuba) part is very exposed at times, and very soloistic much of the time. For this piece, rather than sit between the Bass Trombone and Tuba, as is the case with most other works, I sit over next to the Bass Clarinet. The two instruments act much like a team, doubling the part of Sancho Panza (which has its own soloistic part played by the Viola), and helping tell Cervante’s great story of a Knight-Errant. Musically, Strauss uses lots of leaps, exploring all the registers of the instrument (at that time), going from a low ‘E’ up to a high ‘B’.

I get very excited when Don Quixote comes up. It’s one of the chances that I have to do something very soloistic within the orchestra. Though there are many times that I’m doubling with others, I still have the opportunity to do different things with phrases—working as a team player, while at the same time bringing my own individuality to the part. And while it’s something we strive to do every day, it’s particularly enjoyable for this piece.

All in all, the tour is going quite well. The audiences in Frankfurt and Baden-Baden were very receptive, and the houses were packed. It’s nice to see that on a tour. :-)

So, during the day today I’m typing this post, will have some lunch, and follow all that up with the concert this evening. During the Mahler I’ll have my first chance on this tour to really dig in and get some solid work done. I’ve got a couple of things on the fire—getting ready to plan a recital in NY, plus getting ready to begin my teaching; I’m returning to the Juilliard Pre-College this year after a year-long leave, plus beginning my teaching at Montclair State University, where I’ll have six students, plus a trombone ensemble. All in all, it should be a pretty busy year, but I’m looking forward getting back into the teaching. I really did miss it.

OK, enough for now, and until next time…auf Wiedersehen.

A Moving Experience

Hi, all.

I need to keep this quick, as it's 12:42 AM and I'm running on fumes. The past several days, well the past week-and-a-half really, I've been moving. Two days, officially, but another week getting our new place ready.

The point of this post is that I'm still here! Tons to write about, as I've had tons to think about, but that will have to wait for another evening (though not far on the horizon), when I've had a bit more sleep. Just wanted to say, Hi.

'Night, all....