I was sent these photos of tulip season in Skagit County, Washington (USA). I don’t know if it was the sender’s intention, but the photos sure make me homesick for the Pacific Northwest of the US. This is a normal spring view in Mount Vernon, WA. A view that even locals know better than to take for granted. Photos by Gary Brown, a great supporter of the arts in Skagit County.

Hi Conrad,

I stumbled across your website when researching Cirque composers. I  am a student at Musicians Institute LA, and i have been invited to audition with cirque here in LA next tuesday. I am a keyboardist and guitarist (acc/elect) and was wondering whether you had any tips regarding how to make the best impression at the audition. I have picked 2 pieces on keys and one of guitar, as well as a piece of my choice.

I love the cirques music, feeling and message and i dearly hope to give the best performance that i can possibly give at the audition.

thanks
(name edited)

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Reply:

Hi,

Well first things first, let’s get the disclaimers out of the way.  As of this post I am not part of the audition team at Cirque and I certainly am in no position to speak on Cirque’s behalf. However, I am a musician with Cirque and all of us now working for Cirque had to audition at one point. So here’s my two cents worth.

I think it’s important you wholly be “who you are” at your audition. Don’t try to “be something”. Cirque likes authenticity in intention, motivation and performance. They will be looking for very specific things and you don’t know exactly what that is. They want the real essence of who you are so they can get a sense of what you can be. Which is part of the reason they audition worldwide to get that rare combination of colors.

I have heard of people preparing specific pieces for auditions and maybe they are sometimes used. But my experience for my audition was it was all improvisation and playing back parts by ear. There’s no way to prepare for something like that, you just need to relax and bring your best game. They may also ask you to play something of your choosing, so good to be prepared as you are.

I will give you a couple scenarios of musicians now working with Cirque:

1. Player auditioned and was told on the spot they were the best player for that instrument that had auditioned in that town (a MAJOR music hub). Cirque said they would hire them on the next available spot. The player literally stood by the phone for months, eventually gave up, and two years later Cirque called with a job offer.
2. Player saw a job opening on the Cirque website and submitted a video of improvisations on various instruments. Three months later Cirque called with a job offer.
3. Player was contacted off their MySpace page and requested to submit a video. They were offered a job within a few months.
4. Player was asked to submit a video. Cirque didn’t care for the performance and asked them to submit a new video with certain changes. New video was submitted and player was offered a job.
5. Player submitted audition recording and was sent three more rounds of audition screenings via mail. Not hired, but Cirque said they would keep them on file. 3 months later player invited to do live auditions. Offered job on spot but player didn’t like job. Two years later player receives email to update artist information or be taken out of waiting list. Player updates files. 6 months later is given audition materials for show. Not hired. Four months later player is called and offered contract for a different show.

I think there’s only one thing to take from that information: There’s no “one road” or “one way” to Cirque. You would be amazed at the different stories of how people got to Cirque. But all the people I work with have one thing in common (the ones that last anyway): They all LOVE Cirque and it was there #1 choice for a job. Many said no to other big companies just for the chance to work with Cirque (they refused other big contracts just waiting that Cirque might hire them.)

And if you’re not placed right away just keep doing your career. Cirque has a good feel for when an artist is ripe and ready. And also, there are many elements that come into play aside from musical chops. For instance, in my current Cirque show one of the things they looked for was people they thought would be cool under pressure when going to a foreign country.

What to wear? To my audition I wore a full suit and tie (custom suit from Nordstrom no less). I’ve gotten a lot of ribbing for that: “What, are you crazy? You wore a SUIT to a Cirque audition? I would never hire you just for the fact that you wore a SUIT.” A close friend of mine wore a bright colored psychadelic monstrosity. But we were ourselves. I’m more comfortable playing in a suit. Other players wore the ethnic clothing they play when they perform their genres. Others in jeans and t-shirt.

I’ve met artists who knew they nailed their audition with Cirque but were never offered a position. And I know artists who thought they totally blew their audition and were offered contracts. So you never know.

In fact, that would be my one description of Cirque: “You never know!”

Break a leg and let me know how it goes.

For others reading and maybe thinking they’d like to audition for Cirque; you can visit http://www.CirqueDuSoleil.com for information on job openings, worldwide audition locations and dates, as well as instructions how to submit your materials to Cirque.

I wanted to do something with my newfound free time; so decided to do something crazy that I had always wanted to do: To write a complete orchestral and choral work in one week like JS Bach used to do for his weekly church services. My last service for the church was Christmas Eve 2007 so I decided to write a Gloria for presentation at the evening Christmas Eve service.

I am not good at writing unless I have to – so I habitually put myself in positions where I can’t back out. I told the church staff and choir of my intention and they all thought it sounded like fun and they put ads in the local paper for people to join our choir for the service. The great part about his (and I don’t think they knew this) is that the ads went out but I hadn’t written a note of the music yet. But it put me in a great corner where I had to write the piece now.

Wanting to complete the piece in one week like JS Bach used to do, I started composing one week before the first choir rehearsal. I am usually unimpressed when people tell me how quickly they wrote a piece (“Look, I wrote this song in only one hour!”) because it’s usually just an excuse for how crappy the music is. But I cut myself slack in this instance, because part of the magic of the journey was the time constraint involved. I cannot be JS Bach (Boy, I wish I could!), but I could at least enjoy a little taste of his historical work style.

I write this because I received an email reminding me the one year anniversary of the “Christmas Gloria” was coming up and there were questions about how to access it.

Here is a live recording of the piece:
http://conradaskland.com/downloads/Christmas-Gloria/Christmas-Gloria.mp3

The score is located here:
http://conradaskland.com/downloads/Christmas-Gloria/Christmas-Gloria-Askland-conductor.pdf

FYI, I had set up several professional microphones for a great recording but did so at the last minute and my ADAT tapes wouldn’t format that evening correctly. So all I could do was put a little CD recorder on top of the organ that recorded this performance with it’s very crappy internal microphones. But at least we have something of that night.

Yes, you may download it and copy it for a performance if you like. This was a wonderful experience for me. Thank you to the many talented vocalists and musicians in Mount Vernon, and the congregation and staff of Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church for supporting this work.

If you want to follow the original progression of the work on the piece begun December 12, 2007 – you can go here:
http://www.conradaskland.com/blog/2007/12/the-gloria-challenge/

The words of the Gloria are from the original Latin text of the Gloria from the Catholic Mass. I think I rearranged the order of the sentences, can’t quite remember now. I DID add in the words “Soli Deo Gloria” at the beginning and end (for a proper Protestant musical bookmark), “Only for the Glory of God” – also a reference to “Sola Scriptura” from Martin Luther and the Reformation.

The middle section is a trio on Et In Terra Pax or “Let There Be Peace On Earth”. That is my favorite section – the gentle and intimate relief from the larger choral sections. It makes me cry because Et In Terra Pax (the words) are so beautiful, yet seems so impossible to realize. Like the girl in Les Miserable singing “Castle on a Cloud” – it’s more of a hopeful wish than something I know can be true. It is pathos – just my personal take. To others it might very well just be some song.

My other favorite part of the recording is not actually the music at all, it is the applause. It’s not applause necessarily for the piece, but the piece was my way of saying farewell to the congregation; and to me the applause was them wishing me well on my journey.

Merry Christmas!

Stephen Sondheim, Composer/Lyricist
James Lapine, Librettist/Director

Sondheim says you can not make an audience like something, but they have to understand the intention. Preview performances focused on making things clear to the audience.