It’s no secret that playing highly technical classical music in front of an audience is stressful. And for as long as there have been concerts, some musicians have turned to alcohol, or even prescription beta blockers, to take the edge off the anxiety.
Composer Gene Pritsker was among those who wondered whether alcohol enhanced or detracted from complicated performances. So he enlisted the Composers Concordance orchestra to help him find out, in an experiment they titled “DWI: Drinking With Instruments.”
The group first performed their music sober, and then, legally drunk.
Pritsker and saxophonist Todd Rewoldt join host Robin Young to talk about the results and why the information matters.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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