Performance Fears by Venera Bojkova
Never confuse Fear with Excitement.
The Concert night is an event. The audience buys tickets and expects a degree of excitement and pleasure. This responsibility is in itself exciting. There are pains that go with it and there are pleasures. If the pains are greater than the pleasures, it becomes a negative experience. If the pleasure is greater than the pains, that too has its own dangers.
Be confident in all the ingredients of your preparation process.
Being nervous is a helpful friend who gets your adrenalin up for you. Do not reject your friend. Embrace it. Open wide to the experience.
Sometimes, the night before, I look through the score in bed and follow it through. I always bring it with me to the concert even if I am playing without it.
In the morning, awaken the muscles and senses and go through the pieces. Have the sense to leave the practice-room and see to important details - dress, a little food, a bottle of mineral water.
At the concert hall, remember someone you love who will be there for you, and someone who will never be there for you physically but is with you forever because of the experiences he/she has given.
And whilst playing, think ahead only as far as the final chord. 'The rest is silence'.
Venera Bojkova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and studied at the State Conservatoire of Music. Her piano professors were both graduates of Moscow Conservatoire, Nicolai Evrov and Lubomir Dinolov, the latter being one of Bulgaria's foremost recitalists and teachers. After graduation she became a teacher at the conservatoire and performed throughout Bulgaria in recitals and as a concerto soloist. In 1991 she became pianist in residence in the Northern Province South Africa, coming to the UK in 1993.
As well as performing throughout UK, Ms. Bojkova has performed throughout Europe, Russia, South Africa and the USA.
As an accompanist, she has toured with singers from the Metropolitan Opera, New York, the 1997 Cardiff Singer of the World, Guan Yang, and the outstanding English mezzo-soprano Carol Wilson.
She also performs as part of a piano duo, with whom she has recorded a CD of music for two pianos, and as a member of the Broadwood Piano Quintet, and runs a popular series of monthly piano masterclasses for advanced pianists in the Caedmon Hall, Gateshead. Additionally she conducts the Bishop Auckland Choral Society and lectures in solo performance and ensemble playing at Durham University.
