Orchestra
Repertoire/Audition Skills
Prepare for orchestra auditions using proven techniques. More than 30 excerpts commonly used in orchestral auditions will be studied. The process will identify the reasons each excerpt is used in auditions, what audition committees are listening for, and how one should play differently in an orchestral audition than in other contexts. Techniques for conscious, purposeful practicing, and overcoming audition anxiety. The proper study of these excerpts will cause a giant leap of progress in technique and musical thinking, having a profoundly positive effect on one's playing in general.
Course materials including edited musical excerpts will be emailed in advance in PDF form, and distributed in class. Student's should also bring any excerpts they already own and wish to study.
As a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 1998, he has participated in over 1,300 performances of 117 different operas, including hundreds of live radio broadcasts to more than 40 different countries, numerous productions for video and television, and live High-Definition broadcasts to cinema screens worldwide. Mr. Fischbach was a member of the San Francisco Symphony from 1996-98, appointed by maestro Michael Tilson-Thomas. He toured Japan, Hong Kong and also Europe with the SFS, performing in the Musikverein, Berlin’s Philharmonie, The Paris Opera and The Royal Concertgebouw. He was also a member of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. from 1995-96, appointed by maestro Leonard Slatkin. He participated in performances of over 30 newly commissioned works by American composers and a recording of John Corigliano’s Of Rage and Remembrance, and Symphony No. 1. He also participated in NSO Chamber Music concerts in the Kennedy Center and performed as a member of the National String Quartet. He received his early violin training from his father, Gerald Fischbach. As a high school student, he attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he studied violin with Stephen Shipps and Elaine Richey. He completed his Bachelor of Music degree, magna cum laude, at Boston University where he studied with George Neikrug and Yuri Mazurkevich, and his Master of Music degree at Northern Illinois University where he studied with Shmuel Ashkenasi. He has had close exposure to a broad range of pedagogical methods, from early training with his father whose influences included Paul Rolland, to his five subsequent private teachers who were themselves pupils of Gingold, Galamian, Dounis, Oistrakh, and Zimbalist. He has given master classes at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China, and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and is sought after in New York City as a teacher and audition coach for advanced violinists and violists. His article, Mastering the Unknown: Guidelines for Successful Orchestra Auditions was published by the American String Teachers Association in 2008. |
Garrett FISCHBACH, serves on the faculty of Mannes College of Music, where he teaches weekly Violin Performance Class to more than 50 undergraduate and graduate violin students. Active as a soloist and chamber musician, he performed in 2007 in Shanghai for China’s Oriental Satellite TV Channel as first violinist of a string quartet with faculty members from the Shanghai Conservatory. His 2004 recording of the Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo by J.S. Bach, received critical acclaim including reviews in Fanfare Magazine and American Record Guide.