“Miles Salerni, a 25-year-old percussionist who spent the past two summers working here on the Tanglewood stage crew while trying to get his break … finally found himself onstage this month playing ‘Siegfried’s Rhine Journey,’ from Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung,’ as a fellow in the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra,” writes Michael Cooper in Monday’s (7/25) New York Times. “Mr. Salerni, who studied at Boston University, the New England Conservatory and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, had been trying to win a fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center, the summer academy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, since 2012.… In 2014 he took a job with Tanglewood’s small, hard-working stage crew.… He kept on auditioning each year for the music center.… Finally, this winter, after two summers on the crew, Mr. Salerni tried out once more.” Salerni was selected through blind auditions. “Having to try out several times to become a fellow here is hardly unusual. Ken-David Masur, who conducted the Boston Symphony here this month and is a son of Kurt Masur … also had to audition more than once to get the chance to study at Tanglewood.”
Posted July 25, 2016
Miles Salerni photo by Lauren Lancaster / New York Times
