pete said:
Whoa. <wades through the thick and unstained carpet, admires the sax chandelier>. Cool.
Okay, there goes: "my" band is roughly 30 people strong, average age of 40ish. Slightly more ladies than gents. We think we're at a lower limit re staffing, because if only two or three people of the same instrument family call in sick or are on vacation etc, we run into problems with certain music parts. Oops, no first trumpets today? Uh-oh.
As part of a section of the municipal wind music association (which is part of the state ass. which in turn is part of the federal association) we do get some modest funding for which we have to perform a number of public and free of charge concerts in the city. The rest of the budget is covered by active and passive membership fees, one summer and one winter concert, and the occasional paid gig for another local association.
We do not have auditions in the classic sense; new members join us as guests during the year, but only by the end of the year the active corps elects them as full members into the band. By then the qualities of the player should be obvious to anyone, and there is no stress about a botched audition etc. After all, we're an amateur orchestra.
Here's the
web site - it's in German only, however.