Never Truly Alone on Stage
This photo was taken in October 2015, Warsaw, right before I went onto the stage to perform at the 17th Chopin Competition. There was a solid wall between me as a performer and the audience, and the color of my dress was fully blended into the that of the wall.
It was an exciting, nervous, and desperate moment.I will never forget the physical sensation of this overwhelming nervousness, the cold & trembling hands, and the racing heartbeat.
This photo constantly reminds me that although nervousness before performance is inevitable, I should allow myself to ease into that uncomfortableness, to lose some control, to embrace the uncertainty, and to find the balance between intensity and relaxation.
Being a storyteller on stage entails courage, regardless how familiar you are with every hidden turn and twist in the plot. On the one hand, I feel difficult to fully be myself on stage due to the strong self-awareness that I am being watched and potentially critiqued. On the other hand, I do enjoy the intensity and performativity unique to performances but absent in the context of a practice room.
I think a musician needs to trust herself unconditionally in order to simply be whatever she wants on stage. This high-level trust is rooted deep inside but expressed through a confident sense of release. Whenever I listen to pianists such as Alfred Cortot and Martha Argerich, I could feel the electricity in music coming directly from themselves without too much effort.
But not every musician is born with that electricity. For most musicians, performing is all about planning and meditation. Yes, meditation. They need an all-encompassing map that could guide them through the whole landscape when their eyes are closed, their hands are numb, and their other sensations are not fully under control. With the map as a foundation, they may eventually find the opportunity to release their imagination into that difficult process, to improvise a bit, and over time, to interact with themselves more naturally on stage. Creating that constantly evolving map, however, takes decades.
I am in the process of creating this map, which I believe is a collaborative process between myself and the audience. I define my audience broadly: they are people who have consciously or unconsciously shaped my musical understanding, people who have provided me with invaluable guidance and insights that I will carry along for the rest of my life.
This is why I am humbled by this photo every time I look at it. The physical wall was there but the wall between audience and myself did not exist. You are never truly alone on stage.
To my dear teachers and friends at Yale I would like to dedicate this graduation recital.
7:30PM
Thursday, April 26, 2018
Sprague Hall
470 College St. New Haven, CT.
Program
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Sonata No. 17 in B-flat Major K. 570
1. Allegro
2. Adagio
3. Allegretto
Maurice Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit
1. Ondine
2. Le Gibet
3. Scarbo
Intermission
Frédéric François Chopin (1810–1849): Nocturnes, Op. 62
1. Nocturne in B Major, Op. 62 №1
2. Nocturne in E Major, Op. 62 №2
Sergei Prokofiev(1891–1953): Sonata №7 in B-flat Major Op. 83
1. Allegro inquieto
2. Andante caloroso
3. Precipitato
