Pianist Julie Coucheron Makes Her Debut For The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

Pianist Julie Coucheron joined “City Lights with Lois Reitzes” to talk about her Atlanta Symphony Orchestra debut. Coucheron was asked to fill in for Stephen Hough at the last minute and had only two weeks to get ready for her performance of Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1. She tried to recall if she had ever played this piece and remembered she had — when she was 11. Even so, she said it came back to her pretty quickly.

Coucheron was asked how a piece of music can remain in a musician’s mind’s ear and transfer to the fingers.

“It has a lot to do with how well you practice, how much you actually think about that piece when you’re doing it,” she said. “It’s almost like it saves somewhere in your brain, all of that work that you’ve done. I mean, I think the fact that I play a lot has a factor in it too, that music is just part of my life and part of me really. And it just has a special place in both your body and your soul and your brain.”