Tell us about your favorite memory performing for an audience (of 1 or more people!)
Tell us about your favorite memory performing for an audience!
This could be any number of years ago, for any number of audience members!
69 replies
-
My favorite memory was performing "Rhapsody in Blue" for my instructor at UCLA. Her name was Johana Harris. She was a child prodigy, becoming the youngest student at Julliard at 12 years old and then the youngest faculty member at 17. She stopped me at one section and said, "George played it like this". I replied, "George?" She said, "Yes, George Gershwin was my composition teacher". I was floored. Never did I imagine that I would be performing for someone who actually knew the composer.
-
My memory is recent. I was playing an Oscar Peterson composition at my teacher's student recital. When I returned to my seat, a boy of about 12 turned around and gave me a thumbs-up and a big smile. That moment of connection was precious because although I knew I'd pulled it off despite my nerves, and that the audience had liked it, to know that one person in the audience had loved it that much made my day.
-
My first performance at Kulas Hall in Cleveland, Ohio, I was 10 years old. I played the 1st Movement of a Haydn Sonata, can't remember which one it was. As I walked down the aisle toward my seat my teacher Ms. Edwards looked at me, nodded her head and smiled. I thought I had played well and she agreed. I was really happy.
-
When I was 15, I attended lycée in Normandy for a year. I was fortunate to be introduced to some of charming, elderly members of the Rothschild family. They were gracious enough to invite me and one of my teachers for a splendidly sumptuous Saturday high tea.
In the main salon of the chateau was a gorgeous Hamburg Steinway from the 1930s.
Mme. Rothschild shared with me that, even though she didn't play piano, she had purchased it from a Jewish pianist in order to provide him with the funds he needed to leave Europe.
She let me play for a little while after we finished eating. This became one of my most cherished piano memories.
-
I'm rarely happy about my performances -- I suffer from significant stage fright and it results in very noticeable flubs in most live performances. But about 15 years ago a dear friend was in treatment for a rare cancer (subcutaneous t-cell lymphoma) that at the time almost always was fatal. I decided to learn the famous Brahms Intermezzo op. 118 no. 2 for her (in part with the idea that I might play it at her funeral if her husband permitted). I performed it, dedicated in the program to her, in an evening variety show put on by the students in the graduate school where I was a professor (not music!). For a change, the performance was as good as I could give, and my heart was full of love for my friend throughout.
And there's a happy ending: she *did* survive, and has had no recurrence. -
Saint Saens Symphony 3 as organ soloist.
-
This may not be kind of memory you expect, but it is memorable.
In my younger days I feared playing for many others and so I just practiced and played for myself.
Then I had a son, and when he was in middle school they suddenly needed a substitute pianist to accompany the chorus in practice. So I offered my services and found accompaniment to be a new and inspiring challenge.
However, one day the chorus went to choral festival in a large local church. After warming up in a back room with the chorus we stepped out on the stage...
I found myself sitting right in the middle of the stage at the piano and looked out to see 500 people in the audience looking back at me.
I wouldn't have thought it was possible, but my hands immediately began to sweat, water was pouring out the palms of my hands so that I had to wipe them off on my pants several times before I could play.
As it turned out, I played well that day and it was the beginning of public performance for me, already in my 40s. I would soon learn that fear is a bodily response with which we must become familiar. If we don't allow it to take on a neurotic mental dimension while we're playing we'll be fine.
-
My son was in an excellent youth orchestra and when they needed a piano part I accompanied them in the concerts.
One day, they play Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, which uses the piano in the percussion section, at the back of the orchestra. It was crowded back there, and the large bass drum was right behind my back.
If you know the piece, it has a soothing, exotic lullaby in the middle. Igor follows it with the Finale, launched with a fortissimo bass drum strike.
As the lullaby ended, I savored the fading string tremolos, when a canon went off behind my back. I forgot that the bass drum was three inches behind me, and almost shit myself in shock when the drummer struck it!
-
My first time playing with an audience was really quite funny, at least in retrospect. The venue was my first year in high school talent show. I had no chance to try out the piano nor even see the 9 foot Steinway rolled onto the stage. I started the "Military" polonaise and quickly the piano began to bounce up and down. Then the piano began to roll away. I just barely made it through without falling off the bench. I took first place and won $50, quite a nice sum in the 1960s. I seldom play in public but I do check every time.
And Dominic, your Goldberg Variations is superb. Thanks for sharing.
-
My favourite performance was in 1988. I have played with some other students a concert. I have played Bach English suite a-minor and Mendelssohn Rondo capriccioso. And I had a lot of fun on stage with these pieces. 🙋♀️
-
One of my favorite memories was when I played a community concert at my church. It was an all-Beethoven concert that I dedicated to my father, who was not a musician, but was passionate about classical music and especially Beethoven. I played the ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata for violin and piano, the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, and the ‘Emperor’ Piano Concerto. Since I did not have an orchestra to play with me, I played the Emperor with an organist, who adapted the orchestral part to the magnificent pipe organ. It was a joy, and my dad was glowing!
-
Hello all - I just discovered this thread and so enjoyed the many great stories and experiences shared that it motivated me to add my own most memorable first public performances. My first was actually a total surprise in that I was not scheduled to perform in a solo capacity. I was in 8th grade in the early 70's and was performing with our school choir, the youngest group by far, at a major music festival in Chicago with an audience of around five thousand. The theme of the festival was Simon and Garfunkel's works. I played piano to accompany our choir. With no forewarning, our choir leader informed me when we arrived that there was an open slot in the program due to a group bowing out and that I would be performing Bridge Over Troubled Waters solo! Luckily, it was a favorite piece of mine that I loved to play (it was the first piece I played for my future bride as well, BTW!!). To this day I can still remember the applause that I received afterwards from a distinctive group of people in the front row, the shock of my family watching me perform and the enthusiastic thumbs up from our choir director, which was always hard to come by! Needless to say, it helped me to beat any stage fright in the future after that experience!
Another great time was playing in high school in a band with three friends of mine in numerous talent shows, dances and Battle of the Bands competitions. We landed up playing and winning one of the major (to us at the time!) battles at a junior college in the south suburbs where I played keyboards and sang. Afterwards, I received one of the greatest compliments to stick with me to this day from the leader of the band that was the perennial favorite we had beaten for the title (they were an Earth Wind & Fire cover group with a brass section and I can't remember how many members!!) when he came over to congratulate us and said to me that he thought he was listening to Billy Preston when I was playing - he'll never know how much that meant to me and how it would motivate me in the future, whether playing with rock bands, classical piano pieces and/or the many speaking engagements I would have over my business career!! Thanks for letting me share a few of these great memories!