I had my first piano recital this afternoon. It went fairly well; better than I expected,
although there was some room for improvement.

When I arrived at the recital location, the only people there were one family and a friend
of mine from ballroom dancing. (I hadn't expected to see any of my dance friends because I
didn't get the official announcement of the recital until a few days ago.) I was surprised
that no one else was there, and wondered if some people had gone over to my teacher's
studio, which is nearby. However, people started trickling in slowly. My teacher showed up
a bit before 4pm, and we got underway shortly afterward.

I was scheduled next-to-last in the program. However, the student who was supposed to
perform was out of town for a choral concert. I didn't see him in the room, so I suspected
correctly that I would be up a bit earlier than expected. The piano I played was a baby
grand with keys and pedals that were a bit sticky. I got off to a reasonably good start,
although my hands were shaking a bit. I had some (expected) problems in the section I'm
still trying to bring up to tempo, and had a bit of a memory lapse in another section (I did
not play from the score), but I was able to recover quickly. All things considered, the
performance went reasonably well. Hopefully, my performances will improve as I become less
nervous about playing in public.