Interesting Performance Stories

[minimozart007]

Ill start.  One time, I was playing at a mall, more specifically, a Mozart sonata, and this idiot my age comes right up to me and starts dancing like one of those French ladies!  Fortunately, he was kicked out of the mall.

[keys]

at my last concert a little kid started singing along while I played Prokofieff's Visions Fugitive No.1 (a reeally quite piece)

[quantum]

I was to play Chopin Op. 40/1.  MC introduced it as "Melancholy Polonaise". 

Was to play at a liturgical service in my school.  Me on piano, and a teacher on vocal and guitar.  The piece was in G major.  The teacher forgot to take the capo off the guitar, so she ended up playing in Ab.  Good example of Bi-tonality.   

Asked to accompany a pair of singers at Christmas sing "We three kings".  Their harmony was improvised.  It consisted of several sequences of parallel 5ths 4ths and maybe some out of tune tritones. 

Accompanied a vocalist during a university jury.  Since the piece started with her pick up,  her teacher suggested 1 bar chordal intro (in the style of the music) then go straight into the song.  I look at the jury - they are ready; I look at vocalist and ask her if she is ready - she nods; I continue to watch vocalist for visual cues while I prepare for my intro; I play my intro -  vocalist decides to re-organize her muisc?  ; I let the chord hang on the pedal - vocalist decides to just stand there, looking pretty for the jury; after a grueling 15 seconds or so she sings her first note!!!

[jhon]

I'm in church, accompanying the congregation in singing hymns.  The piano is really old and weak that when I hit it really hard, the front wood casing - that long, thin in the front panel of the keys) collapse and fell!  Everyone thought I was angry!     

[jhon]

Pianist Cecile Licad is having a concert here in Manila, Philippines, playing RACH3.  In the middle of 2nd movement, a "brown-out" (electric shut down) occured and the whole theater was in complete darkness.  The orchestra stopped but Licad continued playing her part, skipping the orchestral solos.  (I can assure you she never missed a single note!)  The lights were restored by the time it's 3rd movement.

[allchopin]

https://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3489.0.html

[6ft 4]

i look at the keyboard confident im going to play bach fugue from WTK no.2, in front of around 100 people.........i then find i have NO IDEA what the hell the notes are ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA...i have no music since i'd played the piece from memory about a million times before....i randomnly guess at a note.....it sounds AWFUL.

I stop.
take a big breath.
go VERY red.
then proceed to play it THANK GOD but had so much adrenaline in me i have absolutely no memory of whether i played it well or anything - very strange.

[musicsdarkangel]

haha these stories are incredible!!!


Hmmm.  I remember watching a tuba player take a solo, and his legs were spread of course - his pant zipper rips apart and his boxers show.

[minimozart007]

I remember one time me and my friends were playing at a mall (performing) nd this one girl was playing the Schumann concerto.  We were up close to the piano, and one of my friends said, "How can a girl that hot play so good?"  And the girl smiled.
 

[rob47]

Once I booed someone because their performance was so terrible.  The kid was about  6 years old, but I could tell people were being polite clapping for his god-awful reading of Mozart k545 1st mvt  so I just stood up and started booing over the whole audience.  Stupid kid. If he's not going to play at a professional level why did he even bother.  Wasted my time.  Anwyay so he starts crying, he's only 6, and I just went right up onto the stage and booed him in his face.  After I told his parents they should be ashamed too.

[Siberian Husky]

and this..folks..is how serial killers develope


so...Johnny..why'd you do it huh?..


well it all started when i was six..and this short asian guy harrassed me during my virtuosic performance of mozart's facile..

[kghayesh]

Looks like the K.545 is always a piece that doesn't bring luck to the performer...
I was playing it in a competition and the first movement went so good that i was surprised to play it this way... During the second movement, i was shocked to hear my cell phone ringing in my pocket. I totally forgot to turn it off.

I was confused betweeen whether to concentrate on my playing or to concentrate with the ringing and vibrating phone. I thought "what the **** are the jury going to hear that and what they r gonna say" I thought of myself as a complete jerk not to have turned it off before. I lost concentration in the music so i began to repeat some part about three times coz i forgot what's next . The jury noticed that and they stopped me and told me to go on to the third movement.

This time the phone has stopped ringing so i began to regain my concentration gradually until i was back in full concentration mode and then suddenly .......... I heard a god-**** ring again. I was so frustrated with it this time that i totally lost concentration and i had a couple of slips then a blackout which was my worst performance experience.

Btw i didn't win anything in this competition of course 

For complete details, https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,7608.0.html

[hodi]

i still don't get WHY THE HELL DO YOU KEEP A CELL PHONE IN YOUR POCKET WHILE PERFORMING ?!

[shasta]

Got a couple good ones:

*Once when I was really little, I about to play some Handel sonatina (A minor?) at a recital, but the piano bench was this old wooden rickity thing, and as I was adjusting it, I got a splinter in one of my fingers.  It was awful, but I didn't let on and played my piece.  Painful.  Every time I pressed the key with that finger, a little stab of pain hit me. 


*When I was in high school, a fellow pianist and I were performing some 4-hand stuff at a recital.  For whatever reason, we didn't have a page-turner, and during our performance, the pages of our music kept slowing flipping back to the beginning of the book.  The piece was so busy that neither of us could afford to give up a hand to hold the music open, and no one in the audience came up to help us, so for the next 12 minutes or so, both of us frantically used our lung power to hold the correct pages open by blowing on them!


*In college, I was accompaning a tenor who was to sing this slow, languid, solemn song about slavery at an African-American Festival concert.  We'd been rehearsing for weeks, and it was just lovely.  Well, night of the concert, I'm back stage waiting for him to arrive so that we can warm up.  My tenor arrives wearing this white zoot suit, complete with a white fedora, spats, and the pocket-watch chain. ??  Umm, OK.  Warm up went fine.  Then, it's our turn to perform. 

We get out on stage, and after all the hooting and whistles from the women in the audience (in appreciation for his dapper dress), we begin the piece.  Well, he completely launches into this hammed-up, Big-Bad-Voodoo-Daddy-esque, Jump-Jivin' Scat version of the song!!  I almost had a heart attack!  Of course, he's dancing the Lindy-Hop and the Jitterbug up there, and the audience is really going NUTS, and I'm sitting there at the piano in a formal black dress, trying my best to ham up my piano part to keep up with him, wishing the piano bench came with a seatbelt...   Ugggh!

[pianonut]

may have mentioned this on another thread, but anyway - i had my senior recital ready and proceeded to go and buy a formal for it.  i had my mom come with me to pick it out.  we settled on a red, long, semi-tight dress.  now, in retrospect, i would have taken a pianist with me to pick one out.

ok.  it was so long, that during my faure piece (4th nocturne) the dress kept covering my pedal toe and had to kick quick/ pedal, kick quick/  pedal.  i was so frustrated that the color red probably matched my face.  then, i felt like i was going to faint from frustration and i couldn't breath because the dress had no breathing room.

the last time i saw andre watts, he came out in a neck brace.  i thought to myself, wow, that guy doesn't cancel for anything!  wonder what unusual outfits do for a performance.  this seemed to help and not hinder him as he joked about it and then proceeded to play wonderfully.

 

[Jacey1973]

Well i don't really have an interesting story but..

I had my final University recital yesterday (Schubert Allegretto in C minor, Mozart sonata in D and Ravel Alborada del gracioso) and it went so well!

I was amazed, i had no memory lapses (even though it was my first official performance from memory) and my nerves disappeared within 2 minutes so i was just able to enjoy the next 25 minutes.

I got completely caught up in the music and was quite surprised to hear see the audience at the end! It's at times like this when you realise why you love piano playing, it's worth all the last minutes nerves backstage 

[6ft 4]

Well i don't really have an interesting story but...

I had my final Univesity recital yesterday and it went so well!

I was amazed at how good i am.....i'm so good!!!!

I got completely caught up in how good i was!!!! It's at times like this when i realise how good i am!!!!

[pianonut]

being that i am attempting a comeback after 15-18 years, i would actually be somewhat thrilled by recovering what memory i had.  i've discovered that the moment i become overjoyed that i got through a difficult section can distract me so much, that i have to calm down and keep going and not suddenly stop in an easy section due to lack of focus.

there's so much to piano.  learning the music, performing the music, interpreting the music.  even when we feel we did wonderfully, there is always someone to tell us something we can do better.  but, then there are those rare people who just go out and do it.  they don't talk much, and just practice a lot.

[Jacey1973]

Well i don't really have an interesting story but...

I had my final Univesity recital yesterday and it went so well!

I was amazed at how good i am.....i'm so good!!!!

I got completely caught up in how good i was!!!! It's at times like this when i realise how good i am!!!!

Hmm...yeah... 

[Jacey1973]

?

[6ft 4]

take a chill pill
bloody hell
its just a joke your royal highness

[Doodle]

My favorite thing to do during performances was ......look at a person in the audience during the piece. 

As I was playing, if I heard someone speaking, or a cell phone buzz, I would simply turn my head, and stare hard at that person while continuing the piece.   It is kind of like facing the wrong way in an elevator.   People just do not expect you to do that.   I once saw, (out of the corner of my eye) someone raise their hand to their mouth to whisper to a neighbor.  I turned and watched, wondering what they were talking about.   The looks on their faces was priceless. 

doodle

[lagin]

Well i don't really have an interesting story but..

I had my final University recital yesterday (Schubert Allegretto in C minor, Mozart sonata in D and Ravel Alborada del gracioso) and it went so well!

I was amazed, i had no memory lapses (even though it was my first official performance from memory) and my nerves disappeared within 2 minutes so i was just able to enjoy the next 25 minutes.

I got completely caught up in the music and was quite surprised to hear see the audience at the end! It's at times like this when you realise why you love piano playing, it's worth all the last minutes nerves backstage 

I'm glad it went so well for you Jenni.  I'm looking forward to when I can have a similar experience!

[Jacey1973]

take a chill pill
bloody hell
its just a joke your royal highness

Well it really wasn't that funny...but anyway think i was drunk when i replied so might have been a bit irrational... Are you really 6ft 4?

[Dazzer]

one concert i made a mistake.
the next one i made another mistake too! what an uncanny coincidence...

 

[6ft 4]

Well it really wasn't that funny...but anyway think i was drunk when i replied so might have been a bit irrational... Are you really 6ft 4?

It wasnt funny.....it was hilarious!!!!! (especially your reacton). Its just difficult to be sarcastic on the internet......and also you obviously dont know humour when you see it.....

And what the hell were you doing drunk on an internet forum. I mean perhaps if u were at a party.....but on the internet while drunk rofl rofl. Still you were pretty rude......

yes im a shade above 6ft 4 you?

[musicsdarkangel]

My favorite thing to do during performances was ......look at a person in the audience during the piece. 

As I was playing, if I heard someone speaking, or a cell phone buzz, I would simply turn my head, and stare hard at that person while continuing the piece.   It is kind of like facing the wrong way in an elevator.   People just do not expect you to do that.   I once saw, (out of the corner of my eye) someone raise their hand to their mouth to whisper to a neighbor.  I turned and watched, wondering what they were talking about.   The looks on their faces was priceless. 

doodle

Ah!!! That reminds me.

My teacher, a perfectionist, was playing a concert at our school, featuring some massive repitoire.  So he was in the middle of Mozart's a minor sonata (a difficult passage in it).... and a member of the accompanist faculty comes in, and sits down in her chair.  The chair makes a bit of noise, and my teacher turns his head in a sharp jerk, and gives her a 2 second glare while executing a technically difficult run.  It was HILARIOUS because the accompanist (like my teacher) has achieved a heck of a lot, and won the Rach 3 compitition in Illinois, and here my teacher glares at her and practically scares the crap out of her.

My friends and I were joking about how he overpowered her with the energy from his brain.

[Jacey1973]

It wasnt funny.....it was hilarious!!!!! (especially your reacton). Its just difficult to be sarcastic on the internet......and also you obviously dont know humour when you see it.....

And what the hell were you doing drunk on an internet forum. I mean perhaps if u were at a party.....but on the internet while drunk rofl rofl. Still you were pretty rude......

yes im a shade above 6ft 4 you?

No i only see real humour 

Hmm long story why i was on the internet forum drunk well last week...

....I was evicted from my student house (with about 2 hours to pack 3 years worth of stuff), plus still managed to play my final Uni recital on wed well, and then graduated from my music degree with a 2:1 the day after, then i was made homeless again the day after that, then lived in various ppl's houses whilst drinking/celebrating for 3 days straight...then came back to my friend Bethan's house too drunk to lie down in her bed (i.e too dizzy) then i spotted her computer by the bed and thought....must...go...on...piano forum....

It's been a long week.

[Jacey1973]

Oh..you are tall  I'm 5 ft 7...are you British then as you talk in feet and inches?

[6ft 4]

No i only see real humour 

Touche!

....I was evicted from my student house (with about 2 hours to pack 3 years worth of stuff)

Bet they couldn't WAIT to get rid of you!

plus still managed to play my final Uni recital on wed well, and then graduated from my music degree with a 2:1 the day after.

Impressive.....................that you managed to subtly show off in yet another post!

then i was made homeless again the day after that, then lived in various ppl's houses whilst drinking/celebrating for 3 days straight...then came back to my friend Bethan's house too drunk to lie down in her bed (i.e too dizzy) then i spotted her computer by the bed and thought....must...go...on...piano forum....

It's been a long week.

indeed uni is amazing.

Oh..you are tall I'm 5 ft 7...are you British then as you talk in feet and inches?

5ft 7 tee hee midget tee hee whats it like down there, having to breath everyone else's dirty air?

Yeh im British......i assume ur American by your crazy partying and ur blatant showing off.

[jamie0168]

This wasn't a piano performance...it was clarinet. I was playing a LONG solo with my high school band my senior year. While I was in the middle of my solo, a junior high student accidentally hit the stage light button on our electronic control pad and all the lights in the auditorium went out. Since none of us could see the director, we just kept playing. Luckily I had my music perfectly memorized because I couldn't see my music 1 ft. infront of me. Finally, about 7 minutes later, they got the lights back on and we kept going. It was quite amazing. Let's just say I got a standing ovation for that one

[nanabush]

That's crazy, and awesome.

[Jacey1973]

Touche!
Bet they couldn't WAIT to get rid of you!

Erm...why have you got it in for me? Are you bored? For your information it wasn't me causing trouble in my house but 2 of my flatmates...

Impressive.....................that you managed to subtly show off in yet another post!

And why shouldn't i show off a little bit? I just worked solid for 3 years on a music degree i think i'm entitled to (a little bit)! It was not an easy task.

indeed uni is amazing.

Well mine is, it's well respected too.

5ft 7 tee hee midget tee hee whats it like down there, having to breath everyone else's dirty air?

Hmm is 5ft 7 short for a girl? I think not!

Yeh im British......i assume ur American by your crazy partying and ur blatant showing off.

No i'm British actually, and i think you're being offensive to Americans. I take it you['ve] never/haven't been to Uni yet as you are obviously not familiar with the average student lifestyle.

xxx

[Jacey1973]

Oh by the way, i do apologise for going off the topic of interesting performance stories...i will shut up now...

[6ft 4]

Oh by the way, i do apologise for going off the topic of interesting performance stories...i will shut up now...

finally!!

[Siberian Husky]

you two should get married...

[thalberg]

My eartraining teacher, who plays French Horn, was in brass quintet that had to perform at a Catholic church.  A priest walked by and his billowing robe created an air current that blew all their music off the stands and onto the floor.  He then turned around to see what all the commotion was about, knocked over a candle, and set all the music on fire. 

[brokenagraffe]

you two should get married...

... i concur.

[clem4705315]

i once played a recital program for a birthday party of my teacher's friend. scarlatti sonatas, mozart sonata, skryabin etude, schumann concerto (with 2nd piano), toledo (filipino piece) and prokofiev op. 4.

it went ok. after the concert, everybody ate and drank all the wine they could get. i drank about a bottle, then suddenly the celebrant asked me to play the suggestion diabolique again because she said it impressed her.

so here i come, bowing.
naturally,  i could not remember the first few notes-- i played a different tritone i think. then comes that first big chord: a total mess-- couldn't find it and still can't remember which notes i banged! but sure it was done with conviction: fff!!! somewhere in the middle comes a part where both hands play repeated chords together-- they became alternating chords instead!

everything was heavy and super sloppy, yuck! hahaha! and a disgusting tempo at 76 per half note, too.

next is the fun part. in the same party: here comes nena villanueva, a guest, and student of the legendary Vengerova at curtis. she started playing rachmaninoff's moment musicaux in em perfectly and with great virtuosity, at the age of 70, hahaha........ and yet another piece, Liszt's TE no. 10 in fm!!!  f***!
and i saw her during dinner time drinking all her way and laughing at the table with friends. wow

[thalberg]

This one girl had to get up and play the Tchaikovsky Bb concerto.  She was so nervous, she splattered the first three chords then threw up all over the piano.

[Jacey1973]

This one girl had to get up and play the Tchaikovsky Bb concerto.  She was so nervous, she splattered the first three chords then threw up all over the piano.

Oh my God - at both your stories! I would be mortified if i was ever sick anywhere, luckily i have a strong stomach...

[Jacey1973]

you two should get married...

Er well...i would...but...*whispers* he hasn't asked me yet  ....

[thalberg]

Thanks, Jenni, glad you liked my stories.

[fnork]

I have a really good story:

Swedish pianist Greta Eriksson was performing Schumanns concerto. This concert hall has two piano benches, one of them is for concert performance but the other one is really old and is only used on rehersal. But for some reason, the old bench was placed in front of the grand piano at the time of the concert. Apparently, this old bench had worn out so much that it made a lot of noise as soon as the pianist moved. It didn't take a lot of time before Greta noticed this, and she was very angry about it, of course. A few seconds later, the whole violin section knew, the dirigent knew, and the people in the front rows knew... the bench makes noise! So after 20 seconds or so, Greta stops playing and stands up, points at the chair and says with a very angry voice: "That bench makes noise! Give me another one". The dirigent himself runs to find the other chair and brings it to Greta, who is very angry. He tries to calm her down, and she tries the new bench. She sits down, moves from one side to the other, and it works fine. She proclaims that the chair is fine, and the concert can begin. The audience applauds again for the change of bench.
In the meantime, however, the janitor (is that the right word?) who always comes out at the end of a good performance and gives flowers to the performer, has fallen asleep. He might have had a tough day, but when he hears the applause he wakes up thinking "damn! have I slept through the whole performance again?". So what does he do? During the applause, he takes the flowers and goes out to give them to Greta. Surprisingly, he finds her sitting in front of the piano rather than bowing for the audience. A bit strange perhaps, but the janitor comes to her with the flowers anyway, and at this point the audience has stopped applauding. Greta gets the flowers, almost as thrown at her, which I'm sure made her quite confused, but the audience starts laughing, thinking that the flowers were for the change of bench. As everyone starts applauding again and Greta sits confused by the piano, the JANITOR bows for the audience. He leaves the concert hall thinking that it seems to have been a good concert.

I would have loved to see his face when he after hearing the orchestra playing, understands that the concert just begun 

[mound]

great story fnork.


and re: vomiting on the piano?  I can't imagine how hard that must be to clean up!

[prestoconfuoco]

great story fnork.

and re: vomiting on the piano?  I can't imagine how hard that must be to clean up!

I wuz jus thinkin da ekzact same thing

well, my teacher wuz at a concert, hearing da Grieg piano concerto, and da piano wuz on the stage. No one had put stopperz on the wheelz, and gradually, the piano wuz moving closer and closer to the edge of da stage..... and da pianizt jus kept shifting hiz stool over!!

anyway, so once it wuz about 1cm from da edge, sum1 got up and moved it over a bit.

LOL

also, my teacher wuz being employoed to be the double of a pianizt in da film..... so it kept showing her hands. now, the actress alwayz had really elaborate false fingernails on, so my teacher had to wear them in da film too, and ther wuz this close-up shot of her hands on the keyboard, with all da nails peeling off and going flying!!

[anda]

this happened to someone else, i was only in the audience:

a very stupid journalist was doing an article on this concert. as he couldn't care less about classic music, he didn't thought it necessary to listen to the whole performance (i think he had already written the story before the concert even began), so he comes in after the concert had started, goes right near the stage and starts taking pictures of the pianist and the orchestra. he keeps flashing around while the pianist plays (liszt 1) until they reach a tutti very short part. the pianist doesn't even take her hands off the keyboard, she just turns her head to the journalist and yells at him two words: *** *** and immediately attacks next passage.

[quantum]

This was a dress rehearsal for Carmina Burana.  I was on Piano 2 and the choir's first time on the risers.  We were just about to start another section when.....BOOM!!!!!! Everyone is in shock ......... One of the Men's risers has just collapsed, with the entire tenor section on top of it!  It was utter chaos for about 10 mins.  During that time the Baritone soloist (quite well known) comes up to me and says: "Hi my name is Dan Lichti" ... and we chat a bit.  Thankfully nobody was hurt. 

[fnork]

since you mentioned carmina burana, quantum, it reminds me of when our music classes was doing it about a year ago, I also played second piano. Anyway, in one of the pieces there's a moment when the choir (the whole or just parts of it, I don't remember) is supposed to say "ha-ha!". I think there's an oboe playing two notes at the same time. At rehersals, people said "ha-ha!", so everyone should do it at the concert too... but for some reason, the ENTIRE choir forgets the "ha-ha!", which is supposed to be heard quite loud. Well, everyone except one guy.... hehe. So he's preparing for this "ha-ha!" and proclaims it quite loud. However, in the first "ha" he notices that he's the only one saying it, so it just sounds "HA!" and then very very quiet the second "ha"... 

Apparently there was some guy in the audience who knew the whole work and was singing along some, who also sang the "ha-ha", so he wasn't completely alone at least

[thalberg]

In my college choir, the men's section was very badly behaved.  One guy, Eric, was known for trying to startle people during performances.  We were singing at a church, standing on risers, and in the middle of a piece,Eric reached over and grabbed another guy's butt and the guy jumped about a foot and screamed.  (these are conservative Baptist folks, I must add).