Christine Rooney asked: >Is it appropriate to go back stage after an evening's performance to meet >the guest artist? As other listers said, if the artist hates meeting people, he would not let the door open. As a performer, I love to meet friends and unknown listeners alike. Now, I think that you should not expect too much from such meetings, for several reasons. After a concert, a musician is not always totally out of his/her inner world. Sometimes what s/he can behave in a slightly brusque way without meaning it. It happened to me once, with a little girl and her mother, and I still feel sorry for it, twelve years later. Many performers take this as a routine. This means that they will always have an autograph and ready-made words in store, but nothing more. It is very frequent to meet parents who think that their child is very gifted. Sometimes it is true, but very rarely. So, even if (and especially if) your daughter is truly good enough to become a fine performer, you should not expect a soloist to take your word for it and jump on the occasion to audition her. It seems more reasonable to ask whether s/he teaches anywhere, in summer courses, and if you see that s/he is not too exhausted and a hundred other spectators are not waiting in line, you could ask for some general advice. Others would tell you to go ahead and ask for his/her address. Well, do not be too surprised if s/he refuses to give it to you. On the other hand, s/he might suggest that you turn to his/her agent. When I was a kid, I once went backstage to meet Perlman -- I got an esoteric curve on a record, and when I asked whether he did some teaching, he said: "No." I did not get one more word, nor did I try to. Probably Perlman is not Menuhin, but one cannot judge on one unsignificant "meeting". Blomstedt, for instance, was a bit more talkative. Of course, if you actually go to a summer course and meet the performer again, you can talk about the concert! This is completely different, more person-to-person, or even musician-to-musician. Steven Schwartz (I think) mentioned that he got in friendly terms with performers just by repeated meetings backstage. Well, Steven is not precisely an anonymous person! What is sure is that some people, who definitely do not have Mr. Schwartz's musical competency, love to boast about "knowing" the best-known musicians and like to prove it by behaving in a very casual, "old pal" way with them. Probably performers come to recognize faces, but they have little esteem for this kind of acting. On the other hand, we try to recognize people who genuinely like our music and come back for it, not for showing off. This is a reward, and a much appreciated one. Attitudes are often eloquent enough -- starting a long, detailed, clinical account of how splendidly the pianist played the E flat at 3:55 in the adagio is immaterial and tends to prove that you may well have missed the point. Best wishes, Thanh-Tam Le [log in to unmask]