buenas noches
I’m in Barcelona.
I wasn’t quite prepared for going to Barcelona. I applied for a job at the Liceu (the opera house here) weeks and weeks ago, and having heard nothing back assumed I hadn’t been invited. But I came back from a gig on Friday night to find the invitation on the doormat. It only took 2 weeks to get there from Spain.
So a relaxing weekend went tits-up as I spent most of it finding flights and hotels, cancelling Barbican shifts <irony>boo-hoo!</irony>, and practising the 2 concertos and copious orchestral excerpts set out in the invitation, and on Tuesday evening found myself outside Girona airport in the pissing-down rain.
The audition was a strange affair. For those of you not au fait with the complexities of orchestral hiring practises, the standard process in the UK comprises several days of auditions after which a few candidates are chosen to work with the orchestra for short periods of time in order for the rest of the section to decide who they’re comfortable with. This process can take months or often years, but is a good way for young professionals to get their foot in the door when it comes to extra work.
On the continent, they try to build Rome in a day, by holding two or three rounds and aggressively pruning the field until they’re left with their person, or, as happened in this case, they’re left with nobody at all. The initial field of 27 was cut to 4 for the second round (I was one of the four) and then after that we were informed that none of us had been deemed suitable for the post. So the whole process starts again in a few weeks or months.
I was pleasantly surprised to have got that far, and if I’d had a better night’s sleep (thanks to the Irish school party across the hotel courtyard and the couple engaged in vigorous copulation next door) who knows what might have happened? Anyway, in homage to my Rough Guide to Spain which has served me well these past 2 days, here are my top tips for foreign auditions:
- Take a good book. They won’t let you leave the building until it’s over, and the temptation to over-warm up can be great. I was in there from 9.30 until 1, and in front of the panel for about 15 minutes.
- Don’t pick Strauss 2 unless you can rehearse with the pianist first.
- Either cough up for a decent hotel, or take earplugs.
More on the touristy bits (suffice to say now that the Sagrada Familia is just incredible) and maybe some pics when I get back.
