11.10.2022.
I am on my way to the concert venue once again, and my mind inevitably begins to wander. I think about the last couple of years and how different our experiences as performers have been – how we have been forced to go from in-person live concerts we naively thought was an untouchable cultural and social value, to complete silence at first, and then to different forms of live-streamed performances which I have lost count of already – I have done live-streamed performances that actually was live-streamed in real time; the ones that were pre-recorded and broadcasted later on different social media platforms. I have even done ‘fake’ live-streamed events, which were marketed by the organizers as live, but were pre-recorded, because, after a while, no one wanted to deal with technical issues of actual live-streams anymore. I have done concerts without the in-person audience; with very little audience due to restrictions; in masks; without the masks - the list is endless.
Now we are fully back to pre-covid ‘normal’ -live concerts with an in-person audience and without any restrictions. Most musicians are keen to erase the confusing experience of Covid time from their minds as soon as possible and are determined to never look back. We are all moving on full speed, pretending the pandemic time was just a minor glitch in the matrix and everything is fixed now. Or are we? And is everything really fixed? Is it even possible to live through the traumatic experience of the pandemic without any consequences and without any impact on person’s mindset? The music industry professionals talk about the possible short-term and long-term effects of Covid on the listening habits of audiences – the tickets sales are dropping and that means we have to find new ways to connect with the audience yet again (the statement every performer has heard countless times in the last two years) and invent new strategies to convince audiences come back to the concert halls. As in any industry the main focus understandably is on the consumer, and classical music is no exception. However, I am wondering, perhaps selfishly – how about us, performers? How have the last two years and constant uncertainty affected us? Do we still perceive live performance the way we did before the pandemic? Are we really just want to move on as fast as possible, hoping the next glitch what will stop everything is not just around the corner?
All these questions first came to my mind during the very first post-covid performance with the in-person audience in summer 2021. I remember going on stage with a feeling of relief – finally I can do my job again the way I have done it for two decades. I expected to feel the familiar emotional connection with the audience, which I was convinced would help me battle my performance anxiety. I was looking forward to being part of the unique and unpredictable process, that only happens when people on stage and in the audience experience the live performance together. I was sure the feeling would come back immediately, despite the two years break, because it is something that simply cannot be lost – like riding a bike – once you learn how to do it, the skill is yours forever. Instead, my reaction was unexpected and unfamiliar – it almost seemed like there was an invisible wall between me and the audience. I could not feel any kind of connection with the listeners, and I remember thinking the unthinkable – do I even need to look for this connection if it does not happen naturally? Would it really affect the quality of performance if I did not? I admit, this is a very unexpected revelation for someone who has spent their whole performing career trying to please the audience.
Since that performance, despite many concerts in between, I still find myself struggling to return to the ‘old normal’ - the audience is still ‘hiding’ behind that invisible wall in my mind (or is it the other way around?) and seemingly temporary feeling of isolation has become a ‘new normal’ for me. I still see it as a flaw and, the closer I get to tonight’s concert venue, the stronger my determination becomes - I intend to finally tear that imaginary wall down. Once I go on stage, I make a conscious decision to interact with the audience more – luckily, we are expected to talk about the music we perform and conversation is the most straightforward form of interaction, so technically it should contribute to my goal. As the concert goes on, I alternate between playing, talking, and observing the audience and suddenly realize that no one has any idea of what goes on in my mind. It is not written on my face and my voice does not sound any different. I give my best performance and the audience do not show any visible signs of boredom. Even my on-stage partners seem to be in their own world, busy with endless sheet music pages, technical passages and never-ending struggle of adjusting to the acoustics of the hall and projecting the best possible sound (after all, there are no sound engineers to blame now). That is when it occurs to me – what if this – being in our own world - is the answer? What if my inability to connect with the audience the way I did before Covid is the direct response to the almost two years of performances without the in-person audience? What if what I saw as a struggle and a problem is, in fact, something entirely different – a ticket to freedom, a blessing if you will? And finally, what if – and that thought seems so groundbreaking at the time, I almost miss my entrance and flutist gives me a puzzled look – the concept of live concerts, that we have perceived as an undoubtedly collective experience so far, has become in a way a solitary one?
Obviously, I can only speak for myself at this point, but this notion could be one of the aftereffects of the pandemic time. The actual, physical absence of the in-person audience, that in the early stages of the pandemic seemed like the end of the world, has paved the way for the completely new approach to performing for me – I have distanced myself from the listeners and turned the experience that used to make me anxious into the more comforting solitary experience – now it’s just me, my emotions, my music. I still vividly remember the mind-numbing bouts of performance anxiety I used to experience when I was younger, to the extent I had to put a score in front of me at every performance, because I was not sure I would be able to get through the piece without it. Every time I went on stage, I felt exposed – like the audience somehow had unintentionally intruded my personal space. With time and a lot of effort, I learned to cope and concentrate on the positive aspects of performance, but this feeling never went away completely. It never occurred to me to distance myself from the audience on purpose – it seemed like a completely wrong path to follow and definitely not the one that could liberate me from the crippling anxiety. The indisputable notion – we perform for the audience because the reaction of the audience determines our success - has been etched into our minds by our teachers since we first stepped on stage, in my case - at the age of seven.
While still on stage that evening, I realized, once I consciously stopped focusing on the audience, I felt much more at ease with myself. It occurred to me that I have subconsciously been applying the strategy I sometimes used in live-streamed concerts during the pandemic -to be able to focus on the music and to maintain a least some illusion of live performance, I deliberately distanced myself from the recording equipment mentally and even physically, because those performances without the in-person audience resembled the recording session more than a live concert, which was extremely confusing to me. Apparently, the same approach helped me to battle my performance anxiety now – this was a completely unexpected discovery.
I admit, the thought that collective experience simultaneously can be the solitary one is still very fresh in my mind. I still need time to process it, but it has put down roots and I suspect, it will not leave. Before the pandemic, I have never allowed myself to think that focusing on myself and distancing from the audience can be a good, healthy attitude towards the complicated process of performing live. During the last two years I have talked a lot about what it means to perform live, I have read books and articles about the notion of ‘liveness’ in music and theatre, but it never occurred to me that a live concert where we find ourselves in the room full of likeminded people with the same goal - clearly a collective experience, can also be a solitary act of performing and listening. To a certain extent it is like listening to music alone or practicing without the audience, or even recording in a recording studio. The moment of performance, be it a live one in a concert hall or a live-streamed or pre-recorded one; in that specific moment in time when the performance happens, we are all alone with our thoughts and emotions – on stage and in the audience. The shared emotions and energy, the feedback in form of applause and requested encores– all these integral and familiar components of any live performance – come after the last sound has vanished. Until then – it is our own unique experience, and we are alone with it and in it, even if we are in a room full of people.