Calista & Maestro
Calista
I’ve been looking at your rehearsal notes and they’re impressively precise—how do you juggle the need for strict structure with letting the music breathe?
Maestro
I train the musicians to internalize the structure, so they can feel when to breathe, like a rhythm that allows freedom within a framework.
Calista
That balance sounds exactly what a great performance needs—structure as a foundation, freedom as the breath that fills it. How do you check that the musicians are really feeling it, not just playing the notes?
Maestro
I listen first to the phrasing, then to the silence between phrases; if the players can taste the space as part of the whole, they’re feeling it, not just hitting the notes.