Concerto competition

I've played piano for a number of years; I started when I was in first grade and took lessons until ninth grade. I still play occasionally but my passions and interests have generally changed. This afternoon I went to the conservatory's Concerto Competition, where several of my friends dazzled me with their virtuosity and talent as they played instrumental solos with the college orchestra. I watched my friend Jon relish the swell of the music as he played the piano with abandon, I thought of all the hours he must have spent practicing, closed in a little six by seven room and how everything was worth it to be able to create that moment of absolute wonder.

Another young student had won a composition competition, and three musicians performed his piece while he sat in the audience with us. I tried to imagine what it was like for him, a college sophomore, to be able to express music from within him, and then to place it outside of himself, relinquishing it and letting someone else play it. What if they didn't play it the way he heard it in his head? Or what if their hand slipped and the notes got messed up? The journey from creation to translation to interpretation and it was over in ten minutes.