73: Five More Questions For Benjamin Beilman
with Benjamin Beilman
6. How do you cultivate continued artistic growth over a lifetime?
That is the quintessential question for any person, any artist, any musician. Of course, perpetual curiosity is going to be a huge element, but I do think that beyond that, there is an important distinction that every person has to make between the period of growth and the period of bringing it all together. So it is okay if sometimes you do feel, not complacent but comfortable.
I think there has to be a sense of building up your sense of identity, and your sense of self, and your confidence in what you're doing, and feeling good that you know, the way that I do this or the way that I play this piece or the way that I interact with these people feels good. I'm doing the same thing. It's comfortable. It's working. And then, of course, after a set amount of time, whether it's a few days or a few years, you have to seek out new experiences that are going to make you feel inadequate. There has to be a sense that you are struggling, and when you are struggling, hopefully you can keep in mind that that's your place for growth. So, you know, expand, contract, expand, or not contract but stay the same, expand, stay the same, expand.
7. What kind of long-term strategy do you bring to your career?
Long-term strategy is an interesting idea. I think that there have to be, or– I should say, for me, I find it most helpful to think in sort of like one-year goals and five-year goals. Sometimes you can push those out to six or seven years, but in general, a lot of, a lot of friends that I talk to, not just musicians, they have a similar experience where after about seven, maybe eight years of doing the same thing, you come to realize what it's going to be for the rest of your life if you stay just in that lane. And so there's an opportunity and hopefully maybe a thirst to change a little bit. So my five year goal process has been very good so far. You know, I set them when I was first going to music conservatory, rough four- to five-year goals. And then at the end of that period, you can sort of check off, you know, I hit 60% of them and I'm sort of working on another one within that set. You set new goals depending on where you are. You know, when I turned 30, I had kind of different sets of goals. So my advice would be to obviously set stretch goals, hopefully most of them as stretch goals, but also allow yourself to have very achievable ones, you know, whether it's making a certain number of friends or taking a certain number of vacation days in addition to hitting this milestone in your career.
8. How do you cultivate a network to support a young and growing career?
Yeah, how do I cultivate a network? It's– I don't necessarily want to think of it as sort of cultivating of like, you know, I'm planting my seeds and then trying to water each one just to see what grows and what bears fruit. But it's, I think– One, one wonderful thing that I've come to realize recently in the last few years is that the people that you're performing with, they're not business colleagues, they are your friends. I mean, of course, in certain situations you have to treat them with different hats and different objectives, but for the most part, everybody wants to, everyone– no one wants a facade. Everyone wants to break that down. Everyone wants to be their fullest self. So the sooner you can bring that to your friends and to your professional opportunities, I think the easier it will be to feel that you have a larger network of people who want to work with you.
I feel really lucky because now I'm finally working with conductors who are roughly my age. You know, for the first few years of my career, it was very often conductors who were 10, 20, 30, 60 years older than me, and it's hard to really relate to those people personally. You can't talk about your relationships in the same way that they can't talk about their relationships. So yeah, hopefully you'll find your friends, you'll raise them up, and hopefully they'll do the same for you in life and in their careers. And yeah, it's just a waiting game.
9. Outside of performing well, what can a musician do to help a growing career?
I know personally how appealing it is to think that, you know, I'm going to play in a certain way that will just guarantee a re-engagement with an orchestra or whatever. Little word of wisdom: that is impossible. You can't– There's nothing– It's not always within your own personal grasp to determine if you're going to be successful or not. I think you have to just create the environment for yourself to bring the fullest version of yourself to a performance, that's, that's how you interact with– Let's say it's a concerto with a conductor in the first meeting, are you an open-minded, enthusiastic, well-prepared person? With the orchestra, are you respectful? Are you cognizant that you are maximizing the rehearsal time and not wasting their time?
I think the biggest compliment you can pay in an orchestra is to not waste their time. So only ask to rehearse the things that are really necessary. If it's an issue that you have, accept that you can practice that on your own and just value their time. And do you bring spontaneity, and danger, and yeah, vitality to a performance? Do you commit everything you have to every performance that you've been given with this orchestra or engagement? So it's just, that's– I think you, The external validation is nice, of course, when you get a standing ovation, it feels wonderful. But that should not be the be all, end all, nor should a re-engagement be the thing that's a metric of your success. It's really just how, how full or how fully did I communicate in this performance?
10. What are the most challenging aspects of maintaining a career, and how do you address them?
There are countless difficult things about maintaining a career. I think the one that I keep coming back to, which I'm getting a little bit better at, is this idea that I'm not always in control. There are peaks and troughs to everyone's career, no matter how wonderful or how amazing or how perfect they are. And you just have to be okay. Sometimes having lulls in a career, having extreme high points, having things that come out of nowhere in a wonderful way, being able to roll with the punches. A little bit of what I was saying earlier about just, you know, bringing the fullest version of yourself, that's, that's all you can do. Hopefully you're giving everything you can at just about every opportunity. Don't kill yourself doing it, of course.
But– and whenever you can also make it a little bit easier for the person behind you to do the same thing. If you can give some advice or if you can lend a hand to somebody that always feels nice. Well, it feels nice, selfishly, but also it's the right thing to do to make it easier for the next generation.