thirteen ways

I joined eighth blackbird as flutist in late August of this year, taking over from the fabulous Molly Alicia Barth, who now lives and works in Oregon with her husband. This change in membership was a serious, vexing issue for the ensemble, not least because it was the first in the group’s ten-year history.

I am no stranger to the US - I completed an Artist Diploma at Oberlin College between 2000 and 2002, studying flute with living legend Michel Debost. I knew almost nothing about the college before I arrived, only that it was close to Cleveland, OH, and that it was a famously “hippie” institution.

What I discovered amidst the flat cornfields of northern Ohio was a stimulating musical environment - a fully-funded artistic community in the Mid-West, one where students had the freedom and support to grow as musicians. A particular strength of the Conservatory was its contemporary music program, headed by Tim Weiss, a man with a child-like enthusiasm for new classical music, a clear and precise conducting technique, and an ease in relating to students. As a member of Oberlin’s Contemporary Music Ensemble, which boasted many of the college’s best instrumentalists, I played a huge variety of repertoire, including Birtwistle, Saariaho, Ligeti, Chen Yi, Berg, George Lewis, Ingram Marshall, Reich, Abrahamsen, etc, etc….

In the frustrating four years I spent back in Australia after this singular, life-changing experience, I finished a Master of Music degree, endured loads of wedding gigs, was employed for lots of orchestral work in Brisbane, taught flute at a variety of high schools, made valiant attempts to properly break into the freelance scene in Sydney and Melbourne. In short, I lived the life of an unsatisfied Aussie freelancer. But I retained my passion for new music, and continued performing at a variety of festivals with some wonderful, passionate chamber groups. In 2005 I spent a rewarding year at Melbourne’s National Academy of Music, an institution that aims for the sort of utopian musical environment that Oberlin has achieved.

In late 2005 I landed a job that was perfectly suited to my love of music writing and my solid repertoire knowledge: Publications Coordinator at the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, a group known for their advocacy for new Aussie music. This was my first ever full time desk job.

It was Tim Weiss who contacted me in February 2006 about the possibility of an eighth blackbird flute position. He had recommended me highly to the group, so I sent over a CD and DVD of my playing and a high-falutin’ resume. I talked to Lisa - flute audition go-to chick - on the phone (I remember thinking ’she sounds so…very…American’), who told me that the ensemble planned to invite six candidates to audition, based on recommendations from trusted folks around the US. I spent about two weeks deciding whether to fly over for the audition, receiving opinions that ranged from “If you don’t go you will regret it for the rest of your life” to “You should go, but….I….wouldn’t” and “Um”. After getting assurances from Lisa that they didn’t already “have someone in mind”, and after spending $2500AUS on a flight, I was committed.

In early May the group sent through a proposed audition schedule, as well as the required solo flute piece (the first two minutes of George Crumb’s Vox Balanae) and a series of excerpts. Having never held an audition, they went to great pains to make the audition fair and pretty comprehensive. Each audition would last for three hours. After playing an own choice solo work and the chunk of Crumb, each candidate had an opportunity to “tell a dirty joke or anecdote”. Um. This was unexpected. Then the auditionee would sit down with the group and “rehearse” sections of ensemble pieces that the candidate was to prepare in advance. The first movement of a funky piece by Derek Bermel had to be memorized so that choreography (really just stage movement) could be learned and performed in the audition. After three hours, candidate and group would adjourn to a local pub for beer, food and an in-depth interview: “You know this job is really hard, right?”; “Are you…um…ah…attached?”.

How unlike the tremendous awfulness of an orchestra audition! Candidate is blindfolded and led, execution-style, into a barn filled with carnivorous flutists; candidate is allowed ten minutes in a dark, closet-sized practice room; shoe-less candidate is prodded onto an empty stage, to play to a blank screen behind which he knows sit a dozen salivating, saber-toothed orchestral players, ready to pounce on his every slip-up; candidate plays three minutes of out-of-tune Mozart with an accompanist he has just met, and four 20-second-long orchestral extracts, then, after a dead-pan “thank you” from the hidden monsters, he is led offstage. Dat is de fun.