STRINGS ATTACHED

Miami Herald, The (FL)
May 19, 1996
Author: JOHN DORSCHNER Tropic Staff Writer

He had only a half-hour left. He grimaced at the yellowish muffin on his breakfast plate as if it were his last meal, which in a way it was, since he felt his entire life was on the line. He glanced through the windows of the San Francisco hotel's small dining room. A heavy rain pounded the pavement. People were trudging to work, heads bowed, umbrellas into the wind.

Michael Sutton, 26, had devoted his life to studying the violin since the age of 4, preparing for just a moment like this. He'd spent $1,000 of his own money to fly across the continent with a $95,000 fiddle that his parents had mortgaged their house for. But all of that would buy him only a 10-minute audition before a handful of judges who would decide--without ever seeing him--whether all his years of work had been worth it.

Over 400 had applied for two violin openings with the San Francisco Symphony. One hundred had been considered good enough to be invited to audition. About half had dropped out along the way, growing weary of the endless practice required to have a prayer of being competitive. About 50, after hundreds of hours of preparation, would be Michael's competition this morning. They were coming from all over the world.

Michael took a small bite of the muffin. "It tastes like putty," he mumbled. "I have no appetite at all." A sip of coffee. He had poured himself only a third of a cup. "My adrenaline is pumping so much I don't want any more than that."

Running through his mind, like an unending record, was his assessment of what he was about to go through: "It's like making music with a gun to your head. One slip and you're finished."

Against All Odds

They're the best of the best. The ones whose moms started them early, even before they were in kindergarten; the ones who practiced while other kids were scampering on the playground; the ones who won the contests in high school and then went on to study music at elite colleges and conservatories.

Each year, a thousand of the top graduates send applications to Miami Beach, seeking employment with the New World Symphony, a unique training orchestra developed by superstar conductor Michael Tilson Thomas to give outstanding young musicians three years to hone their skills before auditioning for the rare openings in big-time orchestras.

New World accepts only 30 of the 1,000 applicants, but even for this select group, the final step to a permanent professional orchestra is an excruciatingly difficult process. Joshua Feldman, personnel director of the San Francisco Symphony: "The statistical chances of success are frighteningly low. A recent study showed that of all the people who want to become professional orchestra musicians, less than 4 percent will actually be able to earn their livelihood playing music."

Classical music rarely pays for itself. Government funding for the arts is drying up. So is corporate largess in the downsizing '90s. Orchestras all over are struggling. James Judd, conductor of the Florida Philharmonic, puts aside his baton for two months to try to erase a $2.2 million deficit. San Diego's symphony may fold. Phoenix's took a pay cut. Yet the musicians keep coming. And coming. In the 1960s, an opening for a violinist in the Boston Symphony drew only six applicants. Today each opening draws hundreds.

The competition is intense; the stakes high: Make it in the top orchestras, and you start out earning $50,000 to $90,000 with a near guarantee that you will play professionally for the rest of your career. Fail, and you may wind up as a teacher listening to 6-year-olds scratch grudgingly at their instruments.

This is a business of triumph or heartbreak. Consider Ken Freudigman, a superb cellist who was selected by Michael Tilson Thomas to perform a solo in a New World recording session. His career is right at its cusp: He's 29 and in his last year at New World. He had set his sights on two auditions this spring: The Minnesota Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony. A few days before the first audition, he tripped over a box in his apartment and broke a bone in the small finger of his left hand--the hand he uses to finger the cello strings. That sidelined him for weeks, and blew his chances to land a job. Now he has no idea what he's going to be doing next year.

Then there's Catherine Ransom, 28, a flautist from Julliard. She was raised in Minnesota and had never been to Los Angeles, never dreamed of living there, but only one or two major auditions for wind instruments are held a year, and when the Los Angeles Philharmonic announced an opening, she jumped for it. Of 125 contestants, she got the job. When she heard the news, she was stunned. Her pay jumped from $14,000 with New World to $75,000 in L.A.

A Pathetic Living?

Michael Sutton was in the back row of the plane, zooming across the continent on a Saturday afternoon, two days before the audition. His 235-year-old Gabrielli fiddle rested in an $800 carrying case in the luggage compartment above his head.

He was in his third, and almost certainly last, year at New World. By design, New World musicians are almost always limited to three years: After that, it's time to find a permanent job in a professional orchestra or step aside to make room for someone else. "That's why the third year is usually known as 'Death Row,' " Michael said grimly.

Now, faced with what may be the end of the road for him as a performing violinist, he so desperately wanted this job that he was already protecting himself against the possibility of being passed over. "This is what I'm getting myself into," he said, handing over a New York Times clipping. The headline: A Pathetic Living at the Symphony? The story reported how a survey by Harvard psychologists found that, in measuring job satisfaction, "orchestra players rank just below federal prison employees on the happiness chart." Though musicians at the New York Philharmonic start at $80,000 a year, they complain they have no control over their work lives -- the music they play, the hours they work, the tours they must go on.

But Michael was not kidding himself. From his perspective, these complaints sounded like the whining of spoiled brats, a minor cost for fulfilling the dream of his life. "I've been playing the violin for 22 of my 26 years. That's all I do. All I'm qualified to do."

He grew up in Minneapolis. His father was an opera singer who eventually became director of the University of Minnesota's music school. His mother was mainly a homemaker, who, as she worked around the house, enjoyed listening to Bach's Concerto in E Major. When Michael was 2, he told his mom he wanted to make that sound he was hearing -- though he didn't even know what a violin was.

At 4, he began lessons, but "I never started practicing, really, until I was 11 or 12. I wanted to be a violinist right around the age when I started noticing women. It was a way of getting attention." He practiced for an hour each morning at 5:45.

Music surrounded him. From its very first show, his dad, Vern Sutton, was a regular on A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor's famed radio program. Michael often messed around backstage at rehearsals, and sometimes he played his fiddle on the show. "That kind of pressure I like--beaming via satellite to millions. It's a kick."

By the time he was in high school, he wanted to make music his life. For college, he chose the Manhattan Conservatory of Music, so he could study under a great violin teacher, a Russian emigre named Raphael Bronstein. After getting his master's, he freelanced a bit in New York until, in November 1993, he went to an audition with the Baltimore Symphony. He was one of 130 trying for two jobs.

Auditions have become a heavily ritualized process, controlled by union contract. Traditionally, most classical musicians have been white and male. In the '60s, when that inequity was questioned, orchestras began separating performers from judges by large black screens. Carpets were laid down in the audition halls, so that judges couldn't distinguish between men's and women's footsteps. Orchestras still tend to be overwhelmingly Caucasian or Asian American -- the two groups most likely to send their kids for classical music training -- but women now make up more than a third of orchestra musicians.

Michael thought he did well during his Baltimore audition, but he didn't advance beyond the first of three rounds. Later, he says, he learned that the two finalists were students of orchestra members. He decided the audition was fixed. "I was really upset. I vowed to quit."

His anger subsided in a few days, however, and he flew to Miami for an audition for New World. Michael says the audition was brutal--Michael Tilson Thomas demanded he play a series of the most difficult violin works from memory. But this time he prevailed.

Michael was elated to get the job -- not so much because of the modest $14,000 annual salary or the free efficiency apartment, but because of the chance to learn from top teachers flown in from all over the country and, most particularly, to stretch himself under the leadership of Thomas, who has become an international celebrity. "MTT's the big draw," says Michael. "Nothing gets past him. He's a stickler. . . . He makes it a big-time program."

The Sound of Excellence

Michael's room at the Ansonia on 21st Street, Miami Beach, is vintage collegiate: A bed, a large chair, a coffee table, shelves for electronic gear, a Monet poster. The music collection is eclectic -- from Brahms to Stevie Ray Vaughan. An electric guitar is propped against a wall. "When I unwind," he says, "I have a craving for the opposite," meaning raunchy rock 'n' roll.

He had a "long-distance relationship" with a woman for a couple of years, but the distance was too much to overcome. Relationships at New World are tenuous, given the transitory nature of the orchestra, and he has avoided them.

Michael tries to stay focused on his music. Last year, he decided to try two auditions in Texas that were being held one right after the other. Economically, doubling up was great -- it saved plane fare. Musically, it meant learning two different lists of required music, which was tough. He didn't pass beyond the first round of either audition.

After that experience, he decided he needed an edge -- something to set him apart from the others. His instrument was a German fiddle from the 18th Century, worth about $10,000. Nothing to sneeze at. But it had a sweeter, darker sound than most symphonies liked, and he became convinced that he needed a better instrument.

He broached the subject with his folks. He was an only child, and they figured they'd rather help him now than make him wait years for an inheritance. They had about $40,000 in savings. That wouldn't be enough for the kind of instrument Michael wanted, but they could raise the rest with a mortgage.

Last November, Michael and his folks flew to Chicago, where a dealer had a dozen decent "fiddles," all of them a couple of centuries old. For several hours, Michael tried them out, with his mother taking notes on the sounds and his comments on each. The choice came down to a French instrument or an Italian violin built by Giovanni Gabrielli in Florence in 1760. The French one cost $80,000; the Italian was $95,000. Michael likened the choice to choosing a wife. "This was a choice of a lifetime," he says. But he couldn't do it on his own. He "signed my life away" and brought both fiddles back to Miami, where he played them for various people, including MTT, who pronounced a clear preference: The Italian.

Finally, the magnificent instrument was his. He knew what his parents had sacrificed for him, and he didn't intend to let them down.

The Long Shot

Though one in 25 aspiring classical musicians make music into a career, New World is a special case. A survey of its alums in 1994 found that 73 percent had found positions with orchestras or ensemble groups. But there is a huge gap between a person like David Herbert, who earns roughly $100,000 as principal timpanist with the San Francisco Symphony and several other alums who have trudged along Tamiami Trail to the Naples Philharmonic to earn about one-fifth that much. Even so, Naples gets 25 musicians for a string audition, perhaps 50 for a rare opening for a wind instrument.

There is no escaping auditions. A survey of Julliard grads--among the elite--found that they averaged 16 auditions before getting a job. Because of that, some New Worlders try to take as many auditions as possible, figuring that gives a better chance of striking gold. But, after his back-to-back failures in Texas, Michael figured he was better off this season focusing all his practice time preparing for a single audition. Last winter, when he read in a musicians' union newspaper about two openings in San Francisco, he decided that was the one for him. San Francisco had a great reputation as a symphony. Great pay ($77,000), great place to live, and a great new orchestra leader--none other than Michael Tilson Thomas himself, whom Michael reveres. Thomas' stature is such that he was hired in San Francisco even though he continues working at New World and also regularly serves as guest-conductor in London.

The maestro would not sit in on the first day's auditions in San Francisco, but he would hear the semi-finals and finals, and, after a panel of orchestra members made recommendations, he would have the ultimate say. Michael was confident that he knew the style that MTT wanted, and that that would give him an edge, even though he would be anonymous behind the black screen.

In January, he began practicing the pieces that San Francisco told applicants it might require at the audition. The list was tough, as all audition lists are, chosen to separate ordinary players from the truly gifted.

For months, Michael practiced up to five hours a day with the New World for its regular concerts, then dashed home to work on the audition list. (The Ansonia, where many New World musicians live, is forgiving of musical noise, allowing its residents to practice anytime between the hours of 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.)

Sometimes, as he walked down the halls of the apartment house, he heard the same audition selections coming from other rooms: the schizophrenic Mahler 5, the melodious Mendelssohn 4. When he gently made inquiries, he found that five of his colleagues were also preparing furiously for the 3,000-mile trek to San Francisco.

Just by themselves, the New World contingent made for a fearsome group of competitors from around the world: one from Latvia, one from Russia, two from the United States and -- perhaps toughest of all -- Japanese-born, Vienna-trained Naomi Kazama, 27. When MTT heard her perform in a music festival, he was so impressed that he invited her to become the concertmaster of New World -- the orchestra's No. 1 violinist.

So the colleagues, sitting shoulder to shoulder at concerts, were also desperate competitors. Even so, they cultivated a kind of professional congeniality, and sometimes they shared tips. "Over lunch," explained Michael, "I'll say to someone, 'I'm having the darnedest time with the fingering on this piece. How do you do it?' "

They also share instructors. In March, several weeks before the San Francisco audition, New World flew in one of America's premiere violin teachers, Marylou Speaker Churchill of the Boston Symphony. In a small practice room with gray indoor- outdoor carpeting, Michael spent an hour with her going over the toughest selections in the audition list, particularly Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.

"You're too tense," she said as she heard his first part. "It's like teeth crunching." He tried again. "No, no. I lose the little notes."

She played the passage on her own violin. It seemed more melodious, more clear. She was a masterful player; she was also playing a Stradivarius, which, with a value of over $1 million, made Michael apologize for his "bottom-of-the-barrel Italian" Gabrielli.

As the hour went on, she showed him alternative fingering for various passages, then warned him he seemed too grim. "Smile! Smile like you're the greatest virtuoso in the world!" As a reminder, Michael scribbled a little smiley face on the score.

After he worked through several other numbers, she beamed: "Wow, I'm impressed! You're in great shape!"

The Edge

By sheer coincidence, eight days before he flew out for the audition, the San Francisco Symphony came to Miami on a national tour. Because Thomas directs both orchestras, he arranged for his New World foundlings to join the San Francisco veterans on stage for Tchaikovsky's Marche Slav, and Michael picked up a feeling for the orchestra's style.

After the concert, several San Francisco musicians dropped by a Beach bar where New World musicians get two-for-one drinks and free games of pool.

One of those who came by was Felicia Moye, whom Michael regards as "one of the most phenomenal violinists I have ever heard." She had been with San Francisco for six years, but quit to stretch her creative legs as first violin with the critically acclaimed Miami String Quartet. Eventually, she became tired of all the traveling she had to do with the quartet and decided to return to the San Francisco Symphony. For the past year and a half, she had been sitting in as a freelancer. At the upcoming audition, she told people at the bar, she would be seeking to regain a full-time, tenured position.

For Michael and the New World competitors, this was stunning news: As a symphony veteran, she would know exactly what the judges were looking for.

"So," said Michael, "you have to figure she'll get one position, and all the rest of us are competing for the other."

Still, while the San Francisco Symphony was in Miami, the New World violinists received a great break. MTT arranged for its concertmaster, Raymond Kobler, to give private lessons at New World. Since the concertmaster would undoubtedly be one of the audition judges, this gave the Miami musicians a chance for him to critique their handling of the repertoire before they played. (This was such an edge that when a West Coast musician trying out for the San Francisco positions heard about it, she grumbled that it was "very unethical.")

After the lessons, Kobler offered a mock audition. Michael had trouble. The concertmaster had suggested several new fingerings for complicated passages, and he hadn't yet absorbed them. During the last movement of Brahms' Fourth, Michael tried several times to go through the tricky runs. "It got worse each time."

Still, the lesson had been invaluable. As the plane descended over the California hills toward the airport, Michael said, "I've been given all the competitive edges that are possible." He was thinking of his education, the new fiddle, the special lessons. "So now if I don't succeed, it's my own fault."

For a moment, he stared at his feet. All these advantages, of course, added up to greater pressure--how dare he fail!--but he didn't want to think about that. "I'm the best prepared I've ever been," he said in a tone straining for confidence. "Monday should be a breeze."

Omens and Portents

At 7 p.m. on a Saturday night--38 hours before the audition--Michael was in a taxi on a freeway heading to downtown San Francisco, stuck in a traffic jam. He peered at the dark shadows that hinted at the California hills and thought of his ancient Buick Skylark, which he desperately needed to replace. Hadn't he read somewhere that California has special emission standards for cars? "If I get the job here, I think I should wait and buy a new car here, shouldn't I?" He sighed. He hated the uncertainty of his life. He wanted to know what kind of car he could afford, what city he could call home. He wanted a sense of permanence so he could get a relationship going, and a livable income so he could start paying off his folks' mortgage for the fiddle. But at the moment, the future was opaque.

"Everything's so . . . indefinite," he mumbled.

That night, after a Thai dinner, he worked for a couple of hours in his hotel room on Brahms and some of the quieter pieces. Sunday morning, when he figured everyone was awake, he practiced the booming Mahler.

For lunch, he stared at a bacon sandwich and matzoh soup. Tension had tightened his face into a grim mask. Less than 24 hours to go.

His thoughts flickered between hope and despair. The practice went well. But five minutes later doubt swept his face. "I hope I don't screw up," he said. "I've been hating this so much the last three months." He stopped short, willing himself to have a more positive attitude. And why not? He had a great opportunity here: "Wow, this is kind of exciting!"

The San Francisco Symphony was having a concert that afternoon at 2, performing Bernstein's On the Town, and he had a ticket. Perhaps he should try to track down Michael Tilson Thomas backstage. Some months ago, the conductor had told him he wanted to hear his Mozart No. 4 Concerto, which he might have to perform at the audition. He daydreamed out loud: Maybe MTT would invite him over to his place tonight to listen to it and give him some pointers. "Wouldn't that be neat?"

After lunch, he walked toward the concert hall. When he was within a couple of blocks, he began seeing large cloth banners with Thomas' picture hanging from lampposts. Then suddenly there it was: The beige and glass palace of Davies Hall, occupying a full city block.

Michael circled the building. As he rounded the corner to the back side, he saw the conductor a half-block away, emerging from a car with a blond woman whom Michael recognized as Frederica von Stade, the fabulous mezzo-soprano who was one of the On the Town stars.

The young violinist rushed toward the man who has been his orchestral leader for the past three years. A quick hug. The conductor flashed the crinkly smile that was on every lamppost. "Do you have a ticket?" he asked.

"Yes," Michael said. Thomas mumbled something about having only a half-hour before the performance. He turned and led the soprano through the stage entrance.

Michael stood frozen on the sidewalk, smiling and deflated. The man who had helped him pick his $95,000 instrument had given him a 10-second brushoff. But obviously the conductor had a lot to do at the moment. Michael shrugged: "I guess if he had wanted to hear the Mozart, he would have said so." Then his face brightened: "Well, what are the odds of bumping into him like that? Maybe it's an omen."

He returned to the front and entered the hall, a spectacular building with 2,500 seats, including opera-style boxes along the sides and two balconies stretching into the stratosphere. "Less than 24 hours," he said, looking at the wooden stage, "I'll be up there."

D-Day

The next morning, having forced himself to eat the tasteless muffin "for energy," he trudged through the rainy streets toward the hall. Since he would be unseen by the judges, he dressed for comfort: Blue Oxford shirt (with a New World T-shirt underneath for good luck), green jeans and comfortable black shoes.

At the stage entrance, a security guard checked his name off a list and directed him down a long hallway toward the Green Room: A large, mirror-lined space holding 30 violinists who all looked about as relaxed as the O.J. Simpson defense team right before the verdicts were read. Most were like Michael--gen-x'ers in jeans--but Leonid Sigal, a 23-year-old Russian from New World, wore a tie and pin-striped suit.

There was a babble of languages: Japanese, Russian, English. Sitting in the corner was a woman who had her violin out, a musical score propped on a coffee table. She was sawing away at Richard Strauss' Don Juan in a slow, labored style that made Michael feel like a virtuoso.

Suddenly, Tatiana Vertjanova, the New World Latvian, burst into the room with a shout and a smile, oozing confidence in tall leather boots, shiny black slacks, a scarf wrapped around her neck. She hugged everyone she saw, including Michael, which he found odd, since back in Miami Beach, they never hugged.

A few minutes after 9 a.m., a woman brought in a wicker basket filled with white slips of paper. She told everybody to draw one. Michael came up with "II." What did that mean?

A buzz filled the room. Everyone was trying to figure out the system. Some had single letters. Some had double. The talk died when Joshua Feldman, the bearded personnel manager, appeared. He announced there would be two panels, each with six judges. Three votes would be required to move to the next round. Those with single letters were to perform in the main hall. Double letters would be in a reception room.

Michael blinked. His mental image of himself performing in the main hall turned instantly bogus. A bad omen?

"The two places have completely different acoustics," Feldman said, "but the judges are thoroughly familiar with the differences. Trust us. We know what we're doing."

Michael calculated on his fingers. "I" was the ninth letter. He'd probably be going on sometime between 11:30 and 12:30. As soon as Feldman left, the musicians opened their cases and began practicing. A maddening cacophony filled the room. Michael winced. He needed to get out.

On the street, he hesitated. What to do? He walked a block and stopped at a deli, ordering a glass of orange juice. When he's performing a tough work, he forgets to swallow and his tongue swells in his dry mouth. Maybe the OJ would help.

Then back to the Green Room. The competitors who were on deck had disappeared into practice rooms, but most were still there, playing away. It was an utter waste of time to practice amid this pounding noise, when you couldn't hear what you were doing, but after a few minutes of pacing, he pulled out his Gabrielli and began "noodling." Practice had been embedded in his brain for two decades: When in doubt, practice; when tense, practice; when there's nothing else to do, practice.

At 10:55 a.m., a staffer called Michael's name, then led him to Practice Room B-41. It was the size of a walk-in closet, with garish orange velvet curtains and a maroon carpet.

An open violin case rested on a chair: no instrument. Its owner must have just vacated the room to do his audition. Taped to the inside green liner of the case was a row of snapshots: Asians in family clusters, beaming toward the camera. One group of three stood in front of a pagoda.

Michael set the musical scores on a stand and started working on the last movement of Beethoven's Fifth. A young Asian man in a ponytail rushed into the room with the grim face of a loser. He slipped his violin into its case and fled.

Michael didn't even glance at him. He missed a note on the Beethoven. A groan. Then the Mendelssohn. Melodious, lyrical. He closed his eyes, lifting up on his toes, leaning forward, trying to eliminate everything but the sound emanating from this centuries-old fiddle.

After a few minutes, he frowned. "I'm getting hungry." He hesitated. "That's a good sign." Meaning he was not so nervous that he forgot about his stomach. It was nearing noon. Maybe there was a vending machine around. He went into the hallway. No sign of a machine.

Suddenly, the elevator door opened and Tatiana burst out, clutching fiddle and music, her face glistening with sweat, fresh from her audition.

"How'd it go?" Michael asked, but she raced past him, into a practice room. Moments later, she emerged. The face that had been ebullient was now a forced, toothy smile. As Michael stared at her, she extended her umbrella and jabbed at his stomach, not quite playfully. Then she ran down the hall.

"She didn't seem happy, did she?" Michael observed. He dared not think about this too much. Don't try to envision your fate, he told himself.

Back to the practice room. He worked so hard he began to sweat. Each moment seemed drenched with emotion. He burst into a smile after Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique: "Best I ever played! I nailed it." Then the furious, discordant Prokofiev's Death of Tibult. A frown. "I missed two notes of 350. That's not good enough to win me the job." Then: "This is pure, unadulterated hell."

At 12:10, a staffer knocked on the door and handed Michael a single sheet of paper, listing the excerpts he would be playing. The scores not on the list -- music he had spent hundreds of hours going over -- he tossed on the floor. Irrelevant! Then he raced through the music that had suddenly become his destiny.

At 12:30, another knock. "Ready?" asked the staffer. Michael grabbed his fiddle and the music and followed to the elevator. His face was tight, heart pounding.

Following the pianist that would accompany him, he walked briskly through a narrow kitchen with stacked crates of champagne and orange juice, then through double beige doors into a carpeted reception room with odd yellowish lighting. All he saw was a piano and a music stand set up three feet from a black three-paneled cloth partition 20 feet long and 10 feet high. On the other side, he knew, sat the judges.

He began with the Sibelius Violin Concerto. The accompanist seemed too loud, played too fast, and he had to bow hard to be heard, to lead the tempo and slow the man down. When the Sibelius was over, the pianist left. Michael glanced at the ceiling -- wood-paneled squares outlined in bronze. Reflected in the bronze he could see the crossed leg of a judge on the other side of the partition. Could they see him? No time to think.

He was on his own now. During the tricky Don Juan, he missed a single note, but recovered instantly. Many times, judges demand changes: speed it up, slow it down. But these judges were completely silent. A good sign, he thought.

At 12:44, it was over. Eleven minutes had encapsulated his life. He emerged from the beige doors, shining with sweat, breathing heavily, smiling broadly. "I did good," he said.

For a minute, he stood in a concrete loading area waiting for the news. The smile withered from his face. His breath tightened. Tension was crushing him.

Moments later, a young proctor in a white shirt emerged from the beige double doors. He stopped five feet from Michael and said quickly: "Sorry. You didn't receive enough votes."

Michael stood clutching the Gabrielli and the music scores, nodding numbly. Then he spun and rushed toward the elevator.

"I want to get out of here fast," he gasped. "I don't want to see anybody."

In his practice room stood a man with curly hair, shoes off, wearing white socks, warming up.

Confused, Michael slammed the door and stood in the hallway, trying to comprehend. "Wow. I have to call my parents. What am I going to tell them? All the money. All the classes. All the practice. All the years. And I wasn't good enough."

He took a deep breath and stared at the number on the door. Was this the room he had practiced in? Yes. He pushed in, put the fiddle in its case and hurried out. On the street, a chilly rain fell on his bare head, pasting down his thick dark hair.

"And I played so well, too," he said, oblivious to the puddles he was slogging through. "I was nervous, but I was in control. . . . The Brahms was in tune, compassionate, flowing. I slept well. I practiced for three months. I was as prepared as I could ever be. . . . If I had screwed up something royally, at least I would have known what I did wrong. . . . I felt I was at 96 percent. What do they want, 98 percent? . . . My parents will be understanding, but . . . " But in his own mind, he had failed them.

The day before, he had been glancing around at buildings, wondering where he might rent an apartment. Now, everything seemed like alien landscape, never to be seen again. He dropped off the violin at the hotel, then went to an Italian place for lunch. He ordered a beer and a pizza, but managed to eat only a slice.

"Man, I need a vacation," he moaned after he finished the beer. Outside, the rain had stopped. "But every day you lay down your instrument, you're losing ground." A sigh. "I don't think I'll have a real vacation until I'm 30 or 32."

After lunch, he jumped on a cable car, walked around Fisherman's Wharf, then through Chinatown until he found an Irish pub. In a few minutes, he downed three beers, still trying to comprehend his failure.

"I don't know what I would have done differently." And then, again: "I wasn't good enough."

Back on the street, he bumped into a cluster of men he recognized from the Green Room. "Come on," one said, "we're having a losers party."

One of them knew San Francisco well, and he led the group to a real Chinese restaurant -- a small, unpretentious place, then up a rickety stairway to a room crammed with unadorned wooden tables. Two of the "losers" were from the Oregon orchestra -- one American, the other a young Romanian. Another was a Russian with the San Francisco Opera, a job that paid considerably less than the symphony position.

The musicians traded excuses. The Romanian was the last performer in the hall before lunch, so the judges probably had grumbling stomachs. Another was late in the afternoon, when the judges probably feared they had already picked too many.

As they worked through a series of wondrous Chinese dishes, their talk turned sour as they recounted tales of wonderful musicians who had failed: because of tyrannical conductors, because of capricious concertmasters, because of prejudice or bad breaks. This was a losers' party for certain. Michael hated the tone, and he found himself thinking: Boy, I don't want to end up like these guys.

As they left, the Russian asked Michael how old he was.

"Twenty-six," Michael replied.

"Ah! A baby!" said the Russian, who was in his early 40s. "You have many auditions in front of you."

When the Fat Lady Sings

Michael's parents called him shortly after he returned to Miami. They were supportive and encouraging. His father sent him a letter, saying how proud they were of his accomplishments. "They couldn't have been better about it," Michael said.

What had happened in San Francisco? Michael checked around. About 15 of the 50 made it into the second round. Only one was from New World: Glen Cherry, a first-year member from South Dakota. The judges ended up qualifying two applicants, both from San Francisco, both of whom were close to the orchestra: Felicia Moye, as Michael had predicted, and a male who had previously subbed with the symphony. Then, in a surprise finale, Michael Tilson Thomas decided not to accept either of the finalists. No one won.

When Michael Sutton first heard of this, he was astounded. The whole process, the expense, the months of crushing practice, the nearly unbearable tension, had been for naught--not just for him, but for everyone. "It makes you wonder whether you want to be in this business," he said bitterly one afternoon.

Among other contestants, angry suspicions hovered. The judges certainly would have known Felicia's playing style, even behind a curtain, because they had played with her so much, and perhaps that was true of the other finalist as well.

Felicia Moye herself acknowledged to Tropic: "My sound is unmistakable. They work next to me," she said of the judges' committee. "I had friends on the committee."

Had the whole process been a ruse to choose two local favorites? Perhaps, but then again, there was no question that Felicia was a great talent, and the other had a strong background from Julliard.

Thomas, reached by phone in London as he prepared to conduct a concert, did not want to discuss his decision. He did say he had not completely ruled out picking the two: "As this is still in the process, it would be inappropriate of me to talk about it too much."

The conductor appeared to be unhappy with the audition process. He implied he would like a more flexible system in which the judges selected more musicians for him to choose from. The present system, he said, had "perhaps some strengths"--eliminating suspicions of favoritism or inequality--and "perhaps creates some problems," notably having to pick someone based on only a few minutes' performance, rather than seeing how musicians might work out in a longer tryout, sitting in with the full orchestra.

In the weeks since San Francisco, Michael Sutton has gotten over the initial shock of rejection. MTT himself granted Michael a special dispensation, as he does a few select stars of New World, and is allowing him to return for a fourth year. He's spending this summer at a musical festival in Boulder, which will be a lot of fun, but not very lucrative.

At the moment, he's not thinking about the auditions that wait in the fall and beyond: "After the summer, I'll get back in the saddle. Right now, I'm still burned out. Hopefully, the whole process becomes easier -- with the nerves and everything. I think every audition you get stronger and better. Hopefully, you keep growing." Of this, Michael Tilson Thomas is certain. Of the violinists who went from Miami for the San Francisco tryout, he says this: "Every one of them was fantastic."

And of the New World musicians in general, he says: "They are the future of music."

Section: TROPIC Copyright (c) 1996 The Miami Herald