My question. Is it appropriate to
play a cadenza from the first movement of a concerto for this type of audition?
What are the excerpts, and what's the level of the orchestra?
Is it an audition panel, or is it just one person? If it's multiple people, are they all string players or is it mixed? Does the conductor listen to auditions?
Mozart 39, movements II and IV
Brahms 4, movement II and IV
They will let me in. The audition is to determine if I will keep my chair, move up, or move down. I post the question because I don’t want to do anything that is considered as “bad form”.
Most of the time when community orchestras look for a concertmaster, it's a concertmaster-specific audition and tends to draw its inspiration from professional concertmaster auditions, with similar requirements (Mozart concerto, standard Romantic concerto, some typical excerpts, and common concertmaster solo excerpts).
If you are the associate concertmaster and are hoping to become the actual concertmaster, I would choose a standard concerto for the audition. First movement expositions of Bruch, Mendelssohn or Mozart 4/5 are okay if need be; Tchaikovsky, Brahms, or Sibelius would probably be preferable. Start from the beginning of the movement. I would probably avoid the Mozart since you're already doing two Mozart excerpts.
Since they've left it open-ended, you could do a showpiece that has significant contrast in its first two minutes, like Zigeunerweisen, rather than a concerto.
Because you already play with this orchestra they likely have a reasonable sense of your skill already. Do you know who the other concertmaster candidates are, and what their level of playing is like, and therefore what the expectations for this audition will be like?
Edit to add: seating audition is not necessarily hierarchical. It is an effective way to get a sense of where everyone is in term of her development, which is a dynamic process.
I think it can be instructive to hear players interested in joining even if very few are ever rejected. It gives you some notion of your bench for possible principals or substitute principals, for instance.
For winds/brass it's basically necessary, since they are all effectively soloists.
Lydia's advice is excellent. I have nothing to add except to say that playing a stand-alone cadenza for an orchestra audition is never appropriate and will guarantee that everyone there remembers you but not in a good way.
Would solo Bach over a romantic concerto be considered bad form if they are only asking for a short solo passage (similar to the requirements in OP)?
It's not that I can't play a romantic concerto, but I have been working on solo violin work recently, plus the only romantic concerto I have worked on is considered "student concerto".
If there are excerpts as well, the solo Bach is probably okay. (One of my local freeway phils allows the substitute of a single movement of solo Bach in lieu of a full movement of a Romantic concerto, but there are extensive excerpts.)
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