Do You Struggle With Stage Fright?
When talking about going on stage, there is a fine line between excitement and anxiety. The thrill of being able to share what we have with the audience fights against the fear of freezing under the spotlight and forget everything. We want to prove ourselves and we are afraid of failing ourselves at the same time. There is a bunch of butterflies in our stomach, and we are not sure what they are doing.
Every person feels this differently, but we all feel it. Some have developed strategies, little rituals to do right before the show starts. Others have taught themselves to disregard anxiety's insideous comments by actively turning all their thoughts into positive ones. Some more throw themselves to the heat of the moment and trust that the sight of the audience will shatter the insecurities right away. Whatever the case, you are not alone, and by communicating with your peers, you can learn, advise, and gain the confidence to face an audience eager to hear you.
How do you deal...
What can we learn from Yuja Wang?
It is not easy to define the sense of spectacle in classical music. Precision and speed are always a thing of wonder, yes, but the musician cannot leave behind the act of performing, of giving a character to the interpretation. Yuja Wang knows this very well, and it shows every time she sits in front of her piano.
During an interview with Los Angeles Times in 2017, she was asked about what alternative career she would have picked if she wasn’t a prodigy pianist. Her answer was: “For me, playing music is about transporting to another way of life, another way of being. An actress does that.” With that perspective, you can see the character she plays live; with the thrill of spectacle running in her fingers, her deliberated fashion choices that infuse a Hollywood glam flavour to the stage, and her empathetic approach to her repertoire.
Her brilliant and inspiring career surely comes as motivation to find our own character on stage and play its role in a musical...