The major aim of the research is to analyse the type and complexity of emotions which adolescent musicians experience before giving a solo music performance. Another aim is to explore the function of these emotions for performance quality. Just before a school concert, students filled out The UWIST Mood Adjective Checklist (UMACL). Right after the performance, both the performing students and competent referees used The Performance Evaluation Scale. The results show that musicians’ pre -performance emotional state is dominated by ambivalent emotions of hope and sadness, as well as joy and anxiety. As a result of a cluster analysis, six clusters were obtained which defined emotional states before the performance: high music performance anxiety, moderate music performance anxiety, calm, mixed emotions, joy with background fatigue, and excitement. The findings show the functional significance of positive emotions and mixed emotions for performance quality.

This paper investigates attachment themes in the life history narratives of professional orchestral musicians and their relationship with music performance anxiety (MPA). Narrative accounts derived from open -ended in -depth interviews of ten professional musicians were analysed from an attachment perspective using content and thematic analysis. We hypothesized that the performance setting re -triggers unprocessed feelings related to early attachment experiences, especially when traumatic, and that defensive manoeuvres against their re -emergence into consciousness are activated. The interviews identified early relational trauma as a relevant etiological factor in the MPA -symptomatic of the musicians studied. A case is made for the addition of an attachment -informed life -course model rather than a purely symptomatic approach to understanding and treating severe MPA and other intra -personal psychodynamics of performing musicians.

The main objective of this study was to analyse the psychometric properties of the Polish adaptation of the Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory – Revised (K -MPAI -R, Kenny, 2009) modified as the Kenny Performance Anxiety Inventory (K -PAI) for a general population of individuals with experience in public performance in fields other than music. Another aim was to test the factor structure of K -PAI on a Polish sample. We analysed the relationship between the scores on K -PAI and general anxiety, depression, attentional control, the scores on the Behavioural Inhibition Scale (BIS) and the Behavioural Activation Scale (BAS) and reward susceptibility. Participants (N = 586) completed the questionnaires in a wider online study. The scores on K -PAI revealed a moderate to strong positive association with different measures of anxiety, trait -anxiety in particular, and negative associations with attentional control and susceptibility to reward. K -PAI scores were strongly associated with depression, but displayed no relationship with the BAS or any of its sub -dimensions. These results generally replicated those obtained on the K -MPAI -R with Australian and Peruvian musicians, indicating the cross -cultural validity of the K -MPAI -R and K -PAI. It is suggested that performance anxiety develops on the basis of the biological predispositions and early negative experiences in performance contexts.