009 - how “the worst candidate ever” won her dream job

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the auditionhacker podcast

rob knopper

10 episodes

6 days ago

hi, i’m rob. i'm a percussionist in the met opera in new york city, and my goal is to help you win an orchestra audition quicker and easier than i did. during my decade-long career of (mostly) failed auditions, i've struggled through disappointment, rejection, intense nerves, and hopelessness. but i've personally overcome each of these to win my job. i've also helped musicians all over the world break through their struggles to get to finals and win auditions. with the right work ethic and preparation methods, i truly believe that anyone can win an orchestra job like mine.

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009 - how “the worst candidate ever” won her dream job

the auditionhacker podcast

22 minutes 49 seconds

7 months ago

009 - how “the worst candidate ever” won her dream job

“it was either this job or no job.”

today i’m sharing a crazy audition win story with you.

in 2019, a cellist named maria reached out to me about her audition struggles. on paper, she was the “worst audition candidate ever” (her words). she had 2 small children, a full time teaching job, and hadn’t taken an audition in 4 years.

she was also unable to leave parma, italy, so the only orchestra job she could win would be the arturo toscanini philharmonic.

in addition to these limitations, she had her own personal struggles with auditions. she wasn’t confident in her playing, she would lose focus, and she couldn’t trust herself to perform the way she knew she could. how would she ever win an audition and join an orchestra?

well, an audition opened up in 2022. she enrolled in my course. she made 3 major changes to her audition preparation process:

change #1: instead of doing slow practice, she worked on her repertoire using ROAM.

change #2: instead of working through the whole list every day, she dove deep on one or two excerpts per day, resulting in radical improvement to those excerpts.

change #3: instead of doing just 4 or 5 mock auditions, she cranked up the intensity and did 30 mocks for all different people.

it was truly transformative. 3 months later she won the job. it was the only job that she could have won based on her life situation, and she did it.

“anyone can win an audition. it’s very important that you believe that anyone can win an audition from the very start… this really helped me to build courage. like a muscle, you can train courage. i hadn’t taken auditions in a very long time, i had a non-performing job for a long time, i’m older than forty… if i did it, anyone can.” - maria cristina mazza

if she can do it with 2 small children and other obstacles, so can you.

what are the changes you’ll need to make to win your dream job?

i believe that with the right mindset and audition preparation process, anyone can win an orchestra audition. my students have proven that to me time and time again.

and to learn the 5-step audition preparation process i used to win my met opera audition, download the audition cheat sheet at robknopper.com/auditioncheatsheet

Editing by Delia Black

Theme Music: Log Cabin Blues by George Hamilton Green, performed by Rob Knopper (xylophone) and Howard Watkins (piano). Editing and mixing by Brandon Johnson.