It has already been a couple of weeks since the Lower Austria Youth Symphony Orchestra performed Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. My daughter played the first clarinet part. The performance was a beautiful, charming rendition of this fine work, played by young musicians. Every time my daughter completed her solos during the concert, my older daughter and I delivered secret and silent claps as we gave each other knowing looks.

The forsythias in our region have officially announced the arrival of spring, having already bloomed, signaling warmer days ahead. I have a sense of relief each year when their yellow flowers first appear.

Performing on stage for a musician is a vulnerable place to be. I always thought of it as communication with the audience. The performer places a great deal of themselves out there. And the first time I had to record my pieces for a competition application, I felt a barrier. For me, the barrier was the lack of an audience. It seemed that there was no feedback. Playing for an audience seems to me similar to the direct experience in personal relationships. Should there be real communication in human relationships where friendships are formed,  issues are resolved, or understanding is achieved between two parties, then the direct approach would be the best path to take. And the latter is my preferred method.

Preparing for a concert usually involves physical preparation, such as practicing for hours on end and attending rehearsals and coaching sessions. However, apart from practicing and playing in the privacy of your home or practice room, how else can you prepare for a concert?

Today, I am grateful to finally be over a terrible flu, an illness I battled over the past couple of weeks. During that time, I somehow managed to keep up with my cello playing for an important assignment coming up, but did not have enough strength left for the viola da gamba. So I did not practice the viol for about a week. And tonight, I picked up my bass viol and hoped for the best. The fact that I had kept up with my cello playing paid off, and it felt like I had never really stopped playing the viol either.

Too many times, I have heard music enthusiasts express their dismay at their own progress after two years of piano lessons, as their hopes of making a career in music dwindle to nothing. Then they contemplate quitting altogether.

One of the topics I have discussed in previous posts is the significance of family members supporting young musicians as they take their first steps in the world of music. Last week, specifically on January 27th, was the remembrance day for my mother’s passing.  Coincidentally, the prominent composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on that date in 1756. I want to reflect on my life and my mother today, and honor her memory, as she played a significant role in my musical journey as I grew up.

I have been thinking recently about the word 'courage' and how it applies to music-making, and in which context the theme of bravery has appeared, perhaps in different pieces or compositions.

A Happy New Year to all my readers, visitors, family, friends, and all people around the world. It is a beautiful day with the snow falling outside my window as I write this. My lovely daughters returned this week from their musical tour in China, safe and sound. They had many stories to tell, some amusing, some interesting, some inspiring, and some thought-provoking. This week was also Armenian Christmas, to be exact, January 6th. On that day, I played a concert with some wonderful people. I also had my own personal retreat this holiday season, as my daughters were in China and my husband went to Croatia on a business trip. I spent some me time for four days. Time well spent being productive, as I accomplished a great deal, practicing, writing, and evaluating my goals for 2026.

As I continue to evaluate 2025 as it comes to a close, I would like to thank my readers for visiting my website. I also wish a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. This will be the last post of the year, as I spend much of my time reflecting, rethinking, and realigning my goals for the year ahead, as I do every December.

Today at dusk, my daughter and I went for a long walk in the fields. And as night fell, we both realized how silent we had been as opposed to other days when we alternated between endless chatter and laughter. So, I shared my thoughts about a particular piece I had come across years ago while looking through the recordings in my teacher's collection—a performance of the Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly's Sonata, a solo work for cello marked opus 8.

I have reflected on this question before, but more specifically, what can be done about a passage or passages you have been working on, and your efforts have not yielded the results you had been hoping for. That is to say that day after day, you came back to the exact phrase, and the same difficulties and challenges persisted in haunting your practice sessions. You were unable to achieve consistency in the intonation, bowing, phrasing, sound quality, or all of the above. And should you have put in a great deal of time and effort into something, and it is still not happening to your liking, then it is time for a change of pace and style in the way you work.