Waiting To Hear About My Orchestra Audition

So, I haven't been blogging because I got a call from a conductor last Wednesday saying the principal flute position is open and if I wanted to audition, I'd have to come THAT Sunday. After an initial squeeeee moment, I realized I had a lot of work to do. He wanted to hear a Mozart concerto, which was fine- I play that all the time. It was a little rusty because I was preparing for my faculty trio concert coming up in October, but I could get it up to speed pretty quickly.

What I needed to work on was the excerpts. You see, for every professional orchestra audition, they ask what they call "excerpts"- the hardest solos from flute orchestral literature. And if I wanted to impress, I should have a few of those as well. For those of you music geeks out there, I choose the solo from Mendelssohn Mid summer Night's Dream, Dvork Symphony #8, and Daphnis and Chloe by Ravel.

Here's the awesome Emmanuel Phaud playing Daphnis and Chloe (one of my favorite You Tube videos)



I ended up practicing three hours a day for five days straight- not counting the time I play in lessons and rehearsals. On Friday, the muscles in the bottom of my face cramped up! I had to take a few hours off just to let them settle down.

The audition went pretty well. I was a little shaky from nerves, but because I'd practiced so much, my muscles kicked in. The funniest part was the floor that kept creaking as I moved and played. Finally, before the last excerpt, I stopped and moved my stand to the right to try to avoid it, and the whole audition committee laughed. The concertmaster said I'd brought my own accompanist! Ha! I'm waiting to hear the results this week. I'll let you all now what happens!