One of the highlights of my last semester at the University of Texas was performing the Scherzo from Dvorak’s Piano Quintet with some of my closest friends.  I’ve attached a video of the performance below, which I think captures the excitement we all felt to perform this incredible work together. I want to explore why this was such a positive performance experience, and consider the way I can encourage similar joyful performances with my studio.

Over the course of the semester, my chamber music ensemble worked on the first, second, and third movements of the quartet with Will Fedkenheuer, second violinist of the Miro quartet.  Though David, our pianist, was new to us this semester, the string quartet (Owen, Elizabeth, Yukai, and me) had  worked together for four consecutive semesters.  Having already worked together on matters of group sound, tuning, and style, we dove into the music with Will not from a technical angle, but from a relational one. Our ensemble used the need to work on the music as a way to practice working as a group. Unlike our time with any other coach, with Will we dedicated energy in our coachings (and then rehearsals) to understanding each other’s perspectives, feelings, and goals.

With an emphasis on the human side of our ensemble playing rather than technical (not to mention the load on three seniors going through auditions and recitals), we were only able to learn three movements. When it came time for the final concert the five of us decided to perform the joyful, short and spritely third movement rather than the epic first and second movements.

Sitting together in Bates Recital Hall during the end of year chamber music concert we saw ensembles perform entire string quartets, dense movements of Brahms, and even multiple movements from different pieces. Compared to the hard work they were doing onstage, we worried our performance would come across as immature or shallow.

However, in our discussions with Will pre-concert we had decided that a successful performance would not be one with accurate notes, perfect intonation, or completely unified accelerando. A successful performance in our mind was one in which we were having fun, and our performance translated to the audience. This decision challenged us to engage and emote onstage rather than test or judge ourselves. Indeed, we picked the third movement because we thought we knew the technical elements well enough that we could depart from them onstage and spend more time engaging with the excitement of the piece itself.

The performance was a triumph (in our minds at least). I’ve never spent more time in a performance smiling or making eye contact with my fellow musicians. We laughed, and breathed, and moved together. We took risks onstage; we played for ourselves, but we also pushed that energetic sound out to the audience. The performance felt like both the longest and shortest performance I’ve done.  We were exhausted when we were finished, and we all walked off stage smiling. It was incredible.

I want my students to have a taste of this type of joyful performance. And if we, five upperclassmen at UT, were trained to do this in one semester, then I don’t think I’m being to bold in assuming there is a way to encourage my students from the start to perform joyfully over the course of their lives.

I miss this group dearly, and I can’t wait until we are reunited (hopefully to make music) once more.