I was talking to my sister today. As it happens, she’s giving a concert just two days before mine in February. Hers will be in New York City at the Diller-Quaile School, where she teaches.
She’s in a different league as a musician—Juilliard for both undergraduate and graduate studies, and a professional career devoted entirely to music. Still, we’re sisters, fellow cellists, and as it turns out, February has made us concert companions. Our conversations always seem to circle back to music, and today was no exception.
She sighed and said, “I don’t want to practice, but I have to. I’m looking for the possibility.”
Some musicians perform constantly—recitals every week, concert tours, the treadmill of performing life. But for the rest of us, a concert takes a year of preparation: hours of practice, rehearsals, coaching, coordination, and more practice. It’s a mountain of work for a single hour on stage. Why do we do it?
There has to be something compelling behind all that practice.
Ego? Maybe—a little of that helps. But ego alone doesn’t sustain you.
Love of performing? That helps too. You need some enjoyment of being on stage, of sharing music in the moment. Chamber music, likewise, can be its own reward—the camaraderie, the shared discovery in rehearsal.
But what about the solitary work? The endless repetition of difficult passages, the late-night technical drills, the cracked calluses, the stubborn phrases that never quite settle? What carries you through that?
Those moments require something stronger, steadier, and more mysterious than ego or enjoyment. They require possibility.
When I perform, I think about the audience. Who are they? What are they feeling? Sometimes, as I play, I’m moved to tears imagining that for someone out there, this might be their first time hearing the sonata I’m playing. I think, someone’s life will never be quite the same after this concert.
Maybe it’s an eleven-year-old beginner, newly inspired. Maybe it’s someone who never thought they liked Fauré until tonight. The change might be small, almost invisible—but possibility lives in that exchange between musician and listener.
Is it true that every performance changes lives? Probably not. But truth isn’t really the point. The belief in that possibility is enough—it fuels the practice, carries me through the long hours, and joins forces with everything else—ego, love, and discipline—to make the music real and the performances fun.