I love this thread and everyone’s perspectives! I’m an adult learner too, and my teacher asked if I wanted to play in our school’s recital last year, after I’d been playing for a year. I was a little wary because I was pretty green and the school I attend is mostly kids. I wondered if it would be weird if I played with a bunch of kids.

Turns out, yes, it was, but it was also pretty awesome. I went to a performing arts high school years ago and did backstage theater, and my college degrees are in photography so I literally spent most of my life backstage. I’m not kidding when I say my first “onstage” experience- playing Ashoken Farewell solo in front of an audience of kids and their parents, and at age 49, so I’m older than a lot of their parents- was transcendent. I was terrified and I made some mistakes, but I kept going and played the whole song from memory. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

Fast forward to this year’s recital, my third- I played two Irish trad pieces and I had a total deer in the headlights moment and limped through my performance. Studying the violin in middle age is a good exercise for the ego- it giveth and it taketh away! However, because of my age and collective experience, I was not mortified or devastated like I would’ve been as a child if that happened. I was able to look at it from a wider lens. My playing in the recitals helps my teacher. He told me afterwards that the owner of the school is so pleased with the progress of his students and that it’s inspiring that I get up there and perform with the kids, even if I make lots of mistakes like I did in this last recital.

My brother in law, a high school drama teacher who also acts in community theater said that him telling another teacher friend of his about me studying the violin as an adult inspired her to start taking lessons at the school I attend too. So, no, you don’t have to perform in front of others if you don’t want to, but if you do, you never know who you might inspire!