The biggest audience you have performed in front of

[pianoplayjl]

 

For me it is around 30 people in my piano studio recital. I was already scared with 30 people. I wonder how pianists handle the pressure with occasional audiences of 3000....I could have easily got an audience of at least 100 in my music soiree but I didn't turn up because I was too chicken to perform in front of a non classical loving audience. I regret that moment and this year I will definitely turn up for the music  soiree, as much as I hate to go. I might even consider performing in my school promotion day, which I might get audience of at least 200.

What was the biggest audience you have performed in front of? Don't be shy to admit it....

JL

[birba]

It was an almost filled up hall seating 2,000.  Maybe, 1,800.  It was  a quirk the way I got there, and it will never happen again, I'm sure, but it was exhilirating. I was scared to death when I went to try the hall.  But the lighting was such that I felt like I was in my own room playing for myself.  The audience was japanese and you could hear a pin drop.

[ajspiano]

300+ at eistedfods several times for the winners concerts in different years.

~1200 - my entire highschool, both as a solo pianist, and in rock bands.

I've played infront of 500-600 a few times in bands too..

I have a friend who got pulled out of the crowd at a rock festival to play with greenday though - so I can't top his 35,000     ..lucky bastard.

[outin]

I haven't played the piano to an audience after childhood, but I have lots of experience in public speaking and some performing. What I have noticed that for me it's the same whether it is 200 or 5000. You don't count after a certain number. The audience just becomes a mass.

I don't think playing to 10 people would be any easier than playing to 100. Actually for me it's more difficult to play to 1 person whose opinion I care about than 100 people who I don't know. I am not actually scared for other people, it's my own perfectionism and need to be always in control that I'm afraid will ruin the performance

[pianoplayjl]

I haven't played the piano to an audience after childhood, but I have lots of experience in public speaking and some performing. What I have noticed that for me it's the same whether it is 200 or 5000. You don't count after a certain number. The audience just becomes a mass.

I don't think playing to 10 people would be any easier than playing to 100. Actually for me it's more difficult to play to 1 person whose opinion I care about than 100 people who I don't know. I am not actually scared for other people, it's my own perfectionism and need to be always in control that I'm afraid will ruin the performance

Quite true, this often is the case in examinations. But if it were something like 500 pianists then I guess it is 500 times harder. Performing for myself is the greatest pleasure. But for people I don't know, espcially very big audiences....

JL

[roseamelia]

A recitle in a nursing home.

[thorn]

I haven't played the piano to an audience after childhood, but I have lots of experience in public speaking and some performing. What I have noticed that for me it's the same whether it is 200 or 5000. You don't count after a certain number. The audience just becomes a mass.

I agree.

I think the most I have ever played to is in the hundreds, but that was on flute not piano (orchestra concert, I was the soloist).

I don't really get performance nerves unless it has been in front of an examiner who is quite openly judging. Whether it's one person or a million doesn't bother me, however it would affect my choice of program. Some pieces are not suited for large audiences, however quiet they are. The first two pieces in Debussy's Images 2 which I am currently learning are examples; they are better suited to somewhere like a smallish room with a literal handful of listeners.

[thalbergmad]

4

[pianowolfi]

1 can make me already very nervous, depending on the situation, of course.

I think it was 200 at a solo recital in 2004.

[williampiano]

I'm not sure about the exact audience count, but I remember the audience was pretty large at the PPYC competition winner recital. I'd have to guess that was maybe 200 or soo....

Although not for piano, I remember once I played cello in my school orchestra in front a few thousand people...

[jtguru]

13

It felt exactly the same as playing by myself.

[patrickd]

5

[starstruck5]

You know that if you post a video in the Audition Room you could have a large audience potentially -but in real life my biggest audience has been -errr -one!

[birba]

1 can make me already very nervous, depending on the situation, of course.

I think it was 200 at a solo recital in 2004.

Yes, but you probably had 20,000 in your live stream "styx, a long journey"!!!!!  And that would make me WAY more nervous then playing in front of an audience in a hall.

[pianowolfi]

Yes, but you probably had 20,000 in your live stream "styx, a long journey"!!!!!  And that would make me WAY more nervous then playing in front of an audience in a hall.

There were not so many yet, and I know most of them per Facebook, and many of them in real life. And I am less nervous when I play my own stuff

I think I forgot that I might have had more listeners when I played Schumann concerto in 2001 in Schopfheim (Germany) and in Graz (Austria) my only performances of a big piano concerto with orchestra so far. I think in Graz there were something like 300 and in Germany also. Well, in Prague there were exactly 13 listeners for the same program. That means that there were like 60 or 70 people in the orchestra +soloists (there were also other solo works) playing for exactly 13 people in the audience!   (always when I remember those times I think that I'm actually repressing certain facts...argh/haha   )

[birba]

Schumann.  wow.  Don't you think playing with an orchestra is easier then solo?  I feel more at ease.

[pianowolfi]

Schumann.  wow.  Don't you think playing with an orchestra is easier then solo?  I feel more at ease.

it felt like a big responsibility. It felt like 60 people played only for my solo, and did their best, and I felt much more exposed. A piano solo recital makes me hella nervous, but still, if I fail completely, it's only me and I have to deal with it and learn from it, and go on from there, and learn from the mistakes and so on. But I felt like everybody's looking at me and listening to me and trying to react immediately if something happens. It wasn't a professional orchestra and that made it even more delicate.

[pianowolfi]

And don't forget, in the Schumann concerto there is this super-exposed chord-intro and this super-exposed main theme! It felt like balancing on a ridge above an abyss.

But it was FUN!! 

[littletune]

That sounds scary Wolfi!!! 

Well at our final recital (or the one in the middle of the year) there are about 30 kids so if you count that every kid has at least two people watching them, but a lot of times there are a lot more than two (cause there are parents and grandparents... ) so I guess it would have to be at least 60 to 100 people... but actually I'm less nervous at these bigger recitals where we are on a stage than at the smaller ones where we are in a classroom and people are only like 2 meters away from the piano... even though there are a lot less people watching (about 10 to 50 maybe).

[birba]

it felt like a big responsibility. It felt like 60 people played only for my solo, and did their best, and I felt much more exposed. A piano solo recital makes me hella nervous, but still, if I fail completely, it's only me and I have to deal with it and learn from it, and go on from there, and learn from the mistakes and so on. But I felt like everybody's looking at me and listening to me and trying to react immediately if something happens. It wasn't a professional orchestra and that made it even more delicate.

That 's exactly what I thought I was going to feel the first time I played with an orchestra!!  But it turned out exactly the opposite.  I felt like I was one of the orchestra!
And the last movement of the schumann.  I would NEVER attempt it.  Did you record it?