Jennifer Montone: On the Unspoken Mental and Emotional Aspects of Being a Musician

<p>Jennifer Montone is Principal Horn of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and teaches at teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. Jennifer is an active chamber musician, hs performed as a guest artist or soloist with numerous orchestras, and the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, also has a Grammy Award for her performance of the Penderecki Horn Concerto with the Warsaw National Philharmonic.</p><p>Today’s episode is made extra special, in that I’m joined by guest co-host Catherine Cho (violin). A top prize-winner at the Hannover, Queen Elizabeth, and Montreal competitions, Catherine maintains an active performing career, serves on the faculty at The Juilliard School, and has also recently been appointed Artistic Advisor of the biennial Starling-DeLay Symposium.</p><p>In today’s episode, we’ll explore…</p><p>4:12 - Why is playing horn such a mental game? And what do horn players worry about anyway? Jennifer illustrates the mind of a horn player by walking us through one of her recent low points - and how she recovered.</p><p>8:32 - How do you separate how you feel from how you sound? As in, how do you avoid getting sucked into the mental negativity spiral of assuming that if you feel bad you must sound bad?</p><p>11:29 - What do violinists (and string players) worry about? And whether as a horn player or violinist (or any musician, really), how can one get to a better place mentally?</p><p>14:05 - Jennifer describes the three ingredients that seem to contribute to an optimal mental balance during performing.</p><p>17:10 - A funny anecdote which illustrates how different musicians approach nerves differently.</p><p>18:38 - Are young musicians nowadays more open to talking about nerves than in previous generations? Or is that just because teachers are more open to providing a space to talk about this than in the past?</p><p>23:46 - How does parenthood affect you as a musician? What are the positive impacts, and what are some of the challenges?</p><p>28:43 - Jennifer and Catherine descri