I had the most interesting conversations with a few of my students after my first recital performance last weekend. One thanked me for exposing her to so many interesting new pieces that she had never heard before. One admitted unabashedly that his favorites were the familiar ones, the ones he already knew from his previous listening. And both of these observations rang true to me. See, I LOVE learning new music. I really enjoy digging into a piece and breaking through an unfamiliar harmonic language to get to the depths of it. To discover the composer's intention, and to find the universal emotion or experience at the heart of the work, and then to communicate that meaning back out to an audience. This challenge is fun for me, and I think I do it well. I have to be fair, though. By the time I have put that kind of work into a new piece, it's not new to me anymore. By the time I get it to the recital stage, it's an old friend. I ...