2022 graduate Julia Pyke will be ringing in a new chapter of her professional career this fall with the Oregon Symphony, which she's joined as Principal Flute.

Pyke previously held the role of Principal with the Spokane Symphony, a role she won the same year she graduated from the Conservatory. One of the most visible students of SFCM's social media stars, her videos on the Conservatory TikTok page have accrued 3.8 million views and even moved pop star (and flutist) Lizzo to comment.

"Julia plays with such elegance and finesse: Every element of her playing is in beautiful balance and she really has a musical voice when she plays," SFCM Music Director Edwin Outwater said. "She also took the initiative to play for me several times while she was a student here and I could really sense her remarkable work ethic."

Below, Pyke answers the SFCM Newsroom's questions about her career and audition prep.

How was your time with the Spokane Symphony?
I really loved my time there. I won the job right after I graduated from SFCM in May of 2022; the audition was in June. At the time, I didn't have anything lined up, I figured I would just move home with my parents, and the timing just worked out perfectly. Originally I'm from Seattle, so I've just been gradually working my way back to the Pacific Northwest: Ohio for undergrad to San Francisco to Spokane to Oregon. It's really all worked out perfectly.

Did you have any experience with the Oregon Symphony prior to your audition?
Actually, pretty soon after I moved to Spokane, I actually went down to Portland and played a few Mahler symphonies with them. Even from the first time I played there, I felt so welcomed and part of the group.

As a student, people ask you, "What are the top five orchestras you'd want to play in?" And for me, seriously, Oregon would have been one of them because of the environment and location. There are only so many orchestras on the West Coast and Pacific Northwest, specifically. The audition got posted earlier this year, and I was like, "I'm going to go all out for this one. No holds barred; I'm going to put my all into this."

What went into your audition prep?
Prep began as soon as I got the list of repertoire for the audition. I made packets; one for me and extras just for mock auditions. It was an everyday process of playing the really challenging stuff really slowly and then running mock auditions and listening back to my recordings. I did a lot of mocks playing for friends and colleagues, to the point where one of my friends took me out of the room and acted as a proctor and I was behind a screen. That was actually so helpful: I'd highly recommend it, because you get really on edge, and for me, as soon as I see a screen and when people get silent, I get in the zone and instinct kicks in.

How did you develop this approach?
A lot of this is pulled from Sharon Sparrow's book, 6 Weeks to Finals. I also got in touch with Sharon and played for her a couple times over Zoom, not just for the musical aspects, but how to strategize for the audition, the whole audition product. And then I also flew to San Francisco, about a week before the audition and played for a couple of people for the experience of doing mock auditions, but out of town, because that's a different experience.

I really tried to dive deeper with the excerpts for this one, just breaking everything down and doing score work in my own time before even getting to mocks.

What non-musical prep work did you do?
Zooming your perspective out a little bit more is helpful, because often I get pretty attached to specific audition outcomes. Auditions are really hard to predict, so I started to try and shift my mindset to focus more on my own personal growth through each audition. I'd think, "What are the specific things on each excerpt that I want to see if I can improve in this audition?" If it was literally just one note I could play more in tune or more vibrant and I successfully did it in an audition, then that's a win, even if the audition doesn't work out.

That just ends up being a lot more empowering, because then you come away from an audition saying, "Okay, I tangibly did better and this is going to serve me in the next one. And then eventually, if I do this enough times, I'm going to win something. There's no question."

Learn more about studying flute at SFCM.