The Cello Sherpa Podcast

"Low Notes, High Stakes, & No Time to Waste" - An Interview with Rainer Eudeikis, Principal Cellist of the San Francisco Symphony

• Joel Dallow • Season 5 • Episode 25

Share episode

What does it really take to lead a world-class cello section while raising two young kids and navigating an orchestra’s evolving culture? The Cello Sherpa Podcast Host, Joel Dallow, sits down with San Francisco Symphony principal cellist Rainer Eudeikis for a candid, witty, and deeply practical conversation about moving from Utah to Atlanta to the Bay Area, why some orchestras feel close-knit while others run purely professional, and how life stage changes your sense of community as much as geography does.

Rainer opens the front-stand playbook: direct conversations with the conductor, shaping section sound in real time, and the hidden grind of bowings that can make or break a rehearsal. He explains why he once resisted pops and movie concerts, how he came to value their physical and mental reset between heavy rep, and how smart rotation preserves endurance across a demanding subscription season. His practice advice is refreshingly doable—an under-30-minute daily routine that maintains intonation, articulation, and vibrato, plus “simmering” solos weeks in advance so they peak on cue. He also shares how to turn stage time into training, using lighter programs to refine shifts, bow control, and contact.

On auditions, Rainer pulls back the curtain on San Francisco’s process: resume screening, when and why tapes help, the pros and cons of recorded prelims, and the committee discipline needed to keep standards high without wasting candidates’ time or money. He describes hiring multiple young players—some initially asked to submit tapes—and what separates winners: musical identity, adaptability, and the ability to move a room in the first 30 seconds. For students and early-career musicians, his guidance is sharp and actionable: define your niche early, seek mentors who do the job you want, and build the psychology to perform under pressure without losing musical voice.

If you care about orchestral life, cello leadership, audition strategy, or simply practicing smarter, this conversation is rich with takeaways you can use today. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s prepping auditions, and leave a review to tell us your biggest question about principal leadership.

For more information on Rainer Eudeikis: https://www.rainereudeikis.com/

You can also find Rainer on YouTube: @Eudeikis

If you are looking for in person/virtual cello lessons, or orchestral repertoire audition coachings, check out www.theCelloSherpa.com

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Threads & YouTube: @theCelloSherpa

For more information on our sponsor: www.CLEAResources.com 

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Channel Shop and we explore all the coming to the Summit from Internet Stage. Check us in the morning at the Channel Shop and follow us on Instagram or YouTube at the Channel Show. Your host, and join the Channel Selection of the Winter Symphony Orchestra in 1999 and founded the Riverside Chamberlayers based in Waysville, Georgia in 2003. If you're looking for a bit of an extra help in the Morning Orchestra or Solar Rapid Corey, perhaps we can help visit www.thecheled and drop us in the morning. We offer virtual or in-person lessons. Today's episode is sponsored by Clear Resources, your premier resource for compliance, legal, ethics, and risk. For more information, visit them online at Clearesources.com. Today's guest is cellist Rayner Eudaikis. Rayner has previously served as principal cellist of both the Utah and Atlanta Symphony Orchestras and is currently the principal cellist of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. He was one of our very first guests on this podcast nearly five years ago, and also returned at the end of season one on a panel to talk about our cello auditions in Atlanta. So it's great to have him join us again. Welcome back to the Cello Sherpa podcast. Thank you, Joel. It's so good to be back. Nice to see you again. So since you were last here, you moved to San Francisco to become their principal cellist, which is our big loss, and we still haven't filled that position. Big shoes to fill. So what has that job change been like for you?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, in a lot of ways, it's a familiar move because I already moved from my first orchestra, Utah Symphony, to the Atlanta Symphony, which was, as you might imagine, a big change in a lot of ways. It sort of feels familiar in that way. Obviously, it's different. It's a different orchestra in a different city, coming in and sort of stepping into a different legacy as far as who came before me, new people. But you know, what I've really realized is that at least in my experience with American orchestras, there's kind of this spectrum of sort of a small town, close-knit vibe where everyone I don't want to say it's a family because that's a cliche and it's really not, but people are just closer. There's just a tighter knit community feeling, you know, backstage and on stage. And then on the other side of the spectrum, it's more purely professional. Not that the others aren't professional, but it's like you come in and you're there to do a job and people are friendly and get along, but it's sort of the priorities are in maybe a slightly different order sometimes. And that's a huge generalization. I'm not trying to say anything positive or negative specifically about any orkship, but I feel like maybe Utah was the first part of the spectrum where it was such a close group of people, and it's a fantastic orchestra. But you know, it's Salt Lake City, everyone, even the people who live far away, live like 15 minutes away from each other. Yeah. And then here it's a great group, and I love that, but it just feels a bit more serious or I struggle to find the right vocabulary that doesn't then seem like I'm being critical of another place, but it's just a different vibe. And then Atlanta was sort of somewhere in between.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00:

In Atlanta, obviously, people, you know, could live over an hour away from each other because it's so sprawled out. It's just a different vibe, but I've also realized there are kind of different versions of the same person wherever you go. Like there are some people that I know where it's like, I've known you since the beginning of my career because I know two more of you in my previous jobs. So it's interesting to look at it that way.

SPEAKER_01:

Would you say the close-knit feeling that you had in Utah came from proximity because people were closer and it was easier to sort of socialize outside of the workplace versus a place like San Francisco or Atlanta where either traffic or proximity is causing a greater distance between all of our colleagues? That could be.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, I think Atlanta and Salt Lake City are definitely maybe I would say Atlanta and San Francisco are busier places to just live. Being alive here just comes with inherently just being busier. Yeah. Even though San Francisco is actually, you know, geographically a really small city, it's only seven miles by seven miles. A lot of people don't live in San Francisco proper, and there are bridges to cross and traffic to get snarled in. So that could be a part of it. It also could just come from my own life and my own perspective. Because when I was in Salt Lake, I mean I was living there with my now wife, but I mean, we weren't married, we didn't have any kids, we were young, yeah. Early 20s, you know, you move in and your whole life at first is the orchestra. Yeah. And then as I get older and move from job to job and have a kid and then have another kid, and just priorities change and your perspective and the way you live your life changes, and the orchestra takes a different role. So probably what I'm saying has a lot to do with myself as well, and not so much to do with the orchestra itself, because there is it's strange now for me to look. I look at San Francisco Symphony and I'm not one of the young people anymore. It's like, come on, I'm 35. I'm I'm already not one of the young people. But there is definitely a young crowd of sort of the brand new hires, and they do spend time together, and a lot of them live in the same building. Yep. So maybe for them, they would feel about this orchestra the way I feel about Utah. Yeah. Now that you mention it and ask me that question, I'm sort of it's dawning on me literally right now that what I'm talking about is all me and maybe less the job itself.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, I am curious about a few things though, when you really look at the three jobs. I mean, they obviously have different things going on and different repertoire and programming that makes up the season. Can you talk a little more specifically about how that was different in each job or similar if they are?

SPEAKER_00:

So, I mean, programming, there's obviously a lot of similarity. I mean, Atlanta was unique in that there's no summer season. But as you know well, there's also like a year's worth of pups and movies that are crammed into less than a year. So if you zoom out, it's maybe not so different. But Atlanta was interesting in that the summers were empty. Yeah. So the pacing of the year felt different. Utah has a very busy summer season, but it's almost entirely up in the mountains, up in Park City. Okay. Which involves a lot of buses or driving. But the summer has its own character. And Utah also does a lot of runouts and education tours and tours of the whole state because it's the Utah Symphony. Right. So I feel like I spend a lot more time on the road and playing for a lot of different kinds of audiences there. In San Francisco, we have more of the sort of traditional like big subscription season. There are a lot of movies that's increasing all the time. But our summer season, for example, does include some, you know, outdoor stuff, some park concerts, things like that. There's an amphitheater down at Stanford where we play a lot in the summer. And there are movies dispersed, but I do feel like I spend more time playing big rep here and less time playing some of the fluffier stuff. At least for myself, the way rotation tends to work out or the way time off gets used. I'm definitely spending more time playing the things I want to play here than I did in other places.

SPEAKER_01:

Are you all doing a ton of pops and movies, or is it more movie-heavy than pops even?

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's probably more movie than pops, but we still do plenty of pops. And around the holidays, like everybody, there's quite a lot of sort of festive holiday pop type concerts that everyone is doing. Yeah. This coming week, for example, there's a pops program, which I am playing. Okay. But honestly, I remember when I was coming here and I was negotiating my contract and trying to get a sense of you know how much of these different kinds of programs are there and how much are certain principles expected to play them. And I was talking to someone, another principal player in the orchestra, because I had gone into it with the mindset of like, I don't want to play any pops and I don't want to play any movies. Yeah. And he said, honestly, man, after several weeks end to end of playing just the heaviest repertoire you can imagine, sometimes it's not so bad to come in and play a light show. And he was right about that.

SPEAKER_01:

I agree, actually. I mean, I don't always love sitting through movies when you're sitting for 10 or 15 minutes and there's just dialogue. It's not my favorite. I although there are some members of an orchestra that do that regularly, depending on their instrument. But I think we are so programmed to play that I'd rather just be playing if I'm sitting there. So but it is nice. A lot of the pop series, they're usually one concert, sometimes two, and they're not as challenging, and you don't have to spend as much time in the practice room dealing with them. And it's physically less demanding, which I think is very important to have a long career, to have some breaks like that. So I think that's important. For sure. So, what is your favorite thing about being in a principal position?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I would say I like feeling and seeing that I have as direct an impact as possible on what we're actually doing on stage and what we're actually putting out there in our concerts. I feel like I'm very close to the conductor. I have a lot of direct dialogue with the conductor. I like feeling connected to the other sections. There are fewer people in the telephone chain for me than I think if I were sitting in a section of an orchestra. My wife says I have principal syndrome. What is that? Which basically boils down to just having problems with authority and not liking being told what to do. She tells me that a lot, actually. But I'll be frank, I don't like being told what Boeings to do. I don't like being told to play less. You know, I it's just a quirk of my personality. So I think being principal lessens the amount of that in my life. Yeah. I also, though, I like to push myself, I like to challenge myself. And knowing that I'm always under the ear of the conductor or sometimes under the hand, knowing that I am always essentially exposed and that I have to maintain a certain level and hopefully continue to improve it. I think that's just good for me. And it's something I need to just stay playing at a high level because I'm not someone who kind of has this natural motivation to just practice and I need sort of a fire to be lit at all times for me to progress. Yeah. I had a big kind of fork in the road of my career early on where I was offered a section position in a major US orchestra, and then I was offered a principal position in an orchestra slightly further down the food chain. Yeah. I had to think really hard about that. I knew I wanted to be a principal player, but it was a question of do I take the section job and the bigger orchestra and kind of learn how this works, learn the ropes, watch a great season principal, and then try to sort of absorb all that and then go win a principal job later, or do I just throw myself in the deep end right away for what was even less money at the time? It was less money for the principal job. And obviously in the end, I chose the principal job because I just knew that knowing myself and knowing my goals, that was just clearly the right decision. So I guess to summarize, I don't like being told what to do. I love telling other people what to do, and I like to play solos and be heard.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, for the record, I also do not like being told what to do. But after 27 years in an orchestra, I've learned how to suck it up for the greater good. It's one of those things that's challenging in a section position.

SPEAKER_00:

But well, and obviously, even as a principal player, I mean, I am still a cog in a machine. I'm maybe a slightly larger cog. Yeah. I also do like to be a team player and I like to feel like a part of one large organism, one big exercise and sort of collective intelligence as a hundred people work together. I mean, at the end of the day, that's why I'm in an orchestra still, because yeah, I love that feeling of that momentum and everyone working together towards one goal. So it's I overstate my ego, maybe, maybe a little bit. I think being a principal player in an orchestra is the perfect mix of having exposure and opportunity and also feeling like part of a team. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

That's just been really important for me. That makes sense. What would you say is your least favorite thing about that position? Boeings. Yeah, I knew that was going to be the answer, but I just wanted to double check.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I simultaneously don't want people to tell me what Boeings to do, but I also don't want to have to figure out what Boeings to do. If that makes sense. I know that's a contradiction, but Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But can you maybe elaborate a little bit on why you don't like doing Boeings?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it takes a lot of time, and I feel very responsible for what I end up doing. And if you don't have everything worked out well in advance, then you end up eating a lot of rehearsal time for everyone else as you try to negotiate all that and figure it out and make sure that the 10 people behind you get it. And it's just, I like to come in and have all the parts as much as possible just set, dialed in, everything's been worked out, and so that at least our section is not wasting anyone else's time scrambling to do things that should have been done beforehand. But it just takes a while. And the way it typically works is you know, you know this, but you know, the concertmaster will bow their part, and then it goes to the second and then to the Viola, and then I get this stack of parts that have already been bowed, and so I'm having to kind of balance out trying to kind of match what other sections are doing, but also knowing when to diverge from that if something just isn't very chillistic. Yeah. If I need to make a decision that's going to help us sound as good as we can. And it actually, you know, sometimes I'll sit there and stare at one line. It's like, you know, when you read a book and you're kind of too tired and you realize you've read the same line like three times and you still don't quite you're not processing it. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like that where I'm looking at a line. It'll be a Mauler symphony where you have like one slur that goes over, you know, an endless number of bars and it's like, oh well, I could break it here. And no, no, but the but then the violes, and then we're backwards when we get into A. And okay, well, okay, what if I start up but then oh no, but then you know it's it's not enough bone? What if the tempo's too slow and then I'll have to change it in rehearsal? So it just takes a lot of thinking and planning on top of doing the job and practicing.

SPEAKER_01:

And so how much time would you say you spend every week on average doing Boeings?

SPEAKER_00:

That's tough to say because sometimes it's like a steady trickle where I'm always getting something from the library, like, okay, this is in a month or a few weeks. I do it, you know, it'll be like one piece here and there. And then sometimes, like last week, I was handed a huge stack that were all due at the same time. Some of them were due yesterday. I haven't even turned them in yet because I, you know, if there have been several days in last week where I spent at least an hour a night, if I didn't have a concert, doing Boeings. Yeah. So it really it just kind of comes in waves, usually. So I don't even know if I could estimate it. But it's possible that I could spend five hours in a week. I could. Or it could be zero. It just depends on where we are in the season. And sometimes a conductor will come with their own Boeings, and then even if I don't necessarily like them, at least I know that they've been worked out and used somewhere, yeah, and that they will function. And that it aligns with what the conductor wants, which also saves a lot of time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, that's a great description. I think it's helpful for people to understand what that job entails. And doing the Boeings is a huge part of being a string principal. So it's good for people to understand what they're getting into when they think about that.

SPEAKER_00:

Every job I've ever had, I've come in where I'm taking over for a principal who was there for a really long time, and where often I've been the only new principal on the front row. And so there will be weeks where everyone else just says it's fine from last time, but then I look at the parts and everything's backwards. Or maybe I have a different philosophy than my predecessor, where you know, maybe there's too many bows or not enough bows, or or something where even though other people are able to just hand it right back to the library, I then have to go in and kind of reinvent the wheel. Yeah. Which I'm not complaining. That's that is part of the job description, but it can add up to a lot.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, I'm curious now because you mentioned that obviously you have two children now that are quite young. And I'm wondering how you manage to find balance between working in this big job and raising a family.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think every day I'm trying to find that balance. Because yeah, I have a four-year-old and an almost two-year-old, which and you know, my wife and I are up here kind of on an island from a family angle. You know, we don't have any relatives in town. And so we we don't really have a village. So it's just kind of us hands-on doing everything. I would say it all boils down to efficiency. From the beginning of the season, I'll look at the coming months. And my first thing is like, do I have any solos, like big solos that I know of in any of this repertoire? And if I do, then I start incorporating at least some of them or part of them into just my daily scale, whatever. I'll finish my routine, it's like, okay, I'm gonna just hit this solo for a few minutes to try to kind of slowly simmer it up until when I need it. Because if I wait until the last minute, I mean it's just I know I'm doomed. So I basically do I kind of chip away at things a little bit at a time and I need a long runway. And sometimes that's not always possible. And then I'm, you know, having to scramble when the kids are in bed. It's like, okay, it's 8 p.m. and I've been up since 6 a.m. and now I'm gonna practice. It's not easy, and I'm still learning how to kind of keep all the plates spinning. Yeah. So, you know, I think I'm doing it, I'm managing it. But it's I'm always trying to figure out how I can be more efficient. Sometimes that means staying at the hall after a concert and practicing for another 45 minutes, or if I can get there before a rehearsal and get into a practice room and try to just do 30 minutes of something. Kind of the compounding effect of little bits of practice building up instead of waking up at 10 and saying, Oh, I have four hours to practice today. I mean, that was when my career started, I was just completely free to do that. Yeah. And now I can't even imagine what that would feel like. It's so different.

SPEAKER_01:

It's definitely a game changer when you have little ones. You know too. Yeah. Yes. Well behind me at this point, though. So, what kind of tips can you offer then for being most efficient in your practice sessions?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think, I mean, for me, what I've benefited from is having a scale routine that keeps me in shape. I know if I do my 20, 25 minute thing pretty much every day that I'm at least not gonna get worse. Like I can stay in good shape, stay where you know I know that if I have a solo or something, just my basic approach, my vibral will be the speed I want, my contact will be the way I want. I can just sort of maintain the default. And that started off. I like seemingly half of your guests, I'm a ri former Richard Aaron student. So I used to have you know his thing where you know, oh, it'll only take you five minutes, but it takes you three hours. Yeah. I used to have a really detailed and very intense routine that I did every day. And now I have it boiled down to it's about 25 minutes.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

It's basically scales, scales, and trills, arpeggios, sixths and thirds, and then I also tack on a little Costman stuff at the end, especially if I'm feeling kind of out of shape. Yeah. It's very quick, and and because I've been doing it now as my routine for so long, I mean it's it's almost just automatic. I barely have to think about it. It's good maintenance. Yep. And then so it, you know, I think if if people can find a system like that that works for them, if you have a half hour pill that you just you take it every day and you're gonna still be sounding good. Yeah. And you're gonna have facility, and you're not gonna look at yourself in the mirror and be like, what is that? Why is that happening? That's really useful. You know, I wouldn't say that everyone has to have the same thing. I sort of kept certain things and let certain things go, just knowing that I needed something that was reliable and wasn't gonna sort of break me to try to do it every day. Yeah. And then that leaves a little bit of room if you have that repertoire that's kind of simmering in the back of your mind, whether it's you have an audition coming or you have a recital coming, or or whatever goal you're working towards, you have those target passages or spots or lines. Melodies, whatever it is that you know is kind of challenging and you want it to be well seasoned and feel like you have enough time, then you tack on, you know, another 15 minutes of those things at the end of your routine. And that's still we're well under an hour a day, which I think most people who are seriously pursuing a life with the instrument, I mean, that's pretty low amount to dedicate. Yeah. And then obviously on top of that, I have my actual learning the rep for work and real practicing and being at work in rehearsal. But when there are really crazy days, I at least try to do that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that makes sense. We talk about that a lot on this podcast. As you know, scales are something that I'm very passionate about. And I would say that I do scales every day also because I think just as a base foundation, it's the most helpful way to keep your ears in tune and to just keep your facility in place. And even just as a warm-up when I'm sitting on stage before rehearsal starts, I never start looking at the repertoire if I haven't warmed up because I know within 10 minutes my arm's going to hurt if I don't go through some scales. So you learn that unfortunately in this job when you're playing that much. And I do think that during the season there is a flow because we play so much in rehearsals and concerts. If you keep a base level of working on staying in shape, that doing the job also helps with that if you're conscious of what you're doing and you're paying attention to what you're doing, or playing so much on top of that, because there's a point where, especially if you're doing two, three, four different programs in a week, where you really don't have a ton of time to practice on top of that. So you have to really learn how to absorb quickly. So it's it's very helpful to get some of those tips from you. I'm sure that people will appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, now that you mentioned sort of that frame of mind, I remember being in my undergrad at Michigan, and I think some of us are maybe complaining, oh, orchestra is taking so much of our time. We don't have time to practice. And I remember Richard saying something like, when you're sitting in orchestra, that's time that you can be using to actually be, like you're saying, like you kind of are using that as a vehicle to also be working on some aspect of your playing. Maybe you're gonna think, like, I'm gonna make sure all my shifts are timed exactly the way I want, or I'm gonna keep really good traction in the upper half of the boat, or they're you know, depending on how demanding the program is. I mean, pop shows are great for that, actually. True. Where you can think like, I'm gonna really concentrate on the the frame, or I'm gonna make sure that my my third finger feels very you know strong and sturdy. You can always think of some way to utilize your time on stage more deeply. Yeah. And that's also a form of efficient practicing, using what you've got, what you're doing to also get better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So I want to talk about your recent cello auditions, because you actually hired several new players. What can you share about that experience? And when was that? Was that a year ago? I can't remember exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so since I've been here, we've had two cello auditions. The first of which ended up being for associate principal, so my stand partner, and then it was section, but ended up being fixed fourth chair.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

We hired two people for that, and that was, I guess, a couple years ago now, because those two players are now in their second season. And then we had another audition last year for a few section openings, and we hired one person. Okay. So in both of those auditions, we had more openings than we filled. But I think given the current landscape of auditions and no hires and things that have been happening, I've I've actually been really happy to find three players in two auditions. Yeah. I think that's a really good ratio, actually.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And so it's the section is very quickly turning over. I mean, if if you count me, that's four players and not a whole lot of time. Yeah. And our section is I mean, we have another audition in January, actually, for I think it's a few spots. I know it's multiple openings.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's just a matter of time before we essentially have a brand new cello section. Yeah. That was another thing that attracted me to this position, was I knew that it would come with the opportunity to essentially build a new section. Yeah. Which is kind of, you know, something that principal players like to be able to do. It goes hand in hand with principal syndrome, I think.

SPEAKER_01:

So can you talk at all? Because you also went through an audition in Atlanta about if there were any differences between the process that you went through in San Francisco versus Atlanta, or were they mostly very similar?

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, procedurally, it's pretty similar. There might be differences in how you know resume screening is handled, things like that. Here, I know Atlanta has changed their policies a lot as far as that goes, trying to keep things extremely blind, in my opinion, probably too much so. Where it kind of I felt like when I was on committees there, I did not necessarily always have the information that I needed, sort of bending over maybe too far in that direction. But maybe that's not a discussion for this podcast. But I think here in San Francisco, we're still a little bit more traditional in that, you know, we have resume review, there's a screening committee, which for a cell audition I would of course be on. We have started in this orchestra having the option of either doing completely where the all the prelims are just recorded. Oh, wow. And then you invite people from the recorded prelim, kind of New York Phil style, where you have the option of doing a recorded prelim. Yep. But here you either do recorded prelim or you just do kind of old school where you screen resumes and certain people you say you can come, but you have to make a tape. Okay. And that's what we've, in my experience, done here for the cello auditions. We have yet to do a fully recorded prelim. And I think it's still to be determined for this upcoming one how we're going to do it, because the committee votes on that. Yeah. And last time I went back and forth quite a bit, I couldn't quite make up my mind. And then in the end, I decided I I really wanted everyone to play a prelim in person. Yeah. Here. Because there's something about a recorded prelim where you know you can do as many takes as you want. You can it, I guess, still assuming that no one's doctoring the recordings or anything, you still have to be able to do it. But there's something about that pressure of you have one chance, do it, that I thought was valuable. We did have to split the committee for the prelim because we did not have much time and we had so many people. Okay. So for the first round, we had two committees, and then from semis on, we just had one committee. Uh-huh. I thought that worked pretty well. But I don't know yet how we're going to do it this time. As an applicant, I could of course see the merit in just doing a recorded prelim, having probably spent, God, I don't know how much money in my life flying my cello around, staying in hotels and taking off work. And yeah, I don't know. I remember you did a podcast, maybe it was with Brinton talking a lot about it. I was just about to say that, yes. A lot about this. Yeah. I thought about it a lot, and I I still I can't say that I have a concrete opinion on it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, Brinton's for those who don't know or haven't listened to it, Brinton is the principal cellist in Houston. And he brought up this idea when we had actually a two-part episode where we talked a lot about auditions themselves. And this was an idea he floated to make it easier on people because it costs so much money to fly all over the place for these prelims. And his thinking was that summer festivals largely do it this way. So maybe we should try this in orchestras and see if this helps the financial burden that so many people go through to just take auditions. So I thought it was an interesting idea. I'd love to hear if it's done in practice, how it works out. Because I haven't talked to anybody that's done a prelim round completely that way. We've started to incorporate the recordings as part of it if you don't get invited. And I think that's been really great too, because it gives everyone an opportunity either way. So yeah, it would be really interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I was on another committee, not for Cello, that did elect to do it that way. And I think because of that particular group of people on that committee, it was great because you know, you you knew very early on in the recording, is this person really gonna have a shot at winning this job or not?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And this was for it was for another principal position. We weren't I think it was very much like, let's be real here. Let's have people come who have a chance of being the next principal, whatever. Right. And as a result, that committee was very focused and and it was a targeted process. And you know, everyone has to raise their hand if they've heard enough. And that process just went very quickly. Yeah. And one way or another, in the end, we did end up hiring someone. So I would say that that did work. But again, it depends a lot on who you have on the committee. And some people are more, I don't know what the right word is, charitable maybe than others, wanting to give people experience. I've never taken an audition for experience in my life. I'm not on that train. I look at it like this is a hiring search. Like, let's not waste our time or their time. But I do think the recorded prelims can get a little tricky if you have people that are maybe more in the other camp and it can drag on and on, and you end up still having people come that maybe shouldn't. So I don't know that either is perfect. One little sort of side thought that I just had though is that of the three people that we have hired since I've been here, two of them did not have their resumes accepted and were asked to send a tape. Wow. They're also super young. I mean, the cellist that we just most recently hired, this was her first and only audition that she ever took. Wow. Yeah. And then the one before, I think he had maybe only taken a couple. Uh-huh. Um, they were both those two, they both only have undergraduate degrees. Yeah. So like that clearly also works. Because we hired two of them. There's no shame in being asked to make a tape. I've made tapes in my life. It's been a while, but I have. Were they still tapes?

SPEAKER_01:

Because back when I did it, they were actually tapes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you and I are of different generations. It's true. I'm only 35, Joel.

SPEAKER_01:

I will not make you older than you are. So I'm curious if you were not a professional cellist. Have you ever thought about what you would do for a living instead or what you think you might have done?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think I would hope in this hypothetical scenario that I'm just independently wealthy and I can just not do anything. I don't know. I do like teaching. I don't see myself necessarily being like a school teacher. Uh-huh. I find whether I'm coaching people on their audition preparation or teaching my kids to read or whatever it is, I get a lot out of breaking things down and helping them be digestible for other people and then seeing progress in real time. I think that's just as a process, like the way that we learn and the way that our brains adapt. I'm very interested in that. So I haven't gone far enough in this thought experiment to come up with a job title for myself, other than like a trust fund recipient who also enjoys teaching for fun. I don't know, I was so focused on music for so much of my life that I never really pursued anything else to the same degree. Yeah. There were some times when I was in school, even in college, where I was a little bit disillusioned. And I thought, like, what else could I do? You know? I think everybody kind of goes through that, like, I don't know if I want to do this, I don't know if this is right. Sort of cold feet. I was interested in languages, but again, that's kind of a vague as more of an interest than something I could see myself actually passionately pursuing to make a living out of it. So I don't have a good answer for you other than I'm interested in the psychological component of how to learn and how to prepare for certain goals and then how to perform, having then gone through the rituals and processes that come with that to achieve success. So maybe I would have like a sort of grifter book and podcast kind of you know, I'd be like, I'm trying to think of the I'll probably get sued if I mention anybody. You don't need to. I think you know what I'm saying. I it's the process that I could see being applied to other fields as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that makes sense. And what advice do you have then for young musicians who might be considering a career in music?

SPEAKER_00:

I think if I'm gonna sort of extract something from my own experience that would be useful, it would be to as soon as possible find a niche for yourself where you think you can be successful and where you think you can make a living, and where you think you'll be satisfied, and then obsessively focus on putting yourself there. For me, it was I want to be a principal cellice of a top orchestra in the United States. And I knew that probably really early in my undergraduate or or maybe even in high school, it had kind of occurred to me. Most of my teachers really, Richard Aaron is the only exception. Most of my teachers have been major principal players. Yeah. My final teacher in high school was principal of the Colorado Symphony. And before that, he was in the section of the New York Phil. He was the youngest section member of the New York Phil under Bernstein. And then I was with Richard, and then I was with Eric Him, who I know has also been on your show, principal of Cincinnati. And then at Curtis, Carter Bray, obviously, principal of the New York Phil. And Peter Wiley was principal of the Cincinnati Symphony, also, briefly. Oh, I forgot that. That's right. Yeah, there was sort of a revolving door of principles before Eric, like Des Hobig was there, and Peter Wiley was there. Um, so all of my teachers and role models have that's what they've done. Yeah. Among other things. But that's sort of what I saw as the common thread. As I grew and got to know myself and my various syndromes that have been mentioned, I said, that's what I'm gonna do. And it also is is a great way to kind of find that balance of, you know, I get to play concertos fairly regularly with the orchestra, but I was never naive enough to think that I was gonna be a soloist who could just sort of manifest this solo career. Yeah. Because I looked around me and I saw people that were, to my mind, much more talented and hardworking and showed a lot more promise and they were more likely to have that than me. But I knew that it was still even for them very unlikely. But I also I didn't necessarily want to go get a doctorate. I I didn't see playing in a quartet as a viable future, something like that for myself. Yeah. So you know, for me, I that was the bone, and I was the dog, and I was like, I'm gonna have it. And so I worked really hard at that, obsessively. And I've kind of boiled it down to a science, it's still an art. But you know, now if if an audition comes up, I don't have any plans to take any right now, but it's so familiar and it's so routine, I know exactly what to do. Yeah. And in the job, I think I know it, I think. I I've by now figured out how to do it. And I'm still always I'm still sort of chasing that goal of trying to be the best at it. I'm always thinking, okay, how can I, you know, psychologically, how can I practice getting into the zone right before that solo even better? How can I banish all tremors and nerves even quicker and even better? Or how can I lead that pits a little better? How can I lead less to make everyone listen a little bit more? I'm always trying to think how I can improve. I don't feel like I've crossed any kind of finish line. And I think it's that mentality, the kind of obsessive drive for a specific job in this musical landscape that we're all in that has allowed me to be successful because there were people I was in school with everywhere I went that at the time I think were were better than me. Yeah. But were maybe a little bit less goal-oriented. And then I think as time has passed, you know, we've all kind of ended up in different places. I think it's like we all know work ethic is just vitally important. So that's a long answer. Does that answer your question?

SPEAKER_01:

That's a great answer. And I think you one other thing you mentioned that's really important, and maybe this wasn't by design for you, but I think it partly was is if you want to play in an orchestra, you probably should study with someone who plays in an orchestra. I mean, because if you want to be a soloist, maybe find a soloist as a teacher, because there are different, while we're all working on a lot of the same things, there are very different specific skill sets required for each of these paths that we choose. And if you have someone who's really deeply experienced in that one area, I think that you can get more laser focus towards that because you're getting the training from the person who really understands how to do what your goal is.

SPEAKER_00:

I think you're right about that. I think there is a lot of overlap because at the end of the day, we are all just trying to make music in a convincing way.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I actually, in orchestral auditions, when I'm listening, really I'm just trying to find the best musician who also knows how to shape what they're doing and adapt to different scenarios. You know, we've had people that will come in and play, and it's it's very good. It's very, you know, I can tell they they know their excerpts and they've they've dotted all their I's and T's and across their T's, and somehow it just doesn't move me. So it is finding that balance. So finding a teacher who knows what it means to win an orchard job and play in an orchard, but also how to be convincing and still maintain some musical interest. Yeah. I think it's really important. For what it's worth, I think the two section hires, the two basically, you know, children that we've hired at school. I don't think either of them studied primarily with orchestral cellists. Okay. But I know they both had access to people on the faculty that were. Yeah. And so I'm sure that they I haven't actually asked them, but based on the way that they played, I mean, there's no way that they just figured it out. Yeah. I mean, they're both pretty smart, so maybe they did, but but I know that they, if your main teacher is not the principal of Yorkshire in your city or whatever, it's a great idea to reach out and kind of broaden your scope. Yeah. Find someone who does what you want to do and learn how to do it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, it's been really great to catch up with you. I want to thank you so much for coming back and joining us today on the Cello Sherpa Podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

It's always a pleasure, Joel. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much to Rayner Eudaikus for joining us today and updating us on what he's been up to. And thank you for listening to another episode of the Cello Sherpa Podcast. For more information on Rayner and any of the links we spoke about today, check out our show notes by scrolling down in the episode. Be sure to catch our next episode where clinical psychologist Ellen Hendrickson joins us. We talk about the beginning self-acceptance for self-critics and perfections. The book that is a perfect topic for everyone, but seems to be made for receptions. We're here to serve you. So if you have questions or typically suggestions you would like us to cover in future episodes, please use the critic page on the website button. You will also find information about the specific services we offer on the website. Don't forget to follow us and rate us on whatever platform you get your plugins. This helps us clean the rankings so other people can find us. Today's episode was edited by Eric Bigeth at Red House Productions and produced and recorded by me, Joel Down.