A sense of jubilance among our Festival fellows has accompanied the return of live performances to concert halls. There’s nothing quite like live musical experiences. The energetic hum of anticipation filling the lobby half an hour before the show, the dimming of the lights, the enthusiastic applause as the musicians enter the stage – it’s all part of the magic of the live performance experience.
We spoke to four of our Sarasota Music Festival 2022 fellows about what live performance means to them. Read their responses below.
What Does Live Music Mean to You?
Festival Fellow Perspectives
Eric Bergeman, flute I think live performances definitely bring a lot of people together and allow a lot of artists to share artistry that they are feeling in that moment. That is very important, especially with the technology that results in recordings nowadays because we are hearing art from the artist’s perspectives as it forms in their minds and that kind of experience only ever happens once.
Rachel Lauson, Horn I think with live performances there’s just truly an irreplaceable energy that you have in the space. Yeah, you can listen to the same pieces or the same music as a recording but you won’t get the same sharing of the art and the sharing of experience that comes with the interaction of not only the performers together on stage, but the performers and the audience.
Dongsub (Alex) Jeoung, Violin As musicians, I think we have a unique opportunity with live performance to make a one- or two-dimensional space into a three- or even four-dimensional space. It’s a vital process of fostering connections with the audience that cannot be mimicked in any other format. As musicians, performance means everything. This is how we create connections. Everyone has different stories about what makes certain musical pieces so special for them. We take that into consideration and it gives us an outlet to be more creative with our version, to make a new storytelling. Channeling that energy from the audience, receiving it and feeding it back – that can only be done in live performance.
Weilan Li, Viola Sometimes you don’t know what you will get until you get to be on the stage performing. I saw a live performance of the Houston Symphony of Mahler 2. There was a conductor who was stepping down, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and it was a farewell concert. Every seat was taken. And by the end of the Mahler, everybody just stood up clapping. I’ve never heard so much clapping in my life. And I could see some people, like me, were really emotional, their faces just dripping tears. That kind of experience is life-changing.
