Barbara Hannigan: How I overcame anxiety
OrchestrasThe phenomenal Canadian singer and conductor is the last person you’d imagine to be paralysed by performance anxiety. But she did, and the way she got out of it was by applying sports psychology.
Hannigan opens up in conversation with Met principal trumpet David Krauss in the indispensable podcast Speaking Soundly.
‘I still get nervous but I handle it better now,’ she confides.
‘I’m literally sweating as you describe it,’ says David.
‘It forced me to look at the philosophy and psychology of mental strength,’ she continues.
Listen here.
My late wife (an oboist) also used sports psychology techniques when dealing with students who experienced performance anxiety. She set up a (small) practice in the music college where she taught, and (as far as I remember) there is still a centre for Performance Health in that establishment.
Should stick to singing. Her conducting isn’t good and she’s rude to the orchestra. My experience…
Interesting point of view, George. How was she rude to the orchestra and what in her conducting might you have found unappealing?
She is indeed the last person i expected to have stage fright…
Battling with this issues for most of my life, it gives me a little comfort.
Way back when I was an undergraduate, I said to someone that I usually felt some kind of nervous excitement when I would go out to perform, usually in an ensemble of some sort. That person haughtily replied that it must be because I hadn’t prepared enough and that if I had, I couldn’t have been nervous for any reason. Way back then I was too polite to point out that any artist with any degree of intelligence would have some kind of excitement, nervousness about the performance he or she was about to give, no matter how large or small the part. I regret this article and story hadn’t come out 65-75 years earlier so I might have had it to refer that person to reading.
Ms. Hannigan is a phenomenal artist! Another compelling interview