Is there a winner?

i was under the impression no one was hired a few months ago. Was there some "private audition" that resulted from that recently? :-/

I was in St. Louis last week, and I saw the orchestra. There was an older balding gentleman playing picc. He is not pictured on the website, and his name wasn't in the program. I have no idea if he is temporary or permanent.

they have been trying out several people, no one is permanent yet. Some kind of final round (I think it only involved those who had played the recent trials) happened yesterday, but I do not know if it resulted in a winner.

I'm not in the flute/picc audition loop, but I have a friend in the SLSO, and this is what she told me.

They did hire a piccolo player after all the finalists played major picc excerpts with the orchestra for .5 hours(half an hour) each! Her name is Rachel Braude - she is a free-lancer in the Boston area.

The piccolo player I saw was Brian Gordon(whom I actually have met but didn't recognize from the balcony). He's a regular in Phoenix.

So they had to play trials AND another audition? I'm glad to hear they finally hired someone. Is this a permanent position vs a 1-year trial (at least from the onset)?

I just passed through St. Louis this past month (Sept. 2011) and there wasn't a piccolo player listed in the program. Apparently this job is open again.

This job is open again however an audition originally scheduled for later this fall was cancelled due to a pending legal issue between the St. Louis Symphony and the previous piccolo player who was not given tenure.

So how does the 'legal issue' work exactly? I remember the ad was on the July AFM list, then removed from the website altogether within a couple of weeks. I know 1 time this happened in another orchestra (also another legal issue), they advertised it for a Sept audition, cancelled it, & then had the same position open at the end of the season. So i'm curious to see if that's kind of the same thing that's going on here.

I do not know the detail of this situation, however this type of situation is neither new nor rare. When someone is denied tenure often they resort to some sort of suit against the orchestra. More often than not it ends up resulting in an 'undisclosed' settlement.

And we wonder why so many auditions end up 'no winner'. It can cost a lot of money if someone doesn't work out. Such is the state of our business and society.

I know nothing about this particular case, but I know it's not necessarily a case of a spoiled musician with a strong sense of entitlement and a litigious streak.

Generally a person on probation has no recourse if they aren't given tenure --- BUT. Sometimes the powers-that-be fail to follow their own rules, set in their own master agreement, and that can leave them open to disputes.

For example (this would be a hypothetical situation except that it really happened, to someone I know): the master agreement for a certain orchestra says that if you're on probation and haven't been told otherwise by a certain date, then you have tenure. You mark that on your calendar, and when it comes & goes with no communication from management, you celebrate. THEN, some time after the deadline (specified by them), when by their own rules they have already given you tenure, they tell you you're fired. Say you've already resigned from your old job and bought a house. Then you're in a bad position through no fault of your own.