A great orchestra needs a fine balance between all the instruments. Too many trumpets or too few double basses, and it just doesn’t sound right! Sometimes this means that it can be difficult to find the right number of musicians for certain instruments; such as violas, bassoons and double basses (to name a few). This also means that we need to restrict the number of violin or flute players that we can accept, otherwise the whole orchestra will be unbalanced.

Transitioning from a more common instrument to a rare instrument can open up a variety of new opportunities to you – not only at SYO, but in high-school, tertiary and professional orchestras around Australia.