Rebecca Bogart

I called New York again today. Talk about lucky timing.  My contact told me that just yesterday the board had agreed that I could play in Carnegie Hall on a masterclass program.

So it really is going to happen!  I had been feeling rather doubtful since my last call to New York.  But after a bad masterclass experience some years ago,  I had vowed never to open myself up to other’s comments in public.

I inquired politely whether I would be performing for comments,  or in recital.  He confirmed that I would be one of several performers on the program who were not getting comments from the master teacher.  I will need to prepare eight minutes of music.

So here is the date:

February  23, 2014 at 1:30 p.m.  

Time to get a move on!  Choose a program! get a dress that fits!  scare up some frequent flyer miles and a cheap place to stay!  Start letting people know about the date!

I’m actually fine with only playing eight minutes.  In my book, that’s plenty of time for a listener to decide if they like your playing or not.  When I am judging competitions, I can usually tell in less than 30 seconds whether I need to listen closely (this person might be in the top two or three) or focus on writing helpful comments.

I’m excited again about piano.

I got in touch with the contest organizer today. First I went to the contest website to see what concerts they had announced for 2014,  so I could suggest they just add me in to one already on the books. Then I called him.

When he emailed me on May 13th, he had sent me a phone number.  So I called it. Turned out it was his cell phone, and he was walking on the street in Manhattan. He seemed a little surprised when I said my name, and it  took a while before he remembered who I was.

Forging ahead anyway, I said I wanted to firm up a Carnegie performance date for fall of 2013 or Spring of 2014.  I suggested maybe I could be added to one of the winner’s concerts for the 2014 contests, or possibly the Gala.  He replied,  ’Oh no, the winners’ concerts are for the winners the judges picked, and the Gala is a very special event – the Board only allows certain performers to participate.   But perhaps you could perhaps play on our vocal masterclass series.”

“Where would the event be held?”, I asked. “Liederkranz Hall”, he answered.

Years of feeling like ‘not a winner’ and not  ’special’ – not skilled enough, not enough money, unknown, too many wrong notes –  flashed before my eyes.  But I persisted. I’ve always been stubborn and have learned the hard way how to hang tough.

Politely but firmly I said that I could be flexible on the date, the length of time I would perform, or the repertoire,  but that I was only interested in playing in Carnegie Hall. No where else. It felt good to say that.

He said he understood,  but that he couldn’t commit to anything without checking with the rest of the Board.   Doing my best  ”you and me could be chums maybe” imitation, I said that having served on several boards myself, I understood.

We left things there.

I felt discouraged, but resolved that if I could get Chase Bank to agree to a loan modification, I could get this performance scheduled eventually. Just keep tapping into my long and wide vein of stubbornness.

Where does this go?  No,  don’t put the sweatshirt away with the pajamas,  no the nuts do not go in the refrigerator.  Frantically looking for the butter,  finally I find it right where I first looked – and didn’t see it.

My firm ware is going  through a major operating system reinstall.  The spinning beachball is displayed large and in the very center of my screen and it is hard to concentrate.

The place inside my neural net that knows it is valuable and creative and educated expressed itself just now in all three of the mornings lessons.   New insights, less apologizing about why I made suggestions, more willingness to follow hunches out on a limb through thin air and down a fruitful new avenue of investigation led to some breakthroughs for each student.

Wanda and I untied a very thorny knot inside Ravel’s Oiseaux Triste;  Veronica and I found a way for her to comfortably play two voices in the right hand of her Bach fugue,  and Paul and I discovered how to sense the radius and use it to unify the movements of the forearm. Exhilarating, but also calm and grounded.

The mother finch has continued building her nest behind the outdoor speaker, up against the support for the back door roof overhang.   She is just as startled and annoyed with me every time I go in and out of the back door, in spite of the fact (fact? really? ) that I am now an internationally recognized pianist who will play in Carnegie Hall.

(Student’s names have been changed to protect the innocent.)

It is less than 24 hours after finding out about the competition results.  I have spoken to my teacher, my mother, my sister, and a colleague.

Sometimes I felt normal today and almost forgot what had happened yesterday.  But tonight while at Zumba class,  I felt for several minutes in a row  that everything was o.k.  That I had become someone I have wanted to be for a very very long time.  Or, more accurately,  that the someone I hoped I was but feared that I was not actually did exist somewhere inside my skin and neurons and had been invited to Carnegie Hall to do something I had always dreamed of.

After dinner I checked the website to see if my name was in fact listed there.  A flash of joy and excitement 0- there I was, right after James Behr and before the other residents of the rest of the alphabet.    Who are these other people, I thought?  So I googled them.

Now my nerves are going crazy again.  This one played in Vienna.  This one studies at Indiana University.  This one is a professor. This one has composed all this cool music and released 4-5 CDs.  This one lives in Italy and has been winning contests for 8-10 years.  One is a young African American man who lives in North Carolina.  His site is mobile friendly.  One is a Korean American woman,  or maybe a Korean Woman,  can’t tell,  too many different women with similar spellings of her name.

But anyway, they all seem more experienced and with more visible means of support than I.

I wonder if  the river of emotion I am rafting down alone with no trained guides, full of boulders and white water, is similar to Kubler-Ross’s grief process? Maybe I am losing something here?  A self image?

To be continued.  Hope I can sleep tonight.   I bumped my toe badly this morning,  and hit my head for the thousandth time while vacuuming the studio.  Clearly I don’t know my shape and size anymore.

To be continued,  thankfully.