Transcripts

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MINDY RATNER: The audition process was short and sweet. One after another, more than 30 young flutists entered the rehearsal room backstage at Orchestra Hall and played a brief, but important, extract from the Pied Piper Fantasy.

[PIERCING FLUTE]

Watching and listening were Minnesota Orchestra Assistant Conductor Bill Eddins and Principal Flutist Adam Kuenzel, who will play the title role in the piece, originally written for Irish flutist James Galway. Also at the Hall, but in a waiting room, were the performers' parents, themselves, perhaps, as nervous and excited as the children. Wayne Lindholm, himself a lapsed saxophone player, waited for his daughter Margaret.

WAYNE LINDHOLM: It's a whole new experience and it's been very interesting. We're very surprised and amazed at the professionalism behind the scenes, the beautiful facility here in the backstage area of Orchestra Hall, and it's just been a fun experience for Margaret to practice for this audition and now actually be here today doing it.

MINDY RATNER: Moments later, Margaret returns. So how did it go?

MARGARET: Well, I was nervous at first, but then I just played and I-- I don't know, I was nervous the whole time, so. But it was good. It felt good. It was exciting.

MINDY RATNER: Some, like Margaret, are nervous. But then there are the cool, calm, collected types, like 11-year-old Agatha Powell.

AGATHA POWELL: Well, it went fine. I've had an audition before, so I know what it's like.

MINDY RATNER: So you're a veteran at this?

AGATHA POWELL: Yeah, twice.

MINDY RATNER: Is it very difficult to memorize?

AGATHA POWELL: No, not for me. I'm in an orchestra with Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies, and so I've played in Orchestra Hall before, and it isn't such a big deal.

MINDY RATNER: Well, I think it's a big deal. As the auditions continued, Conductor Bill Eddins is watching for more than good musicianship. Like many of these youngsters, he was committed to music at an early age. He realizes how good an experience or how bad an audition can be.

BILL EDDINS: You just want the kids to do well. That's all you want. I mean, it would have been wonderful if we had had 34 kids down here who were just ready to solo with the orchestra immediately. And we would have had to roll the dice and figure out who was going to come in and play. So you just have to be careful and you've got to be supportive and just hope everyone does the best they can.

MINDY RATNER: Eddins has a personal connection with the Pied Piper Fantasy. He played piano on the original recording with James Galway.

[ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]

In that recording, Galway actually used a tin whistle to play the part the children will play on the flute. Adam Kuenzel will be playing a piccolo. He admits that the selection committee was looking for more than just musicianship at the auditions.

ADAM KUENZEL: Because we needed to find children who looked like children, and some of them are, if I feel like, well, if they're taller than me, then that's not going to go over well either. But I think we found a lot of them, I think most of them, probably with the real, fresh, excited, curious and cute look for the stage. And I think that'll be exuded during the performance.

MINDY RATNER: And of course, they can play too.

ADAM KUENZEL: Primarily that was our goal, is to find kids who could play the part.

[PIERCING FLUTE]

MINDY RATNER: Ultimately, the performer selected had to learn all of their part by heart and, Adam Kuenzel says, much more.

ADAM KUENZEL: And then there's the marching, the stage direction that they have to remember to do. And that'll be a lot for them because it's going to be a big audience and it's-- I can't imagine doing something like this when I was 9 or 10, although I would have been in there with them auditioning.

MINDY RATNER: About half the children who auditioned were offered the chance to play with the Minnesota Orchestra. For parent Wayne Lindholm and daughter Margaret, the experience was well worthwhile.

WAYNE LINDHOLM: Music is, to our family, is something that's a lifelong skill and appreciation. And even if they don't continue to play a flute like Margaret is now, as an adult, they'll forever have an appreciation of music as they grow older.

MINDY RATNER: For the FM news station, I'm Mindy Ratner.

[ORCHESTRAL MUSIC]