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Extract from our Inspirational Woman of the Month...
... the Conductor, Rebecca Miller
Advice
Rebecca echoed a theme very much at the heart of this philosophy:
You must know who you are
This is the theme of the e-book, and comes through in almost every interview with the inspirational successful interviewees:
(As a conductor).....your body is involved, and there is nothing to hide behind, so you must know who you are and be comfortable within your own skin. A body language of insecurity, not being open, makes everybody else is insecure. Your purpose to be there, it is my job to make the musicians in front of me feel comfortable in order to give their best.
Once you've got that, you can go through life with your eyes open. No blinders on, be confident and the rest follows.
Serendipity
There are a few times when I'm absolutely certain I've made good decisions. The first time I conducted an orchestra, I was absolutely certain, "this is what I want to do for the rest of my life".
I had started in choral conducting but a friend, a bassoonist, said, "Just try an orchestra, we'll get together a group and get out a Mozart symphony, just have a reading". I remember giving that up-beat and the sound coming out, and thinking, "WOW! This is amazing". I guess I was really surprised to find that, 100%, this was what I wanted to do.
Are women treated differently?
I never was one to think that women were treated differently.
Well, Santa Cruz is a very liberal area and I grew up thinking that the world was like that. Equality is paramount, not judging people. So I wasn't aware of women being treated differently. At Oberlin Conservatory of Music I tended to blame myself; perhaps I wasn't good enough. However, conversations I've had, have made me realise that a portion of it is out of my control. That it's because I'm a woman.
The more women there are doing things that women should be doing, the more women start to do them - it's a knock-on effect.
I was first aware of a difference in treatment within the profession as a Conductor when I was Assistant at Houston and there were, as in every orchestra, players who will test your boundaries. I started to experience it more from 2005, when I started to really take on professional positions. I found I had to work extra hard at certain things in comparison to my male counterparts.
Learning and Leadership
The process of learning to be someone who is in a leadership position is difficult. A learning and leading experience, at the same time, but you have to learn how to lead.
You must learn how to balance the leading from the learning, and learning from other musicians who collectively have much more experience than you do. You need to be convincing.
Best musical experience
Listening as opposed to conducting. I went to the Proms, I can't remember which year. Simon Rattle was conducting Wagner. I'm not a big fan of Wagner. My mother is partly responsible for that. She believed Wagner was long and drawn out, and of course the usual anti semitism charge which Jewish people feel against him, and all that's associated it with it.
But Danny (Rebecca's husband) suggested Parsifal, semi staged, and I thought, "I can't be bored, and I certainly can't stand for hours through it". Simon Rattle was conducting. We took cushions. I was completely bowled over from the first moment and I could not sit down for the entire performance! It is so vivid in my memory. I was completely surprised.
Read the full interview in the archive.
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