Cellist Brent Selbey recently stepped into the position of principal cellist with the Portland Symphony Orchestra. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

The night before, Brent Selby ate a big steak. That morning, he had four eggs, sausage, fruit and a bagel. After his breakfast, he drank one cup of black coffee. (“And only one,” he stressed.)

“It’s just important that you have a lot of protein,” Selby said. “It’s a long day ahead.”

That long day in April was an audition to be the principal cello in the Portland Symphony Orchestra. The hours-long process is competitive and secretive, guided by industry standards meant to reduce bias and closely guarded by the orchestra’s leaders. In Portland, every round is conducted blind, which means the audition committee never sees the candidates and judges them by sound alone.

Eckart Preu, music director of the Portland Symphony Orchestra, compared the whole thing to the reality TV series “Love is Blind.”

“You have to fall in love with the person behind the screen,” Preu said. “You have to fall in love with the way they make music.”

Unlike the dating show contestants and most job candidates, Selby would not speak a single word to the people who would eventually hire him for the role. But he would still make himself heard.

AN OPEN DISCUSSION

The Portland Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1924. It currently employs 77 contracted musicians: 48 strings, 12 woodwinds, 12 brass, one timpani (a type of drum), three percussion and one harp. They are all essentially freelancers. The job listing for the principal cello advertised $196.05 “per service” with 85 services in the upcoming season.

Selby, 37, was already familiar with the orchestra. He auditioned in Portland for the first time two years ago and got the assistant principal position. But the person who won the principal seat moved back to Korea because of a family emergency and ultimately did not return. So Selby had been subbing in that chair for months.

Still, he didn’t automatically get the job when it officially opened. In fact, the whole process is designed so that all 20 applicants would have the same chance.

Caen Thomason-Redus is the vice president of inclusion and learning at the League of American Orchestras, which has developed recommendations to increase equity and diversity in a predominantly white field. One was that every round of auditions should be screened, as is the practice in Portland.

“That’s something that some orchestras do, and some orchestras only screen part of their audition, and some don’t screen at all,” Thomason-Redus said. “Of course, there’s pros and cons to both. For some, it’s a little tough to imagine hiring a person not knowing who they are. On the other hand, to some extent, you’re hiring the music they are making, not the person. So there’s a little bit of tension honestly, still an open discussion, about what is the best way to pursue equity. Is it the blind audition, or not?”

Thomason-Redus said the practice of blind auditions dates back decades. The music director used to be an all-powerful position, and who got hired for an open seat was really about who you knew. Musicians’ unions helped advocate for more protections in their contracts, including screening for auditions.

Data shows that men and women have nearly equal representation in orchestras today. However, representation of Black and Latino musicians still lags, a problem that Thomason-Redus said needs to be addressed in part with wider access to music education and training.

THE SOUND BEHIND THE SCREEN

When the Portland Symphony Orchestra announced it would hire a principal cello, the job listing included a list of music that each candidate should be prepared to play. Preu said the selections are designed to test different strengths and skills during the audition. The list included famous cello solos, such as one from the tone poem “Don Quixote” by Richard Strauss and another from “La mer” by Claude Debussy.

“Mozart’s Symphony No. 25 is a fast, light staccato,” Preu said. “It is a tricky stroke. It is purely technical excellence there that we want to hear. Then there’s Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8. That is a trio that has a slower staccato. It’s a totally different stroke. It’s testing for, can they do that?”

Interested applicants submit resumes to the orchestra, but the audition committee never sees those materials. That group generally consists of other musicians in the orchestra; Preu joins for the later rounds when the large group has been shrunk to a smaller pool.

The night before the audition, the staff sets the stage. In the middle is an opaque screen. On one side, there is a table for the committee. On the other, a chair for the musician. The path from backstage to chair is padded by a long carpet, so the committee can’t guess at the musician’s identity from the sound of their shoes.

Charles Dimmick is the concert master and first chair violinist for the Portland Symphony Orchestra, and he’s been playing here since 1999. As a right hand to the conductor, he often sits on audition committees and did on this one for a cellist. He noted that a principal position comes with unique responsibilities – such as setting the tone for the section and playing important solos – that he had to consider.

“I was definitely listening for someone that had a real musical personality,” Dimmick said. “Somebody that was technically very, very strong, but also had a big enough sound and a soloistic enough approach to be able to lead a section.”

Selbey was happy to audition at Merrill Auditorium, which he says “has such a generous sound.” Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

EARLY INSPIRATION

Selby grew up on a farm in North Carolina. His only exposure to classical music in his early childhood was in movies, but those moments made an impact. He was 5 years old when he saw “Star Wars: A New Hope” for the first time.

“I remember jumping on the bed, and I was driving my mom crazy,” he said. “As soon as I heard the horn theme where Luke is looking at those two suns, I remember sitting on the edge of the bed and was hooked.”

A few years later, his mom and sister started taking violin lessons with a retired musician in a nearby town. Selby tagged along for a lesson and started playing the instrument like a ukulele, which caught the teacher’s attention. She invited him to hear her friend perform the cello at a local church, where he was enthralled with the performance.

“A few days later, she called my mother and said, ‘Sit Brent in front of PBS, and turn it on immediately,’ ” he said. “Yo-Yo Ma was playing with the North Carolina Symphony, he was playing with an orchestra. I knew, in that moment, that’s what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to play the cello.”

He studied with the local teacher for a few years and then a nearby cello instructor. Selby earned a bachelor’s degree at the New England Conservatory and then studied privately with Ukrainian violinist Mela Tenenbaum, whom he described as “a great sage.”

Then he fell and crushed his ulna nerve. He could barely play his instrument for five years, but he turned to teaching music to make a living. Those years were hard, but the experience also gave him skills that have served him well since his arm fully healed five years ago and he returned to the professional scene.

“It forced me to sit down and teach 100 people, 100 concepts, 100 different ways and organize my brain,” he said. “It’s because of that that I’ve been able to do well with auditions.”

Selby lives in Franklin, Massachusetts, with his wife, who is also a cellist. He is also the principal cellist of the Rhode Island Philharmonic and the Boston Lyric Opera.

‘JUST LISTEN’

The circle of orchestral musicians in New England is small, and Selby knew some who played in the Portland Symphony Orchestra. They encouraged him to take the audition two years ago and then again this spring. He likes visiting Portland – especially for coffee from Tandem – and described his peers as “the most collegial, friendly group you’ll ever play with.”

When an audition approaches, Selby said he makes sure to play “for people that make you nervous.” He plays when his hands are cold. He plays in different locations. He plays without warming up or tuning his instrument. He plays in every situation he can imagine until he knows how to conquer any negative or nervous thoughts in his mind.

“That’s what an audition is,” Selby said. “It’s an opportunity for you to become a better person. If you look at it that way, the outcome becomes untangled from your worth. The outcome should never matter.”

He does not like to travel or practice too much the day before an audition. He’ll have a cup of coffee, go for a walk, have a solid meal (“to crush the butterflies”) and a full night of sleep. He’ll wake up with plenty of time for a big breakfast and arrive at the hall an hour before the start time.

In Portland, the 12 candidates who came to the audition drew letters to determine their order. Each person had the opportunity to play alone in a small practice room before their turn. The committee asks the musicians to play certain selections from the longer list during each section.

Selby said he was happy to play in Merrill Auditorium, even though he is normally surrounded by other musicians on that stage.

“That hall has such a generous sound,” he said. “It really encourages you to play.”

The cellist audition had three rounds. The committee narrowed the group to five in the second. Selby was the only person who played in the third and final round. One of the last pieces he played was a famous cello solo from Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.” Preu said Selby impressed the committee with “a very beautiful sound.”

“Sometimes you just listen,” the music director said. “You enjoy listening to an audition without stopping and analyzing everything. That’s always a good sign that the person captures you on the technical level but also on the musical level. That’s what we’re all about, right?”

BAGELS AND A CONCERT WITH YO-YO MA

At the end of the round, Selby waited a few minutes before a staff person from the orchestra found him with the good news.

“It was really cool to shake everyone’s hand,” he said. “They congratulated me, and I was able to thank them for the opportunity.”

“They handed me a whole big bag of bagels that they couldn’t finish,” he added with a laugh. “I was like, this is my prize.”

His family was in town, too, so they went out for a celebratory dinner at The Honey Paw that night.

He officially played his first concert as principal June 18. This fall, the orchestra will celebrate its 100th anniversary. One concert will include the music of “Star Wars,” still a favorite of Selby’s. And the centennial gala will feature Yo-Yo Ma as a special guest, which means the new principal cellist will perform on stage with the cellist who inspired him to pursue his career.

When he heard the season announcement, Selby said he almost “fell out of my chair.”

“All the inspirations that put me on the Millennium Falcon are showing up this season, so I’m really excited,” he said.