Orchestra Blind Auditions Carpet

Blind auditions as they became known proved transformative.

Orchestra blind auditions carpet. In the old days when people tended to dress up for auditions even blind auditions orchestras put down runners strips of carpet so that listeners would not hear the click of heels as an. Blind auditions are based on an appealing premise of pure meritocracy. In contrast blind auditions were independently adopted by real orchestras starting with the boston symphony orchestra in the latter part of the 20th century. An orchestra should be built from the very best players period.

In the 1970s and 1980s orchestras began using blind auditions. But ask anyone in the field and you ll learn that over the. Candidates are situated on a stage behind a screen to play for a jury that cannot see them. It is as close to a pure meritocracy as i can imagine.

Its bombshell finding was that blind orchestra auditions which prevented the choosers from seeing whether each auditioner was male or female increased female auditioners odds by 50 percent. That is the musicians are not seen at all only their music is heard. That way implicit or explicit racial ethnic or gender bias cannot enter into the hiring decision only the quality of the music. For decades leading symphony orchestras have used blind auditions to hire musicians.

In some orchestras blind auditions are. Many orchestras became more democratic in the 1960s and 70s and quite a few began to use blind auditions to promote this trend during this time. Using a screen to conceal candidates from the jury during preliminary auditions increased the likelihood that a female musician would advance to the next round by 11 percentage points. Could blind auditions be the reason.

In the 1970s and 1980s orchestras began using blind auditions. The percentage of women in orchestras which hovered under 6 percent in 1970 grew. In some orchestras blind auditions are used just for the preliminary selection while others use it all the way to the end until a hiring decision is made. Blind auditions for symphony orchestras reduced sex biased hiring and improved female musicians likelihood of advancing out of preliminary rounds which often leads to tenured employment.

Economists claudia goldin of harvard and cecilia rouse of princeton observed that the number of female musicians hired by orchestras was growing.