Posted by Sean Chisham on September 30, 2003 at 08:07:39:
The following information was forwarded to me from one of the auditionees. He received it from Milt Stevens.
NSO Tuba Audition Finals
September 29, 2003
Dave Bragunier, who had been the NSO principal tuba player since 1
961, had recently announced his retirement following the end of the 2003-04 season. As a result, over the summer, the NSO received approximately 220 resumes and applications for the tuba vacancy.
The committee invited approximately 90 players to attend the auditions, which were held on Saturday thru Monday, Sept. 27 <96> 29. About 76 actually attended the two days of behind-the-screen preliminary auditions. From that group, 9 players were advanced by votes to the semi-final round, which was held on Monday, Sept. 29.
Added to that group of 9 were another 9 who had been invited directly into the semi-finals, due to the fact that they already held important tuba jobs in major orchestras. This group of 18 semi-finalists each played behind the screen.
The audition committee of 11 NSO musicians (6 brass, 2 woodwinds, 2 strings, and 1 timpanist) submitted secret ballots after hearing all 18 semi-finalists. Four people were advanced to the Finals, all having received at least a majority of votes from the committee. They were Alan Baer, Edwin Diefes, Stephen Dumaine, and Hidehiro Fujita.
Our music director, Leonard Slatkin, then joined the audition committed and attended the remaining parts of the audition. Each finalist played the entire first movement of the Vaughan Williams Concerto (with one of our fine NSO pianists) plus about 4 orchestral excerpts. At the conclusion of thatround, it was decided to hear all four play first with only our bass trombonist, Matt Guilford, on a couple of excerpts, followed by playing with the entire trombone section on a couple more excerpts.
The resultant vote showed a clear majority of votes for Alan Baer, currently with the Milwaukee Symphony. He was declared the winner. A runner-up was named. He is Steve Dumaine from the Alabama Symphony.
Here is an alphabetical list of the 18 semi-finalists:
Alan Baer
Steven Campbell
Ja Tik Clark
Frank Crawford
Edwin Diefes
Stephen Dumaine
Hidehiro Fujita
David Kirk
Craig Knox
Joe Smoe
Peter Link
Thomas McCaslin
Scott Mendoker
Andy Miller
Randall Montgomery
Christopher Olka
Christopher Quade
Mark Tetreault
Michael Thornton