Book excerpt: A performer can have a multitude of goals in mind when giving a musical performance to an audience. These goals can include invoking an historical reference, expressing values of the individual performer, or to simply move an audience in a deeper, more emotional way. The most important goal, however, is to impress the audience by making what may seem impossible a reality. Virtuosity is the key through which the performer impress their audience and leave them wanting more and making their abilities known to the world. Virtuosity is simply defined as the ability to execute any musical passage with little to no difficulty. Virtuosity is often the key in landing stable employment in the music business and has undergone a change. While historically virtuosity has been the means to tackle the standard concertos and other classics, it now has a rather different purpose in the modern trends taking place in the music business. Audition requirements for conservatories and the audition process for orchestral jobs will show what traditional virtuosity has always meant while books and articles outlining the new trends will help to show how virtuosity is changing.