In Class

High Performance,Low Anxiety

A new course helps Eastman School students learn to cope better with the anxiety that often accompanies musicians in high-stakes performances. By Scott Hauser

STRESS TEST: Eastman School student Susannah Kelly practices a stress-reduction exercise as instructor Bill Williams ’87E looks on (Photo: Elizabeth Torgerson-Lamark).

As he prepared to play the opening bars of Bloch’s “Schelomo” in front of 20 or so Eastman School classmates, cellist Christopher Dingstad ’04E could feel his heart pounding.

But it wasn’t just the usual nervous energy that comes with performing before a discerning audience that caused his agitation.

Before he sat down, Dingstad had been asked to go for a quick jog up and down the hall as part of a deliberate attempt to shake his composure by mimicking some of the physical symptoms of stress.

When he returned to the room and picked up his cello and bow, he tried to use newly learned stress-reduction techniques to help him focus on playing well despite his racing pulse.

“Being nervous or excited is necessary to have a good performance, but you want to transfer it to the right kind of energy,” Dingstad says later. “It’s good to have the tools available to do that.”

Learning better ways to control the physical and psychological manifestations of stress that often accompany musicians in high-stakes performances is the goal of Eastman’s new Performance Optimization seminar. Offered last fall, the course is the first at the School to address the issue of performance anxiety head-on.

Instructor Bill Williams ’87E, principal trumpet for the Santa Fe Opera, says music students and faculty have long acknowledged that a certain level of energy is natural—and usually beneficial —for musicians who aspire to take their place in the high-stakes world of the country’s top orchestras and symphonies.

But only recently have performers begun to recognize that the flipside of that energy—anxiety—can be more effectively managed, says Williams, who earned a master’s degree in psychology at the New School University in New York.

“The vast majority of us have experienced anxiety or stress about performance at some level, but we articulate it in very different ways,” Williams says. “People who perform really well under stress 100 percent of the time are rare. Most, if not all, of us have gone through this at some period in our careers.”

In the class, offered as part of the Catherine Filene Shouse Arts Leadership Program of the Institute for Music Leadership at the Eastman School, Williams combines research about stress with practical exercises designed to lessen its effects.

In the simulation of increased heart rate, for example, students worked through a process called ’centering,” in which they followed set steps—from mentally focusing on the goal of the performance to consciously breathing in a way to reduce tension—to help them direct their energy to the performance.

The goal is help students perform consistently well in high-pressure situations, such as the end-of-school recitals and career-launching auditions that many of them would face in coming weeks.

“The truth of the matter is that you may never be completely comfortable on stage, but that’s not what this is about,” Williams tells the class. “It’s really about learning to manage stress symptoms and to use them to your benefit during performance.”

It’s a lesson Williams has learned over the course of a career that has taken him from the Eastman School to the San Diego Symphony, the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, and the Bern, Switzerland, Symphony Orchestra, as well as other appointments.

About six years ago, he began working with noted sports psychologist Don Greene, who has pioneered programs to help top athletes deal with the mental stress of high-stakes performance. Williams was intrigued by Greene’s interest in adapting his work for musicians.

“Why was it that in certain performances or recitals I could play really well, but that in other seemingly similar situations, things wouldn’t go as well despite some really good rehearsals?

“The students in the class understand that they are not the only ones going through this,” he says. “It’s very empowering for them to realize that their concerns are not unique.”

Ramon Ricker, director of the Institute for Music Leadership, says the course fits well into the Arts Leadership Program’s objective of helping students hone professional skills early in their careers. Divided into four parts, the program’s curriculum includes courses on performance, arts administration, career development, and new technologies.

Many of the topics are subjects that professional musicians have traditionally mastered with experience.

“What we’re trying to do is help bridge the gap between being a student and being a professional musician,” Ricker says.

Pianist Mincheong Sohn ’04E says learning such skills is crucial to her future as a performer.

“Piano teachers have told me to relax, but this class is more specific about how to go through the steps,” Sohn says.

Soprano Mari-Yan Pringle, a master’s student in voice performance, says the techniques have helped her get ready for auditions she faces this winter.

“This allows you to focus on what you really should be doing, which is sharing the music and your talent,” Pringle says.