What I learned from Shannon Wood
For most professional orchestra auditions I have to travel to different parts of the United States . These auditions typically happen in whatever city the orchestra is based in, usually at the actual venue that they regularly perform in. For my third timpani audition ever, I only had to take the train from my apartment in the north side of Chicago to downtown. The audition was for the mighty Chicago Symphony orchestra, one of the best orchestras in the country.
When I got there I was placed in a large warm-up room, where everyone waits until about 30 minutes before their actual audition. As I walked in, I was expecting to see a lot of great players given the high-profile nature of this job. One of the first people I saw happened to be a former teacher of mine from my undergraduate degree, Shannon Wood. He was sitting in a corner, getting ready, and warming up his ears by humming quietly while listening to his tuning fork.
I went to my own corner to get ready, and in some ways I felt less pressure after I saw Shannon. Being somewhat in the beginning stages of my professional career, I had nothing to lose. Someone like him might have a little more “riding” on this audition. I was just excited to have the opportunity to play on such a historic stage and compete against some of the best timpanists in the country. I got in the zone (by listening to “Call Me Maybe”–true story) and after a while, I went on stage for my audition. I attempted to play with as much courage and conviction as possible since I knew that was the only way I would advance in an audition for an orchestra like the Chicago Symphony. To my delight and surprise, I was the only person that advanced from that group, and not Shannon.
I learned a few things right away after that experience. Looking at the big picture, I started to realize that perhaps I could have a career playing timpani. But, I also learned a lot from seeing how Shannon handled the situation of not advancing from that group in the first round. I could only imagine him possibly being upset that he did not advance from that round yet his inexperienced and perhaps not very promising former student did. Truth be told, I was not that focused on timpani when I was a freshman and his student at the University of Miami.
Nevertheless, Shannon handled the situation with maturity and thoughtfulness. A few days after the first round, I got an email from him. He asked me if I had recorded my audition and if I wanted to exchange the recordings from our first rounds. Honestly, at first I was a little taken aback by the request. Nobody had asked me anything like this before and I was wondering why he would do so? Was Shannon just baffled about the outcome and trying to find out why the hell I advanced and he did not? Was he thinking the judges in the audition did not know what they were doing? I believe I just proceeded to ignore his email.
Later I came to realize that Shannon was just trying to improve and learn from the experience. At this point in his life he had a deep rooted growth mindset. I brought this up on my recent Instagram Live interview with Shannon and asked him: why did you do that? Why did you ask me for my tape after that first round in Chicago? His answer really inspired me when he explained, “[Sound concepts on the timpani] evolve and I want to hear what other timpanists sound like today. I want to know: am I staying within the margin of competition?” he continued, “timpani playing from the 60s, 70s and 80s is very different from the sounds we have today, not better, not worse, just different, and committees want to hear a quality of sound. By sharing tapes, I just want to hear what other people who are in the audition scene are sounding like and I want to see where I stand and make sure I am not short changing myself.” In other words, this was a strategy for Shannon to stay relevant.
Perhaps this open-mindedness and thoughtfulness is what led Shannon to win an unprecedented 3 US auditions back to back to back, a few months after the audition for the Chicago Symphony in 2013. He won positions with the Detroit and St. Louis Symphony Orchestras and was offered trials with the Baltimore and Singapore Symphonies. A few years later, after I became more experienced at taking auditions myself, I learned about the value of listening to tapes and keeping an open mind about what other timpanists in the scene are doing. Me and Shannon met again at another audition in 2017, and I was more than glad to exchange the recordings from our rounds. Although this time I understood exactly why he would even ask.
This is one of the many things I learned from my interview with Shannon. He leads a fascinating life now as the timpanist of the St. Louis Symphony, an entrepreneur, composer, and father of three. I gained some insight about how he leads his life with creativity, diversification, and persistence. For example, Shannon owns his own company, Malletshop.com, where he sells vintage and refurbished percussion instruments. He is also an innovator in the percussion field and is in the process of producing a new vibraphone, the Gigster; which is designed to be portable and perfect for any gigging musician. We discussed how he kept taking auditions and stayed motivated to pursue other jobs even after the Florida Philharmonic folded in 2003, where he was principal timpanist, and was left without a full time orchestra job (It was 10 years until he landed his job in St Louis!).
I encourage everyone to check out my full interview which is now on my YouTube channel (see below) as well as his website and his new vibraphone: malletshop.com
Thanks for reading,
Simon G.