wiseone2

I auditioned for the Baltimore Symphony in 1965.
Things were really different then. Most orchestras were still not year-round employment.
Union scale in Baltimore was less than $400 a week for a 36 week season.
I was not even sure I wanted to be in a southern city.
I was prepared though, for the audition. I had already been soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. I was, at that time, First trumpet for the Pennsylvania Ballet, Philadelphia Little Symphony, Haddonfield Symphony, Princeton, and Trenton Symphony and many other small Philadelphia groups. I was playing at the Schubert Thearter and doing a lot of the pre-MFSB stuff in Philly.
I was busy

The repertoire was quite different then.
Mahler was just being discovered in this country, so there was none on the audition list.
Piccolo trumpet playing was still relatively new, so there was little on the audition.
I played Stravinsky, Brahms, Tchaikovsky,Respighi and many other really standard rep works.

There were only about a dozen guys at the preliminaries. The finals were held the same day.
I won.
The chairman of Morgan State College was at the finals. I was offered a job on the spot.
Looking back on that day, I think that offer convinced me.
I was doing better as a free-lance player than that symphony job would pay.
Peter Herman Adler was the Baltimore Symphony's Music Director at the time.
I was prepared.
Wilmer

trickg

Wilmer, I like your style! Short and to the point. You say that you were making better money as a freelancer, but you took the job in Baltimore anyway. Did you continue to freelance during the 5 years you were in Baltimore, or did the Baltimore Symphony concert schedule keep you too busy to freelance?

wiseone2

I was all over the place I did some of the Intruders stuff like "Cowboys to Girls," "Together,"stuff like that in my summers in Philly. I continued to do the Marlboro Festival and do the Casals recordings. Some summers I played the Club Harlem, then went to Vermont for Marlboro. I preferred being free in the summer.
Wilmer

uilleann

Hello Wilmer,
Ah the Philadelphia. When I left school in 1968 I played oboe with them.
Remember Louis Rosenblat? He was my mentor on the English Horn...
Those were good times... The Academy of Music...............
John Koplitz

wiseone2

You will love this site.

http://www5a.biglobe.ne.jp/~philorch...air/First.html

The Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormandy, made a recording titled"The Sound of Genius."
In the backstage downstairs Men's Room in the Academy of Music hung a sign........The Sound of Genius.
The orchestra loved Ormandy
Wilmer

uilleann

Remember it well. I live in Virginia now. I am playing oboe and trumpet for the Stonewall Jackson Brigade band. When ever I mention those times to my fellow band members they just don't undrstand. Now that I am retired I keep thinking about moving back to Philadelphia but I guess you
can never go back.
John