The Many Stories of Bill Fitzpatrick: Turning down an apprenticeship

While studying at Juilliard I got a call from the director of an apprenticeship program for the NY Philharmonic. He explained that the program allowed one to join the phil and this put one in a position to learn and prepare for the possibility of being named a full member in the future. So after this meeting I got in touch with an older violinist friend who happened to be black and asked him what he thought. He expressed his total dislike for "going through the back door" and cautioned that should ever I become a full member this could my stigmatize my relations with the other members of the orchestra as they had gone through the front door, the normal audition process. I totally agreed and when a letter came inviting me to be an apprentice, I turned it down, even though playing in the New York Philharmonic had been one of my childhood dreams.

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