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