In Episode 31 of The Ultimate Trumpet Podcast, Adam and Bella take on one of the most frustrating parts of a serious trumpet player's musical life: the orchestral audition.

Why does the audition process still look so much like it did decades ago? Why are musicians expected to prepare a handful of famous excerpts, walk into a room, play under enormous pressure, and somehow prove that they belong in an orchestra based on a few minutes of playing?

Adam and Bella dig into the problems with the traditional orchestral audition system and question whether it actually identifies the best musicians—or simply the people who are best at preparing for auditions.

They talk about the enormous amount of preparation that goes into an audition, the psychological pressure of playing excerpts without the context of an orchestra, a ...