Workshops for Performing Under Pressure
Practical performance psychology for musicians, performers, students, and the people who teach them.
Breakthrough Performance Center provides educational workshops and guest lectures for music departments, arts organizations, and high-achieving academic programs. These presentations support students navigating performance pressure, evaluation, and perfectionism.
Performing Under Pressure
Why can you do something perfectly in the practice room—and struggle to access it when it matters?
This workshop explores what happens to attention, thinking, and the body in high-stakes performance environments. Participants learn practical strategies for working with pressure rather than waiting for anxiety to disappear.
Especially useful for: musicians preparing for auditions, juries, competitions, recitals, chair placements, and other evaluated performances.
Participants explore:
Why performance anxiety intensifies when the outcome matters
What happens to attention and decision-making under pressure
How to respond to physical symptoms of anxiety
Strategies for more effective mental preparation
Recovering quickly when something goes wrong
Building confidence through action rather than reassurance
Typical format: 50–90 minutes, with time for discussion and Q&A.
Perfectionism & Burnout
High standards can drive extraordinary work. They can also make it increasingly difficult to take risks, tolerate mistakes, finish projects, or feel satisfied with success.
This workshop helps students recognize when excellence has crossed into unhelpful perfectionism—and develop a more sustainable relationship with ambition.
Participants explore:
The difference between excellence and perfectionism
Why high achievers can become increasingly afraid of mistakes
Overthinking, comparison, and fear of evaluation
How avoidance and procrastination can hide inside perfectionism
Responding productively to criticism and setbacks
Pursuing ambitious goals without making every outcome a referendum on your ability
Confidence After A Setback
A bad audition. A disappointing critique. Losing a chair. Not making the ensemble. A performance that simply wasn't what you knew you could do.
For ambitious students, setbacks can quickly become stories about ability, identity, and the future.
This workshop focuses on what happens after something goes wrong—and how performers can learn from the experience without allowing it to define the next one.
Participants learn strategies for evaluating setbacks accurately, rebuilding trust in their preparation, and returning to meaningful action.
Customized Workshops & Guest Lectures
Every performance environment has its own pressures.
Programs can be customized around topics such as audition anxiety, stage fright, juries and evaluations, creative confidence, perfectionism, burnout, fear of failure, competition, resilience, and sustainable high achievement.
Presentations can be designed for students, faculty, teachers, studios, ensembles, or mixed groups and adapted for a class period, masterclass, faculty development session, or longer workshop.
Bring Breakthrough to Your Program
If your students are talented and prepared, but pressure, perfectionism, or fear of failure sometimes gets between them and what they are capable of doing, let’s talk about what would be most useful for your program.
Led by Dr. Elizabeth Rennick, professor and professional musician specializing in performance-focused coaching
Big Ideas, Real Impact.
Big Ideas, Real Impact.
Breakthrough workshops are educational and performance-focused.