The Audition List
Chapter 07 - The Audition List
The concertmaster audition was scheduled for September.
Anonymous screens would separate candidates from the committee during the first round.
Musicians submitted resumes and prepared excerpts.
My hands shook when I completed the application.
Not from age alone.
I had not auditioned for anything in thirty-seven years.
My identity had grown around being the person others measured against.
Now I would be measured.
Aaron called to ask whether entering against me felt disrespectful.
“No.”
“It feels that way.”
“That feeling is not a rule.”
He entered.
So did four other violinists.
Lydia declined to apply because her solo career required travel.
The committee included the conductor, two musicians, an outside violinist, and one community representative.
Vanessa had no vote.
She complained that the president should oversee artistic leadership.
The governance counsel said no one person should control both funding pressure and seat selection.
She accepted the ruling publicly.
Privately, she called it punishment.
The orchestra continued rehearsing under Aaron.
I played second stand for two weeks after agreeing to serve as a substitute.
The first rehearsal felt like wearing someone else’s coat.
Aaron gave bowings.
I disagreed with three.
I followed them.
Authority practiced through restraint.
At the church basement, my adult students prepared for a small autumn recital.
Janice returned.
She had not completed any form.
Ruth had created a “pay what you can, no explanation” option funded by a transparent general subsidy.
A better solution than mine.
I told her so.
She looked suspicious.
“You’re not going to improve it?”
“No.”
“Are you ill?”
We laughed.
The first audition round took place on a rainy Saturday.
Behind the screen, I could not see the committee.
They could not see my silver hair, my familiar violin, or the pin I had worn for nineteen seasons.
Only sound.
I played the Mozart excerpt too carefully.
The Strauss passage better.
My sight-reading contained one ugly shift I could not hide.
When I left, Aaron waited in the hallway.
“How was it?”
“Human.”
He smiled.
We were both advanced to the second round.
The screen came down.
The final round included leadership questions and a short rehearsal with the section.
I knew the musicians.
That helped and hurt.
They knew my habits.
They also knew Aaron’s.
Afterward, I went home and did not call anyone.
The old Eleanor would have gathered opinions, counted expressions, and prepared arguments against disappointment.
I made soup.
The committee called at seven.
Aaron had been selected.
The conductor spoke carefully.
My playing remained strong.
The committee believed Aaron’s collaborative rehearsal style better matched the orchestra’s new structure.
I thanked him.
Then sat at my kitchen table with the phone in my hand.
I had agreed to the process.
I still felt replaced.
Consent to risk does not cancel pain.
Lydia came over with pastries.
I had not called her.
Ruth had.
At first, that annoyed me.
Then I remembered accepting help was part of the life I claimed to want.
“I should have won,” I said.
Lydia took off her coat.
“Maybe.”
“I know that is not what supportive people say.”
“I’m not the committee.”
We ate pastry.
I described every mistake.
Then every thing Aaron did well.
The grief became specific enough to hold.
Lydia told me Vanessa had cried when she heard the result.
“Why?”
“She thought you would blame her.”
“I don’t.”
“She also thought Aaron winning proved she was right to replace you.”
“That is not the same process.”
“I told her.”
A result can resemble an abuse without validating it.
The red tag did not become acceptable because Aaron later won fairly.
That distinction protected both of us.
The board offered me principal second violin.
A real role.
Not ceremonial.
I asked for two days.
Then accepted for one season.
Not as a consolation.
As work I still wanted.
The next rehearsal, Aaron stood at the concertmaster chair.
He looked terrified.
I sat behind him.
When he asked the section to try a different bowing, every face turned toward me.
I looked at the music.
“Let’s try it,” I said.
May you like
The section moved.
His authority became real because I stopped requiring it to defeat mine.
