Fight or Flight

9:30 a.m.....Leaving for the auditions. Weekend Edition is on the radio, giving me something else to obsess over besides my performance. The Puzzlemaster's new challenge: Take the two-syllable name of an actress from the past, reverse the syllables to come up with a kind of illness. Okay, should be easy.....Bergman, Hepburn, Taylor, Fonda, Swanson, Fontaine, Loren, Andrews, Garbo....(okay, past could mean as recent as yesterday!).....
11:15 a.m.....Garland, Reynolds, Hennie, Davis, Crawford, Rogers, Evans....   

11:30 a.m....Here I am, signing in to the audition. I feel good, no stress, no worry. The dressing rooms downstairs are all taken, so I will go upstairs to the chorus room to warm up. I'd rather be away from everyone anyway.
Going through every note slowly and quietly, just getting the muscles moving a bit. Make sure everything is perfectly in tune...
12:45 p.m....Fifteen minutes to go before the cello portion of the auditions begin, and I drew the next-to-last number. I feel warmed and comfortable, so I won't push it. I have some time to relax and wander around. I feel more prepared for this than for anything else I've ever played, and am not worried in the least.
1 p.m......I can hear some really good players warming up as I walk past the other dressing rooms. Definitely competition! As long as I play well, I don't really care how the results end up.
1:45 p.m......My turn....Here we go!

The stage is unlit except for one spotlight shining directly down onto a lone chair. There is a desk at one corner of the stage  (why, I can't figure out), and the audition panel is behind a screen out in the house.
I sit down, set my music on the stand and my bow on the strings. All is well, until.........The first two chords of my Elgar concerto sound.....well..... fine I think, although the acoustics on this part of the stage are so very deadening. My breathing comes very near to a stop and my heart is thudding so loud that I am having trouble hearing my notes over the pounding in my ears.   
I manage to get to the high note at the end of the fingerboard in tune, but with shaky vibrato. That is where I am asked to stop. Excerpts are next...Only three have been selected for this first round, and the hardest one has to be first....Damn!
I begin okay, but have taken the tempo a little too fast. My shoulders and hands begin to tighten, and I am finding it harder and harder to get any reasonable sound out of the instrument. I stumble over one measure as my left hand cramps completely. I am trying to play musically, but my strings are not responding to the increasing stiffness of my right hand.
I finish the first excerpt, and wait a moment to try and catch my breath. The next one is easy, but I start it with a scrape on the first note and my bow arm loses all strength. The sound is not good....
I manage to play the last excerpt relatively well, with one wobble towards the end. I grab my stuff and exit the stage as quickly as I can without tripping.......
I know that I won't make the next round, so I pack up and wait for the announcement. I'm right.............

I am not disappointed in the lack of advancement, but I am disappointed in my own inability to overcome nerves. Adrenaline is not my friend, even when I feel utterly prepared for a challenge. I had hoped it would be otherwise, but to no avail. I sounded pretty horrible, even though I know that I can play everything on that audition list perfectly.
I am relieved that the process is over now, as I have been thinking about it for over a year. I can get on with the rest of my life, and maybe focus more intently on something that nerves won't ruin. My business!