How to Survive a Recital, Cooking with Rossini

December is a month of many recitals. This year out of almost seventy piano students that I teach, about sixty will actually play in recitals. And I have to make sure all of them have a positive experience both for themselves and for their families and friends.

Playing in front of people can be very intimidating. Playing piano well is one of the most difficult human activities. There are many articles that talk about how complex playing piano is because it involves the entire brain and requires a high level of concentration.

Small children usually do very well performing. They walk to the piano, smile and do not even see any reason to be nervous. I remember being about seven or eight and being told that I should not look into the audience all the time while I was playing. Self-consciousness for me came slightly later, and it is something that we all fight to overcome, hoping for some degree of success.

I think that understanding our mission as pianists can be a great help in overcoming recital stress. I believe that any performer is a representative of the music that he or she is playing. If you can consider your upcoming performance with this in mind, it can be of tremendous help. No matter whose music you are playing, read about the composer so that by the time you have to perform, you have something that you want to share instead of worrying too much about the technical aspects of your performance.

Entertainmening the audience is another responsibility we have. The audience consists of people who voluntarily gave their time to listen to us play. We have an obligation to be interesting, compelling and to touch the souls of the audience members with our art.

One of the biggest challenges is to see the complete picture of how your performance should go, instead of focusing on details. Imagine the beauty and harmony of the ideal performance, and never get discouraged if some of the details go wrong. The overall picture is by far more important, and in most cases minor mistakes go completely overlooked by the audience. One of the main reasons they attend the recital is to have a good time. I believe that the performer should have a good time also.

One of my favorite parallels with playing music is cooking food. Cooking for an important event could also cause nervousness and a feeling of being self-conscious. Most cooks however do not get completely frozen and scared by the idea of not being good enough. Gioachino Rossini was a famous Italian opera composer who was particularly known for his love of cooking. Rossini once had a very comfortable contract with Domenica Barbaia, the owner of Neapolitan opera theatres. This contract only required him to write two new operas each year, which left Rossini with extra time on his hands. Rossini lived in Paris and wrote letters home that described in great detail the cultural events as well as Parisian cuisine. His analysis of musical performances is surprisingly similar with his analysis of dishes and drinks.

Rossini's most known recipe is Tournedos Rossini, which is a slice of toasted white bread with a pan-fried slice of beef covered with a thin layer of lard. Then Mr. Rossini would add a slice of goose liver and some truffles. It sounds slightly scary, but knowing Rossini's impeccable taste in music, I would agree to try this dish out...a very little piece, though. I do not know any contemporary diet that his most famous recipe would work well with. However, Rossini lived to be seventy-six. At the age of thirty-seven Rossini wrote his last opera, and even though he wrote some music after that point, including Stabat Mater, he spent most of his later years enjoying life, cooking, eating and entertaining friends.

There are other parallels between cooking and music. The idea of whipping up something to enjoy with friends is similar to playing a piece of music at a social gathering. There are cooks and musicians, who follow the recipes or musical traditions religiously, but the best cooks or performers are creative and improvise, at least a little. So when you play music, be innovative. I believe this idea inspired the name Creative Keyboard!

To summarize this article: Understand your mission as a representative of the composer you are playing and of the art form itself. Be entertaining instead of perfect, and have a good time instead of focusing on details too much. And if remembering the Tournedos Rossini recipe puts the smile on your face, that just might be the ticket to survive your next performance. Good luck!