Always Perform For Your Favorite Audience!

posted by Ruth Butterfield-Winter

Have you ever performed to a crowd of thousands, even 10's of thousands? I am not surprised if you have. What a thrill that is. The accomplishment of working an entire program or set of music out in the practice studio and presenting it to a crowd where you absolutely know people in the audience get what you are trying to say with your art. It's beyond words, it's exhilarating, it's worth every bit of sweat, tears, blood, sacrifices and curses for your gift.

Now, think about this: Have you ever worked so hard on a program that you know it will no doubt change the world as you know it? The concert date approaches and you realize that half your friends have other gigs, your family is out of town on vacation and you were so busy practicing that you forgot to send out the notices to churches, distribution lists and local media. OH NO, your manager (if you have one) dropped the ball too! The audience is going to be minuscule. Maybe, if it's cold, someone will come in just for the shelter from the elements.

Let me ask you... Would you present your art, your songs, your playing, your performance any differently with one person in the audience, then you would with thousands?

It's only natural to throw up your hands and say, "What's the point? Nobody is going to hear this. That one person couldn't possible understand the intellectual and technical skill I am presenting. At least with 50 people in the audience, at least one will get it."

I say, every time we sing, rehearse, play, paint, write, whatever the skill is, we should perform, or at least strive to execute, at the level we would if the most influential person in your life, living or dead, were in the audience.

For me, that special influential person is Dr. Vladimir Sokoloff (pictured with me sitting at the piano), my piano teacher at The Curtis Institute of Music in Phila- delphia. We had weekly student recitals and I seemed to be on most of them, since I was a Chamber Music/Accompanying major. Dr. Sokoloff was in the audience every for concert. He would take a seat in the back row near the left hand exit. He was very proud of his students, but praise from him was extremely rare. If he liked what you had done; and man, you knew when you did well even before he came up after the concert, he would say, "Not bad." You could breath easy after that because you knew you were golden for at least an hour, or until the next lesson.

Dr. Sokoloff died in 1997. But still, when I prepare for a concert I think of him and what he would say. I perform for my favorite audience because I imagine that he is sitting in back row, near the exit, listening to every phrase, every note, every nuance. After all, he was one of the many people who inspired me and taught me how to use my gift.

I think we should strive to perform for our favorite audience, whatever that audience may be. You really never know who you are touching, or inspiring. It may even turn out to be yourself.

Do you have a favorite audience? Let me know.