Master Class

We walked down to Ravinia to observe a Master Class at the Steans Institute for Young Artists.
It was a very interesting experience. The young artists were all, by normal human standards, outstanding musicians. They have won many competitions and appeared as soloists with major orchestras.
The class instructor demolished them (without malice). They are very brave to play a piece in front of an audience of a hundred people, and then have a very competent musician demolish their playing, including their posture, and their facial expression, and their technique, bar by bar, while the audience watched. It takes a lot of character to reach to top rungs of the music profession.
In the organizations in which I worked I was never given a performance appraisal in front of hundreds of my family and co-workers as well as total total strangers.