Orcas Cellist Picked by Boston Symphony

“I had been used to a conservatory orchestra in which everyone is young and there is a constant turnover of players,” he says, “and I had been used to the fact that so often the conductor will give the downbeat and there will be a lot of hesitation. . . . With the BSO, the orchestra had such a unified sense of rhythm as an ensemble – it was the easiest thing to play with.”

The Boston Symphony, it turns out, finds it easy to play with Aldort. The Curtis Institute of Music senior auditioned for the ensemble over two days in October, and from a pool of 200 hopefuls won a spot in the cello section. At 21, he joins the BSO this fall as its youngest member, it announced this week.

Aldort, raised on Orcas Island, Wash., continues a surprisingly frequent tradition of Curtis students winning jobs even before they graduate. Joshua Smith became principal flutist of the Cleveland Orchestra in 1990, at 20, a year before he was scheduled to graduate. Recently winning dream jobs are current students Corbin Stair, 22, who will become second oboist with the Cleveland Orchestra in May, and Robin Kesselman, 25, who won the principal double bass audition of the Houston Symphony in December. Keith Buncke, a 2014 graduate, landed the principal bassoonist spot in the Atlanta Symphony while still at Curtis, though he may be moving on; he reportedly won recent principal-bassoonist auditions at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He is 21.