February 2005

February 28, 2005 09:35

Life has been extremely busy.
I found myself a great place to life in New York, just around the corner of Columbia University. I have a bedroom and a livingroom and share the kitchen with a juweler, and an interior designer. Very nice and uncomplecated people. I am actually very happy at my new place.

The past weeks I really have been able to enjoy being at Juilliard and in New York. So many wonderful things have been going on at the school. It is truly amazing to be able to have a 20th century perfomance practice class with Joel Sachs, a Baroque performance class with Lionel Party, going to violin seminar - orchestral rep class with Joel Smirnoff and seminars about performance anxiety with Don Greene, the expert in the field. And then ofcourse my lessons with Mr. Weilerstein and Mr. Perlman...
Combine that with the possibility of seeing Figaro at the Met, which was absolutely amazing, taking a stroll in Central Park, completely "decorated" by Cristo and his wife Jean Claude and you will understand why I enjoy being in the city.

However right now I am in front of the computer at my parents house in the Netherlands. It is spring break and I am on my way to Estonia, where I will be playing a recital with works of Beethoven, Debussy and Sarasate. Also next week I will play my first full lenght solo recital with works of Bach, Ysaye, Yun, Paganini etc. for which I am somewhat nervous. It is like having all your weak points combined in an hour. Actually, one of the things I am learning in working with Don Greene is not to think like that. This is the kind of repertoire I need to work hard on, really hard. Not something that just comes along for me. Playing sonatas or even playing solo with orchestras feels completely natural for me in the world, however as a violinist it does not happen often that you are alone on stage, except maybe for cadenzas. But usually they don't last longer than 5 minutes and somehow I can oversee that. Ofcourse I have performed Bach Partitas in its entirety, but somehow it seems more daunting to play an entire recital. But I better get used to it, next season I am doing the complete Bach AND Ysayes in 2 evenings...

This is all ofcourse based upon fear... Fear is something we all know. For violinists it comes in the form of Beethoven, Paganini, Don Juan etc. or maybe playing for other students, auditions, jury, competitions etc. Why do some thrive upon this fear and others collapse?
A friend of mine told me her daughter described it as the following: there are people in her class (junior high) that fear tests, they black out and are not capable of answering anything. She described this as negative fear. And then there are students that are afraid they will get an F. So they learn and learn and learn, and they end up getting an A. However, the next time they are afraid again and spend all their time learning again till they go to the test and again get an A. This she described as positive fear.
I would like to add one more form to that: You are afraid of something, so you don't even try. That way you don't have to face the fear...
I think we can all recognize ourselves in these types, maybe one more than the other. It seems that the positive fear is the best one to have... we beat ourselves up untill we can do it. This is often how we excell as musicians. I know that before competition I will drive everybody around me crazy by telling them I have not done enough, I have not practiced, I can't do it, there will be 193 contestants and only 24 in the second round, so what am I thinking, etc That way I'll motivate myself to working hard, harder, hardest. In fact, just look back at my entries from Korea.

But does it work?
Well, it does make me work harder, but at what cost. Not only do friendships suffer a great deal ( as one friend of mine put it, he will not talk to me from 2 weeks before a competition on!!!), but the unconsciouss does not register this at all as a motivation tool. Instead it believes you and your unconsciousness will tell you, you can not play this. As a result, it might happen that this comes out under pressure and you end up not playing your best.
Many of my friends are in search for a job and auditioning for orchestras. They have to play these orchestral excerpts that they already have played a thousand times and still when the moment is there, somehow the audition panel turn into this hugh lion, ready to devour you. NEWSFLASH: it is not the panel that actually used their magic wand and turned into a lion; It is us, who are using our magic wand and turning ourselves into an ant! That's when our flight or fight system kicks in. Adreneline is already there, it is an exciting thing to be auditioning. But because we turned ourselves into an ant (and with that the panel into a lion) our body will choose the flight option and will makes us want to run away. Adreline is a good thing and when we start to realise how to use it, it can makes us fly through the music. Without adreneline you can not win the Olympics. Adrenaline gives you the capacity to play the way you imagine it in your head. You still might not win the audition with it, but you'll come off stage a lot happier!

I am at the point where I really need to get this into action. I need to stop beating myself up before competitions and concerts. Instead I need to breath when I feel this adrenaline, not fight it, but let my body be completely immersed in it and use it to nail that Fuge, play Paganini at top speed and keep the tension of silence in Ysaye. By the way, it is Ysaye 5 that I will be playing at the recital, the one that went horribly wrong in Korea. But I have a choice, I can keep that film of how bad it was alive (and worsen it) in my mind, or I can use the experience to see that even in a nightmare performance, a jury is not a monster, and can still actually advance somebody (you never know what they do and it turns out juries are also very human :) they have all been there too) I can choose to trust a little bit of the talent I was given comes out and I will be ok. An so will you!

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February 14, 2005 07:34

The day after...

So, yesterday was the big day. We actually played at the famed Carnegie... The funny thing was, it felt like any other concert. I was doing my job, enjoying playing, but not particular nervous or excited when I was on stage. I think I might have been too tired to actually get nervous. Overall it went well: Khatchaturian was shacky, a combination of not enough practice and bringing a different score on stage then I had been playing from. (HOW STUPID!!! Everybody knows you should not to that!) However Bartok went pretty well, I felt comfortable and I think it was a very good performance.
The violin sounds great, however today at noon I have to give it back. Also, it really is not my sound (yet) the violin is sweet and I have a much more deep sound. It is hard to play on a violin only for a couple days, I did not really feel comfortable, but it was a great experience.

No time to rest however, this morning at 8am I had a lesson with Mr. Weilerstein, talking some more about relaxing the armpit and how to play the chords in Bach a-minor Fuge.
Now my preperation for the Queen Elisabeth will really start taking shape. This afternoon I will play some Tchaikovksy Valse in studioclass and later this week I will play Dvorak concerto for Mr. Perlman (Which I'll start today... why do I always have to little time?)

As you can read, I am very tired and lack inspiration to really write. I hope to be back in shape in about a week, making my way to Holland, Estonia and Switzerland for concerts...

Carla

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February 11, 2005 06:21

Sometimes a girl gets lucky, very lucky! The Bartok Contrasts, one of the pieces we are playing this sunday at Carnegie, requires a peasant violin. The violin is tuned to G#, D, A, and Eb. With only 4 bars to get back to normal tuning, one needs two violins.
So I put in a request to school for a "peasant violin".
Yesterday I picked up the "peasant violin", a Stradivarius from 1720, his golden periode! The violin sounds amazing. It has a very bright, alive sound. The response to what I do is very immediate, articulation is very clear and I don't need to work hard at all. I just need to let the instrument do its job!
This morning will be the dress rehearsal at Carnegie. Weird... Carnegie is such a legend, just as Stradivari and now all of a sudden I am given the oppertunity to play with one legend in the other... I can not quite imagine yet being on stage. I am tired but my adreline has taken over. I told my friends yesterday it feels like I took some weird kind of drugs, and I have to say, it seems like I am almost hallucinating right now.

I do have to make some shameless advertisement for the concert :) Sunday at 5:30 pm I am playing with clarinettist Maron Katz and pianist Hyo Kyoung Nam in the "Nesher Trio" at the recital hall of Carnegie. Tickets can be bought at the Carnegie Hall box office. On the program are the trios of Milhaud, Khatchaturian, Godron and Bartok and I will also be playing Messiaen's Theme et Variations. I hope to see you there!

Greetings from "Carla in Wonderland"

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February 6, 2005 15:05

I just spend some wonderful days in Russia, where I played 2 concerts. The first one was in Vologda, where I played some virtuoso repertoire with the orchestra of the Vologda Philhamonic. The second one was in St. Petersburg, with pianist Ksenia Bashmet in the Glazunov Hall, a beautiful hall in the conservatory.
Russia in the winter is amazing. The snow was fresh and during the train ride to Vologda, the moon lit up the snow on the ground and on the trees. In St. Petersburg I had the chance to go up the St. Isaac Dome and had a view of the city with all its snow covered roofs. It truly was a fairy tale.

The concerts went well. In Vologda I won the battle with my fear for memory slips, and since a long time, I did not have any. And in St. Petersburg I was able to keep up this line and play one of my better concerts. I really was able to put into praxis what Mr. Perlman had been talking about in my last lesson. I focused on sound, intonation and vibrato and with that I had no time to be nervous, although before the concert my nerves were up high. But they were taken away in a very beautiful manner.
I had send some people in Russia (friends of friends) an email about me playing and inviting them. Among them some members of Crescendo, a swiss based christian ministry for artists. Some members of Crescendo St. Petersburg showed up right before I had to play and somehow I felt so comfortable, like, as if I would be playing in my bedroom, not in a sold out hall. However, my concentration was much higher and focused then normally, as it always does in a concert and combined with feeling excited, but also at ease, it provided a beautiful oppertunity for the music to come out. I am purposely not writing for the music to happen, because it did not just happen. I felt very aware of the things my ears registered and instead of judging it, it went straight into my fingers, as to: calm down the vibrato, intonation can be higher/ lower, watch your tonequality, do you still have core... etc.etc. Something which Mr. Perlman really has been talking about a lot with me.

Yes, a nice experience. I hope to be able to stay on this path. I definetly feel not only my playing, but everything is in an upwards motion and I would like to keep this control I seem to have while playing, but also in other areas of my life. Even though geographically my life is chaotic (will be crossing the ocean on average every 2 weeks) I feel that I am pretty on top of things on the inside, and since that does not happen so often I will make this wave be as long as it can be.

Got to get some sleep.
Carla

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