Ulster Principal excerpts

The Ulster principal audition was in October - the excerpts were:-

Beethoven - 9, recit

Brahms - 2, 1st mov bits

Britten - Young persons guide var H

Ginastera - Var Conc solo

Haydn - 31 the post horn, var 7, bass solo

Mahler - 1, you know the bit!

Mozart 39 - last mov, the common excerpt

Prokofiev - Lt Kije solo

Saint Seans - the Elephant

Strauss - Don Juan, four common excerpts

Stravinsky - Pulchinella

Sight reading - nasty 7/8 bit from Holst's The Perfect Fool.

It certainly main a perfect fool of me! I stuffed up the sight reading. Am not sure why we have sight reading - even in the UK surely the days of bands having to read stuff are long gone? If if a piece is put on the stand for a reh before a gig, then surely you have time to look at it and do some preparation before the gig. Or are we saying players need to sightread stuff perfectly for the rehearsal? I dont get it.

I was not offered a trial. One thing I learnt from this audition was that there is little point in doing any audition without adequate preparation, I need to be at 110% to even bother.

And it was good to meet Steve Williams, who was running the auditions in London on behalf of the Ulster Orchestra. The others on the panel with principal cello and concertmaster.