Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, Slight Change listeners, it's Maya. I hope you
Speaker 1: all had a great summer. We're hard at work on
Speaker 1: new episodes of A Slight Change of Plans, which will
Speaker 1: drop in your feeds starting in October. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: I thought you might like to hear my commencement address
Speaker 1: at the Juilliard School's Pre college graduation ceremony. As an
Speaker 1: alum of the school, it was an honor to be
Speaker 1: invited to come speak to the new graduates. This is
Speaker 1: the advice I came up with to help them as
Speaker 1: they venture out in the world.
Speaker 2: Please join me in welcoming Maya Shunker.
Speaker 1: Good afternoon everyone, President Wetzel, provosts Meyer, Dean and Director Spratt,
Speaker 1: Artistic Director McGill, Pre College Artistic Advisor Kaplinsky, distinguished teachers
Speaker 1: and staff, my former conductor Adam Glazer, friends and family,
Speaker 1: and of course, the graduating class of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: I want to congratulate you on this momentous occasion. I
Speaker 1: hope you are filled with pride over what you have
Speaker 1: all achieved. It is one of the greatest honors of
Speaker 1: my life to be invited to give the commencement speech
Speaker 1: at a school that played such a formative role in
Speaker 1: my development. I'll admit I was pretty nervous in the
Speaker 1: lead up to this speech, but then I remember that
Speaker 1: the last time I was on this stage, I had
Speaker 1: to perform Tchaikowsky, and now I simply need.
Speaker 2: To speak words today. I'd love to.
Speaker 1: Share three lessons with you that I've learned over the years.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping they might be helpful to you as you
Speaker 1: embark on this next and exciting chatter of your lives.
Speaker 1: For the first lesson, let's travel back to when I
Speaker 1: was six years old when I first asked my parents
Speaker 1: if I could play the violin. My three older siblings
Speaker 1: had opted for the clarinet, the trumpet, and the flute,
Speaker 1: but I was drawn to the violin because my grandmother
Speaker 1: had played it in a traditional Indian style as a
Speaker 1: little girl, and I adored my grandmother. I began by
Speaker 1: learning the Suzuki method, and after a year or so,
Speaker 1: my parents noticed that while they had to nudge me
Speaker 1: to do lots of things, they rarely had to remind
Speaker 1: me to practice the violin.
Speaker 2: I was all in to help nurture my growing passion.
Speaker 1: My mom found a local violinist who was willing to
Speaker 1: take me on as his first ever student.
Speaker 2: His approach was unconventional.
Speaker 1: I never played scales or atudes, or learned proper vibrato
Speaker 1: technique or the right way to shift across the fingerboard. Instead,
Speaker 1: we skipped straight to the joy of playing pieces. I
Speaker 1: simply watched an mimicked, letting my instincts guide me through
Speaker 1: the music. This was my experience until one spring afternoon
Speaker 1: when I was nine years old. My mom and I
Speaker 1: were in New York City for the weekend, and I
Speaker 1: had my violin with me. We walked over to Lincoln
Speaker 1: Center so that I could see Juilliard up close. By
Speaker 1: that point, I knew of Juilliard and the all time
Speaker 1: greats it had helped nurture. Yo Yo Ma and Medori
Speaker 1: had been my favorites. I'd watched a recording of Medori's
Speaker 1: Carnegie Hall recital dozens of times on my living room TV,
Speaker 1: and so as I stood by the entrance of Juilliard
Speaker 1: that day, I felt goosebumps, imagining all the remarkable musicians
Speaker 1: who had walked in and out of this building. I
Speaker 1: resolved to practice harder that next day. Suddenly, my mom
Speaker 1: looked at me and said very matter of factly, Hey,
Speaker 1: why don't we just go in? What do you mean,
Speaker 1: just go in? I thought she was nuts. What's the
Speaker 1: worst thing that can happen, Maya? She asked me. I
Speaker 1: could think of many worst case scenarios. That I agreed,
Speaker 1: and within minutes we were in the lobby with my
Speaker 1: mom asking the staff if we could take a look around. There,
Speaker 1: we stuck up a conversation with a young student named
Speaker 1: Nicole and her mom. They were rushing off to the
Speaker 1: fourth floor for a violin lesson with Nicole's teacher, but
Speaker 1: invited us to join them for the elevator ride so
Speaker 1: that we could keep our conversation going. Nicole was studying
Speaker 1: under one of Juilliard's all star professors, doctor Juan bin Imm.
Speaker 1: Doctor Im had studied under Dorothy Delay, who, as you
Speaker 1: might know, taught legends like Itsak Pelman. Just when I
Speaker 1: thought my mom couldn't pull out any more surprises, she
Speaker 1: turned to Nicole's mom with a question, could they kindly
Speaker 1: introduce us to doctor M after their lesson. Amazingly, one
Speaker 1: hour later, I found myself playing the first movement of
Speaker 1: the Bach Violin Concerto for doctor M. After I finished
Speaker 1: playing Doctor m expressed what can charitably be described as
Speaker 1: muted enthusiasm. It was clear that while I had strong
Speaker 1: musical instincts, I did not have the technical skills needed
Speaker 1: to get into a place like Juilliard. But he told
Speaker 1: me that he was taking residence at the Aspen Music
Speaker 1: Festival that summer and would be willing to take me
Speaker 1: on as a temporary student to see if we could
Speaker 1: level up my skills in advance of the Juilliard audition
Speaker 1: in late August. I was giddy with excitement. That summer
Speaker 1: was a total game changer for me. Doctor Im was
Speaker 1: a fantastic teacher. He put me through a rigorous boot camp,
Speaker 1: and after hours of intense practice every day for months,
Speaker 1: I finally completed my Juilliard audition. A few weeks later,
Speaker 1: we got a call from doctor Im. Hello, missus Shunker.
Speaker 1: He said to my mom, is there any chance Maya's
Speaker 1: name is actually Anna? My mom politely answered that no,
Speaker 1: Anna was not my name. Doctor In then explained that
Speaker 1: he had received the list of accepted students at Juilliard
Speaker 1: and a certain Anna Shunker had been on the list.
Speaker 1: I remember thinking I'd be happy to go to a
Speaker 1: court right there, and then to register a name change.
Speaker 1: I had only lived nine years on this planet as
Speaker 1: a Maya. I could become an Ana if that's what
Speaker 1: the situation required of me. But thankfully Anna turned out
Speaker 1: to be me, or I turned out to be Anna,
Speaker 1: or whatever the point is, someone somewhere had made a typo,
Speaker 1: and I was able to both keep my real name
Speaker 1: and enroll at Juilliard in the fall. This brings us
Speaker 1: to the first lesson I want to share with all
Speaker 1: of you. It's about the power of what you might
Speaker 1: call imaginative courage. Imaginative courage is what my mom for me.
Speaker 1: By envisioning a path to Juilliard in the first place,
Speaker 1: she was unafraid to ask the questions that opened up
Speaker 1: opportunities I hadn't imagined for myself. Why don't we just
Speaker 1: go in? What's the worst that can happen? Might it
Speaker 1: be possible to meet doctor M. By the way, I
Speaker 1: should note that my mom is here in the audience today.
Speaker 2: Hi, Mom.
Speaker 1: Feels good to have gotten an actual invite to enter
Speaker 1: the building this day.
Speaker 2: Right when I said earlier.
Speaker 1: That I didn't have a chance of getting into Juilliard
Speaker 1: when I first played for Doctor M.
Speaker 2: That spring Day. I was not being falsely modest.
Speaker 1: Doctor m later confessed to my mom that when he
Speaker 1: first heard me play, he also felt my chances were slim,
Speaker 1: but that he quote appreciated Maya's enthusiasm.
Speaker 2: My mom had created a critical opening for me.
Speaker 1: If she had not taken that bold step, I would
Speaker 1: never have experienced the joy and growth that I had
Speaker 1: here at Juilliard. Some of you here will go on
Speaker 1: to become professional musicians. Others of you may become teachers,
Speaker 1: or doctors or activists.
Speaker 2: Your paths will develop.
Speaker 1: And change, and there will be times when it seems
Speaker 1: like what you want and hope for does not exist
Speaker 1: or isn't possible. But this is when you can call
Speaker 1: on your Juilliard training. A good musician knows that there
Speaker 1: is more to a great performance than simply playing the
Speaker 1: notes on the page. They know how to bring forth
Speaker 1: beauty and create feeling based not on what's there yet,
Speaker 1: but what they have imagined in their minds.
Speaker 2: As musicians, you all know how to.
Speaker 1: Look beyond the page, and life will require more of
Speaker 1: this same imagination. Years after my time at Juilliard, I
Speaker 1: ended up getting my PhD in cognitive science, where I
Speaker 1: study the science of human behavior and decision making. I
Speaker 1: realized that rather than work in a lab, which was
Speaker 1: the expected path, I wanted to use my knowledge to
Speaker 1: improve how we designed government programs and policies so that
Speaker 1: they could better serve people. But there was no such
Speaker 1: position available to apply for, and so I did for
Speaker 1: myself what my mom had once done for me. I
Speaker 1: asked questions and took a bold step. Why don't I
Speaker 1: just go in? What's the worst that can happen? I
Speaker 1: sent a cold email to an advisor in the Obama
Speaker 1: White House, asking if they'd be willing to create a
Speaker 1: new position for someone with my training and ideally.
Speaker 2: Hire me for the role.
Speaker 1: Days later, I was interviewing with the White House and
Speaker 1: they ended up hiring me. My years working in public
Speaker 1: policy ended up being some of the most rewarding and
Speaker 1: impactful of my life, and they wouldn't have happened if
Speaker 1: I hadn't been inspired by my mom to imagine and
Speaker 1: something beyond the existing page.
Speaker 2: Okay, now back to my story with the violin.
Speaker 1: After I was accepted at Juilliard, my life assumed a
Speaker 1: new rhythm. Every Saturday, my mom and I would wake
Speaker 1: up at four thirty in the morning to catch a
Speaker 1: train from Connecticut to New York so I could take
Speaker 1: part in a full day of classes.
Speaker 2: You all know the drill, private.
Speaker 1: Lessons, orchestra music theory, ear training, scale class, masterclasses, chamber music,
Speaker 1: and of course gossiping about who got what part and
Speaker 1: who we had crushes on. By the way, Shunseegesato, if
Speaker 1: you ever hear this, I recently discovered diary entries about you,
Speaker 1: in which I wrote things like, oh my god, he
Speaker 1: is so good at the violin. We could play a
Speaker 1: duet at our wedding, but he'd definitely be the first
Speaker 1: violin part. All my Juilliard training began to pay off.
Speaker 1: I started winning concerto competitions, soloing with orchestras in the
Speaker 1: Juilliard Pre College Orchestra. The distance between Shunseke's concert master
Speaker 1: chair and my chair began to decrease. When I was thirteen,
Speaker 1: it saw Pearlman invited me to be his private violin student.
Speaker 1: Mister p as we affectionately called him, gave me the
Speaker 1: vote of confidence I needed to start believing I might
Speaker 1: be able to go pro one day. But then one
Speaker 1: summer morning, when I was fifteen, I was at the
Speaker 1: Peerlman Music Program practicing Paganini's challenging Caprice number thirteen. I
Speaker 1: was struggling to get this one passage right and I
Speaker 1: overstretched my finger on a single note. I heard a pop.
Speaker 1: It was not a string that had popped, but a
Speaker 1: tendon in my hand. For months, I remained in denial
Speaker 1: about my injury. I continued to play through pain until
Speaker 1: the pain got so severe I needed surgery, and when
Speaker 1: that wasn't successful, doctors finally told me I had to
Speaker 1: stop playing altogether. I found myself grieving not just the
Speaker 1: loss of the instrument, but also the loss of myself.
Speaker 1: If I was in an airport without a violent strap
Speaker 1: around my shoulder, it felt like I was missing a limb.
Speaker 1: The violin had defined me for so long, and without it,
Speaker 1: I felt stuck. I would later learn that this experience
Speaker 1: is known as identity paralysis, and it happens to a
Speaker 1: lot of us when we experience unexpected, unwanted change, who
Speaker 1: we think we are and what we're about is suddenly
Speaker 1: called into question. Ultimately, I found my way again as
Speaker 1: a cognitive scientist, but this formative experience with change seated
Speaker 1: a curiosity in me about how we as humans navigate
Speaker 1: the big changes in our lives and reckon with the
Speaker 1: shifts and self identity that often accompany them. It's a
Speaker 1: topic I've been exploring over the past few years on
Speaker 1: my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, where I marry
Speaker 1: science and storytelling to help give us better tools for
Speaker 1: handling life's twists and turns. Making this show inspired me
Speaker 1: to revisit my own relationship with the violin. I realized
Speaker 1: that what I missed most about playing the violin was
Speaker 1: that it had given me a vehicle for connecting emotionally
Speaker 1: with others. It turned out that this was at the
Speaker 1: root of my passion for music, and a hopeful message
Speaker 1: emerged from this insight. While I had lost the ability
Speaker 1: to play the violin, I could still find this underlying
Speaker 1: love of human connection in other pursuits. This brings us
Speaker 1: to the second lesson I've learned. We can anchor our
Speaker 1: identities not to what we do, but why we do it.
Speaker 1: Thinking of our identities in this way can make us
Speaker 1: more resilient in the face of change. As you imagine
Speaker 1: your future, ask yourself what drives you to do the
Speaker 1: things you love? What really lights you up about them.
Speaker 1: Connecting emotionally with people is what makes me tick. For you,
Speaker 1: it might be a love of storytelling, or learning new things,
Speaker 1: or challenging yourselves or helping others. Whatever it is, remember
Speaker 1: this can help you feel grounded during periods of uncertainty,
Speaker 1: guiding you towards your next steps while still retaining the
Speaker 1: core of who you are. The third and final lesson
Speaker 1: that I've learned is to make space for awe. I
Speaker 1: remember one night when I was twelve and at the
Speaker 1: Aspen Music Festival. I was lying in bed in the
Speaker 1: dark listening to recording of Ams Sophie Mutter playing the
Speaker 1: Beethoven Violin Concerto on my Discman.
Speaker 2: You see, there are these things called.
Speaker 1: CDs that we once listened to Class of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: My heart raced along with the melody, and I felt
Speaker 1: shivers down my spine during certain phrases. I was simply
Speaker 1: awestruck by how beautiful the music was and how it
Speaker 1: made me feel. But as I got older, there were
Speaker 1: many moments when I lost sight of how extraordinary music is.
Speaker 1: Especially in my teens, I became a far more self
Speaker 1: conscious musician, fearful of how my peers would judge my playing,
Speaker 1: envious of those who seemed to play effortlessly, and burdened
Speaker 1: by the competitive nature of performance. My constant mental chatter
Speaker 1: focused on all the wrong stuff, muted the awe and then,
Speaker 1: as you know, I.
Speaker 2: Stopped being able to play.
Speaker 1: A few years after my injury, I was diagnosed with
Speaker 1: juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. This fully ended any hope that the
Speaker 1: violin might still be a part of my future.
Speaker 2: But then something else happened.
Speaker 1: One day in graduate school, I learned that I had
Speaker 1: been misdiagnosed. I could stop taking the immunosuppressant drugs and
Speaker 1: anti inflammatories that had been a staple of my day
Speaker 1: to day life for six years up until that point.
Speaker 1: A week later, I received a phone call. The organizers
Speaker 1: of an academic conference I was slated to attend in
Speaker 1: South Africa that summer let me know that they had
Speaker 1: a surprise guest of honor, the violinist Joshua Bell, and
Speaker 1: they wanted to know if I'd liked to perform the
Speaker 1: back double with him. They had no idea that it
Speaker 1: had been years since I picked up my violin, or
Speaker 1: that I had so much scar tissue built up in
Speaker 1: my hand. I realistically only had a concert or two
Speaker 1: left in me period. I wanted this to be one
Speaker 1: of them.
Speaker 2: That night, I.
Speaker 1: Performed with Josh Bell on an outdoor stage under a
Speaker 1: starry sky in South Africa. In the middle of the
Speaker 1: second movement, when the two violins sing in unison, an
Speaker 1: old familiar feeling returned. My heart raced and I was
Speaker 1: in awe of the music. How lucky are we as
Speaker 1: humans to be moved by music? It is remarkable that
Speaker 1: a collection of musical notes arranged just so can bring
Speaker 1: us to tears. Whether it's the Beethoven Emperor Concerto or
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift's all too well ten minute version, I mean,
Speaker 1: it is really great. Feelings of awe can help us
Speaker 1: tack into better versions of who we are as humans.
Speaker 1: Research shows that in the presence of awe, we focus
Speaker 1: less on ourselves and more on others. We become more generous,
Speaker 1: and we're more inclined to feel that we are part
Speaker 1: of something bigger than ourselves. Today, as you celebrate what
Speaker 1: you have achieved and you begin to anticipate the joys
Speaker 1: and challenge that lie ahead, remember to practice imaginative courage.
Speaker 1: Remember that who you are is far richer than you
Speaker 1: may think, and seek out AWE because it can inspire
Speaker 1: you to connect with the best parts of yourselves. I
Speaker 1: cannot wait to see the impact you each have on
Speaker 1: this world. Congrats again, and thank you so much.