How do musicians actually win a job in an orchestra?
31 January 2025, 17:21 | Updated: 3 February 2025, 10:47
Winning a job in an orchestra is one of the hardest challenges that musicians face. We explain how the process works.
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Auditions. The mere mention of the word is enough to send fear into the hearts of even the most seasoned professional musician.
The prospect of having to play your best in front of a panel to win a job in an orchestra is certainly daunting. The process has developed over many years to become the principal method of gaining a prized position in an orchestra. The competition is fierce, as the number of highly skilled musicians vastly outnumbers the number of jobs that come around.
Read more: Why do orchestras have ‘leaders’ and what do they do?
How do you apply for an orchestral job?
Jobs are posted on audition websites like ‘musical chairs.’
A typical tutti violin job (a seat in the violin section) advertised by a British orchestra might have over 200 applicants, the majority of whom are likely to be trained at top music colleges around the world.
How orchestras respond to applications varies greatly. Some decide to invite only a fraction of the applicants, choosing just to hear those with previous professional experience. Some opt to democratically hear everyone who applies, regardless of their CV.
The first round
More recently, orchestras have settled on first-round video auditions to whittle down the competition, but this can be a disadvantage to those without high-quality recording equipment or a lack of suitable recording space.
If you are fortunate enough to be invited to an in-person audition, this is where the pressure really begins to ramp up. Typically, the musician will be invited to the concert hall the orchestra uses to rehearse, and the audition will be carried out inside the main hall. More recently, a conscious effort to eliminate unconscious bias has meant that ‘blind auditions’ have become the norm, where the adjudication panel is sealed off behind a screen.
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This can feel rather unusual to the musician who has spent their life communicating to an audience, as you walk out to a huge empty space and play to… a screen. For all the strangeness, though, it is the safest way to ensure the process is fair and the decisions are based purely on the musicianship displayed under pressure.
Before going into an audition, many orchestras have ‘warm-up rooms’ where sometimes several other auditionees are nervously waiting to play themselves, frantically fitting in some last-minute practice…
What do musicians have to play?
Each instrument has certain standard pieces which would be expected at an audition. For violin, a Mozart concerto’s first movement is a standard requirement, and for cello, the opening of the Haydn Concerto in C Major, contrasted with the Elgar concerto.
For trumpet, Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto is the most asked-for piece while for horn the opening of Mozart’s Horn Concerto No.4 is a standard.
The purpose of setting these pieces is to demonstrate the essential requirements for the job; can the participant play musically, with a good sound, intonation and technique?
Orchestral excerpts
If you do make it past the solo piece, the next task is orchestral excerpts. These are some of the most important passages from the orchestral repertoire for each instrument, so it is important to put the candidate through their paces.
For tutti string positions, it is often fiendish passages like the opening of Richard Strauss’ Don Juan and an extract from a Tchaikovsky or Brahms symphony that will be asked. For wind instruments, the most important solo passages will be asked, such as the opening passage of Prelude à l’après-midi d’un faune for flute or Swan Lake for the oboe.
The requested pieces will test every aspect of a candidate’s suitability to see if they can play quickly, softly, loudly and in the appropriate style depending on the repertoire; it really is the hardest job interview in the world!
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What happens next?
For the successful, the next step varies wildly between countries.
In Germany and the United States, for example, the winner of the audition is announced on the day, and the candidate is given a probationary period with the orchestra. These are notoriously hard to pass, especially in world-famous orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, where musicians have been known to be dismissed after two years of performing with an orchestra. Orchestras are highly complex organisms, with musicians working very close to each other, so a good fit is essential.
In the UK, rather than a singular audition ‘winner’ several musicians might be invited for a ‘trial’, where they will perform with an orchestra for several projects. The advantage of this system is that it offers more work opportunities, but the disadvantage is that if many trials are offered, it can take a long time for an orchestra to decide who to offer a job to. There have been occasions where trials have gone on for over three years and at the end of that time, no one is offered a job.
In any case, the dedication, skill and ability to perform under pressure required to be successful in an audition is staggering, and those who manage this incredible achievement are worthy of high praise and respect. So the next time see an orchestra perform, remember what it took for the musicians to be on that stage!
