Project Origins

At the beginning of my doctoral studies, my advisor and I compiled a list of musical, academic, and career goals that we hoped to tackle during our time together. We revisit them occasionally, as a way to focus our priorities each term. Publish to a major journal; take auditions; hone my performance focus; find a job, etc.. Yet there is one slippery goal that has been difficult to describe, and even more difficult to tackle: to clearly define the process by which I take a piece of music from zero to artistic product. This serves many purposes. One, I will better understand my own process so that I can be more efficient in my preparation. It can be frustrating to near the end of your study of a work, only to realize you skipped a pertinent, early step that will now cost you extra time. The other benefit is pedagogical. If I am to have any hope to produce intelligent, independent artists from my own future studio, I must clearly understand my process before I can help others build theirs.

I have therefore tasked myself with clearly defining this next goal, via the platform of this blog. The third (of four) recitals I will be preparing is a concerto recital performance of the Dvorak Cello Concerto in b minor this coming early April. It is a work I studied to the highest of my capabilities at the end of my undergraduate studies, but never felt I completely owned. This project is also in line with my prevailing goal of complete mastery and artistry at the instrument, which I am excited to pursue with the re-study of this work. Future posts will include ruminations on the issues I face with the practice and performance of this concerto, such as:

how does one decide the most efficient way to practice the technically demanding passages of the concerto to utterly reliable mastery;
how does one decide the proper sound for a particular theme;
how do we push past the decades of traditional interpretation without breaking the original intent of the composition;

and so on. I hope to garner a discussion through you, my varied readers, on all of these subjects - all in service of the initial question: what is the process by which (we) take a piece of music from zero to artistic performance? Whether your perspective is a musical one or not, I welcome the discussion of the issues you face in similar goals of artistry and a clearly defined voice.