“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears…
to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life."
—Viktor E. Frankl

With my Carnegie Hall debut behind me, some might say I should sit back and relax for a while. The truth is I took one day off, and the next day I was back practicing.

As someone who is aspiring to have a career as a concert artist, one thing has become very clear to me, and it is The Lightbulb Moment for this week. For an artist there is never really a finish line, because you are running the race with yourself. You are constantly testing your limits in order to see if you can improve on what you did in your last practice session, your last rehearsal, your last performance. You are working to improve upon your best, even when your best the last time was the best you have ever done.

Mr. Alexander told me that many people at Carnegie said they were surprised that someone my age was able to bring so much meaning to the music. I thought about that comment, and I realized that to accomplish that I can never feel I have discovered everything a composer has put into a score. That I must always question what new insights I can bring to the music.

I therefore have an obligation to myself to search for the hidden gems in a work which can be shared with an audience, as the discovery of different ideas and new possibilities for interpretation are made. Add to that all of the life lessons I am absorbing on a daily basis, and an ongoing goal is created to make discoveries about interpretation that help me continue to refresh my practicing, my playing, and my performances of every piece in my repertoire.

It is fine then to think of one’s work as running a race, but it is a race without a finish line.  A race where one grows and develops even as it is being run. A race where one is constantly discovering new ideas that inspire fresh insights and approaches that can make each time you perform a work seem like the first time. This is the ongoing challenge, as well as the never-ending joy.