I judged a university Concerto Competition recently and heard some great playing. But I was disappointed to hear some contestants play their concerto like an etude. An etude they had been assigned, one they didn’t especially like, one they had practiced only to ask for someone else’s approval. All sort of at a middle dynamic, all a little pitchy, no real variety of color or articulation, and often no musical line at all. I was shocked. Playing concertos is probably my favorite thing EVER to do in the world, and I consider it a serious responsibility. When you are playing a concerto, your job is to be the Hero. If you are playing loud, play heroically loud. Softs should be heroically soft, should make the audience lean in and take notice. No matter what you do, it should be done with intent, with ownership, with design. Sometimes we look at superheroes and we want to peek in to discern the simple humans underneath the mask. We look at some of our poli