Sunday Spotlight: Hyojoon Ahn

By Judy Park,
Bluedevilhub.com Staff–

Out of the many students who auditioned, Hyojoon Ahn was the only sophomore cellist admitted into the Symphony Orchestra.

Ahn felt surprised to be the only sophomore, but also felt pretty special.

“I didn’t find out until my sister and mom texted me during lunch time. They congratulated me and when I checked the results, I was pretty shocked that I was the only incoming sophomore,” Ahn said.

“I realized that all the time I spent to prepare for the audition was worth it.”

Ahn auditioned for Symphony alone, liking the music the ensemble played better than Baroque’s or Chamber’s.

In order to prepare for his audition, Ahn listened to many recordings of the piece in order to get a feel for the song.

“I try to make it the way the composer wants it to sound but at the same time, make it my own,” Ahn said.

“[For the audition] I played a piece that I practiced for two months,” he added. Two to three months is usually the norm for most students.

According to Ahn, the audition process starts with the student walking into the warm-up room and unpacking his or her instrument, tuning it and practicing while nervously awaiting the eminent audition and preparing to be called.

Ahn thinks that the most nerve-wracking part of the audition was wondering if he would play as well as he had practiced.

“When I got into the audition room, I was like, ‘this is it, no turning back now,’ ” he said.

Ahn thinks that the auditions were pretty tough and says it was not easy to get the sound he wanted.

“I wasn’t very satisfied with my sound and kept thinking about my mistakes,” he explained. “Even if I practiced, I wouldn’t get the sound I wanted so I was getting stressed out so my nervousness kept building.”

After having participated in many auditions over the years, Ahn thought the process would become easier, but says it has not.

“I always get nervous and worried about not getting in,” he said.

He says that the part of the audition that he anticipated the most was waiting for the results to come out.

“Waiting for results was like waiting for a special package to arrive in the mail. I was really excited,” he said.

After the seating audition, Ahn was placed third chair in the cello section.

“I was really surprised because there’s so many better cellists who got seated behind me,” the humble sophomore said. “There’s so many talented people.”

Fellow cellist Daniel Jiang was surprised that Ahn was the only sophomore to be accepted.

“I thought that [Ahn] was a cello god,” Jiang said. “It also just helped me to understand how symphony is getting more and more competitive.”

However, Ahn’s job is not over yet. He still has to audition one more time in order to remain in the ensemble in his junior year.

“I’m really glad it’s my last one to get into symphony and I hope I play my best then,” he said.

According to Ahn, once a student gets into symphony as a sophomore as well as a junior, the musician gets a “golden ticket” to senior year and doesn’t have to audition again.

“The golden ticket is really great because junior year is tough and not having to audition is like having one less thing to worry and stress about,” he said.

“As of right now I’m not really nervous for the placement audition that will take place at the end of the year, but I bet I will be once I step into the audition room,” Ahn said.

He has no idea what the likelihood is of continuing on, but thinks the chances are the same as last year.