Blog Post #21: Wading Through

I spent some time today watching some interviews with the finalists of this year’s Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. It’s a huge competition- one that leaves the winners in the history books and jumpstarts their international performing careers. These pianists work crazy hours. Yunchan Lim was the winner of the 2022 Van Cliburn, and an interview with his former host dad revealed that he practiced 12-14 hours per day before and even during the competition. But the biggest thing I noticed from the finalist interviews? That these pianists are human too. They get embarrassed about old facial expressions caught on camera and that they can’t remember bar 36 of the last piece they played. I’ve been taking a bit of a hiatus from practicing since coming home for the summer. Today I finally mustered the courage to sit at the piano, and the Van Cliburn interviews make me want to sit at the piano more tomorrow, and even more the day after. Life isn’t perfect, and pianists are not perfect. In fact, life is extremely messy, scary at times, confusing at others, and hopefully beautiful somewhere in between.