“Backstage at [Boston’s] Symphony Hall … Hilary Hahn opened her violin case and took out her instrument,” writes David Allen in Tuesday’s (3/16) New York Times. “She was warming up to play Bach for a group of Boston Symphony Orchestra staffers, as a run-through before she set out on a tour that continues in Los Angeles and Chicago … She set her pink-cased iPhone down to face her … then turned on its camera and pressed record. She played her Vuillaume violin toward the lens … She let it watch while she tuned and tuned again; while she repeated tricky little passages … Hahn edited the video down to a bit more than a minute of unflashy content then posted it … to Twitter, Instagram and TikTok…. Season 6, Day 61, of #100daysofpractice was in the can…. #100daysofpractice has become an unexpected phenomenon…. The hashtag counts 800,000 posts on Instagram alone and has brought amateurs and professionals alike into a community of musicians … Drawing back the veil on how musicians work when they are not onstage, Hahn is trying to relieve at least some of the negativity that can surround a crucial—yet traditionally private and largely untaught—element of a musical life.”
