I’d say my best performance was at the now-defunct Nippersink Manor Resort in Genoa City, Wis., in 1983, when I was gainfully employed there as a bellboy. With a full orchestra behind me and a “Dirty Dancing”-type crowd in the ballroom, I sat at the piano and played and sang the Doris Day hit “Secret Love.” Uncool, granted, but performed with unrequited passion. –Chris Jones
At age 18, as a senior in high school, I performed as the featured clarinet soloist with the Mobile (Ala.) Symphony Orchestra, playing Carl Maria von Weber’s “Concertino for Clarinet and Orchestra” as part of a series of youth concerts. It was my first and last public orchestral performance. –Sid Smith
As a piano major at Northwestern University, I performed George Gershwin’s magnificent “Piano Concerto in F”-the piece that originally inspired me to build a life in music. If only George had been there to hear me! –Howard Reich
I’m not certain the Annals of Great Violin Playing Through the Ages will take note of the fact, but, as a violin student of 17, I (ahem) captivated the select band of parents and friends that heard my senior recital in my hometown of Pasadena, Calif., in 1962. One audience member told me afterward she had never heard any adult violinist play the Meditation from Massenet’s “Thais” better, although she finally admitted she had heard the piece only once before. Fortunately for the art of music, I eventually graduated from playing the fiddle to a calling I was much better at. –John von Rhein
When I was 13, my most nerve-racking moment was playing a solo piano recital in front of about 100 adults, including my parents and extended family. I performed sweaty-palmed versions of Chopin’s “Polonaise” and Brahms’ “Hungarian Dance No. 5” at punk-rock tempos, just trying to blitz through them so I could get off the stage as fast as possible. Somehow I made it all the way to the end without fumbling. People applauded. Filled with relief and still pumped with adrenaline, I went outside and ran around the recital hall a couple dozen times with a big, stupid smile on my face. –Greg Kot
I’d have to say that my greatest “performance,” though it was witnessed only by the writer Irwin Shaw, was my ability to walk two blocks and string together a sentence after a night of drinking with the aforementioned “audience.” –Rick Kogan
