What’s the key to a superb performance audition? Maybe it’s meditation. Maybe it’s hard work and deep familiarity with every micron of your material. Or maybe it’s eating lots of bananas.
Igor Shakhman has heard all the tricks and techniques. His audition days are largely behind him now, but Shakhman suffered through “many, many, many” such tests when he was an ambitious young clarinetist looking for work, he said.
What’s that like? Shakhman, now the principal clarinetist as well as manager of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, doesn’t sugarcoat it: “Incredibly stressful,” he said with a smile. “Sometimes you are completely prepared, and you go on stage and it isn’t there,” he said. Other times, maybe it shouldn’t be there — maybe you’ve been cooped up traveling, you’re tired, you’re cranky — “and you step on the stage, and it’s magical,” he said.
Even for the best players, there’s always a bit of in-the-moment, lottery-style luck, Shakhman acknowledged. That’s why, as the VSO launches its 21st annual Young Artists competition, Shakhman strives to keep the artistic standards very high and the process completely fair.
“It’s incredibly important,” he said. “This provides students an opportunity to advance in their career. It’s a step into the professional world.”
How it works
If you’re 18 years old or younger as of Jan. 1, 2015, and you’re currently studying with a private music instructor, and you reside within 135 miles of Vancouver — that area includes Seattle, Eugene, Ore., and Yakima — you are eligible to compete in the categories of piano, strings and brass/woodwinds/percussion.
To enter, you must prepare by memory one movement of a standard concerto (that’s no longer than 15 minutes) for your instrument. Do not fail to get the VSO office’s approval for your selection before you start; Shakhman advises getting the OK as soon as possible, and no later than the end of October.
After that, you’re facing a 4 p.m. Jan. 2 deadline for the VSO office to receive your professional-level audition recording on CD — something with sound quality good enough for professional musician-judges to make a careful assessment — as well as accompanying materials like entry form, proof of age and legal residency, and a check for $25.
But those musician-judges never know whom they’re judging, Shakhman said. Names are replaced by numbers. “Objectivity is the most important thing,” Shakhman said.
Three finalists in each category will be selected to compete on Feb. 8, before more professional judges as well as an audience at the Washington School for the Deaf’s new Lloyd Auditorium, which Shakhman said has “fantastic acoustics” and seating for 600. Finalists will compete for three scholarships in each category (first, second and third places: $1,000, $500 and $250).
First-place winners in each category will rehearse in mid-April and perform with the VSO and maestro Salvador Brotons on April 18 and 19 at Skyview Concert Hall.
No phone calls and no exceptions, Shakhman stressed: email him at orchestramgr@vancouversymphony.org with your requests for approval as soon as possible. He’s learned to expect around 50 contestants each year, he said, but the number is always going up.
“Every year the kids seem to get stronger,” he said. “In general, the level of quality is amazing.”
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