My last post talked about the triviality of identifying the super high fliers – the Susan Boyles – when everyone else is…well…relatively mediocre.
Last night I had the privilege of attending an amazing concert of the Minnesota Orchestra in Minneapolis, which got me thinking about a very different but related problem (side note: please check out the solo violinist, Leila Josefowicz – brilliant).
That is, when the population you're selecting from is made up of the world's best, how do you differentiate one from another?
Think about this:
There are about 4,000 professional orchestral musicians in US. (There are about 8,000-10,000 total worldwide, but for the purposes of this example, let's limit ourselves to the US.)
Another 4,000 musicians graduate every year from conservatories. So schools graduate enough orchestral musicians every year to re-fill every single professional orchestra seat in the nation.
Let's suppose that the average tenure of a musician playing in an orchestra is 20 years.That would mean for every orchestra seat in the US there are twenty incredibly talented musicians waiting for a shot at a seat in a professional orchestra.
The hiring dynamic that creates is pretty well demonstrated by the Minnesota Orchestra's current search for a new Concertmaster. It's important to note that the Minnesota Orchestra is consisently rated of one the top 10 orchestras in the country, and that the Concertmaster's role is both very large and well paid (in the neighborhood of $450k/year).
That said, the Minnesota Orchestra will be auditioning over 200 musicians for the Concertmaster spot. Obviously, this group has already self-selected – every single person thinks he or she is talented enough to be the chief violinist for a major professional orchestra. So, needless to say, they will all be amazing.
Here's my opinion…Wiithout an incredibly rigorous and valid vetting process and a very clear, specific idea of what you're looking for in your next Concertmaster, there can be simply no good way to differentiate one from another in a crowd like this. What do you think?
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