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How did you feel after your first round? Did you expect to advance?.I was the number 55! I thought it was very funny! I knew some of them but not a lot. The first half played on May 22nd and the second half on the 23rd. I heard that there were 55 horn players, including myself. How many horn players were at the audition? Did you know many of them?.If you have the sound in your mind before you play, then you just have to do that! As simple as it sounds! My teacher always told me to be aware of two things: sound and music! I always thought about the most beautiful sound possible before playing a note and I just simply tried to convey that with my horn. I didn’t do anything different, I didn’t change anything at the last minute, and I just tried to be there at every moment of the process with mind and spirit. I just simply treated those days as part of my usual audition routine that I developed over my time at Rice. What did you do in terms of warm-up/practice the day of the audition?.The morning of the semis and finals was beautiful and then the weather remained like that for the rest of the day that must have helped to enhance my good mood!
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I had a delicious Costa Rican breakfast with my friend, warmed up and then I headed over to the MET Opera House. I was feeling great! The morning of the preliminary round was a little rainy, but that didn’t affect my mood.
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Valverde, the 22 year-old Costa Rican horn player who just won a second horn position with the Metropolitan Opera, one of the most highly regarded orchestra’s in the world.