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OnlyConnecting with Rebecca Miller
In This Issue . . .
Growing Up
Fist Piece of Music
Role Models
Ethnicity
Women Treated Differently?
Memorable Moment
Serendipity
Learning & Leadership
Significant Men
Advice from Rebecca
Favourite Genre
Best Musical Experience

 

 

Rebecca Miller

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rebecca Miller  

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Growing Up

 

My mother was a Musicologist, Professor at Santa Cruz University.  There was always music around.   I started with a Suzuki (violin) at age 3 and asked for piano lessons at 5.  I did both of those until I was 16.  I played the flute in the high school band, then became interested in singing.  

Having had experience of different instruments, I became interested in conducting.  I went to do a piano Degree at Oberlin but spent most of my time conducting.  Once I tried conducting, I fell completely in love with it and so I did an Undergraduate Conducting Degree.  I finished my Degree and never looked back.

 

First Piece of Music? 

 

My earliest memories are of my mother practicing the Flute; Sonatas by Prokofiev and the Franck, transcribed for flute. My mother managed to balance a musical career with raising a family and no one in her family was left behind. My mother was one role model.

  

Role Models

I had never really thought about being a woman conductor.  But there was a particular woman conductor; her name is Nicole Paiement, a wonderful conductor and person, and that paved the way.  She's currently Director of Conducting at the Music UCSC (University of California, Santa Cruz)

  

Ethnicity: What heritages can you draw on?

 

I am American, although my mother's father was Romanian; he and his 6 sisters left Romania to escape the war. I always felt connected to Romania through my Grandfather's stories. He was the most wonderful, gentle, caring man I ever knew.

 

There were a few very profound things he taught me, but the key one was always make a good decision as well as personal decision.  He was the most religious of our family and started to teach me Hebrew, to try to impart some Jewish teaching. He was a role model.

  

When did you first recognize that women are 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.  When I was 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.

  

Memorable moment

 

Of the pivotal moments that you have throughout life, one was the first time that I went away.  I went to Tanglewood (famous musical school in States) as a Pianist.  There was serious chamber music, with other musicians. In Santa Cruz there were not so many musicians. I was so excited to make music seriously with other people of my own age, rather than feeling a nerd.

 

That was really the time when I decided, when my mother said, "Your strength as a musician seems to be in the broad view, rather than the mechanics, have you thought of conducting?".  I was quite a social person; I liked the social experience of being among people.  I didn't like being alone in a practice room for hours a day, unlike my pianist husband (Danny Driver).

 

Similarly, when I got to Oberlin Conservatory I had the feeling like I was in Heaven, everybody around me was obsessed with music.

  

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 wanted 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.

 

Another surprising moment was when I applied to Aspen Music Festival, 8 week summer programme, but I didn't get in at the top level; I was only accepted amongst 12 conductors.  Not getting in at the top level, I wasn't entirely sure that I wanted to go.  My friend Josephine said her last 3 friends who went to Aspen came back engaged!  She said, "Promise me you won't do that".

 

Well, I didn't quite come back engaged, but.....

I did meet Danny there and 13 years later we're still happily married.

 

Again, the only other time in my life; as soon as I met him, I thought, "This is the man for me".  I felt certain that there was something quite special.

 

We worked together professionally first.  I got him for a piano concerto.  As a seminar student, we had to go and ask friends, recruit our own orchestra.  I was doing Rhapsody in Blue, and looking for good pianists.  Danny Driver was suggested, so I went to a concert he was doing, another event, and asked him if he would help me out. 

 

We never would have met if I'd never gone to Aspen, as he lived he lived in London.

  

Learning and Leadership

 

The first is the job that I took at the Houston Symphony, conducting.

 

It was wonderful and enormously challenging at the same time.  A very large orchestra which normally has 2 or 3 staff conductors, but for some reason I was the only one! 

 

I was sometimes doing 3 programmes in the same week.    Tons of different works, my head had to be in 6 places at once.

 

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.  The experience of being in this supporting, conductor position, means you have to have a thick skin. But, also, you can't toughen up too much. If you're callous you can become numb.  What I probably learnt the most is to let things roll off my shoulder!!

  

Significant men in my life 

 

I've already mentioned my grandfather and my husband, Danny (Driver); he has been immense. 

  

Advice for aspiring conductors or singers 

 

It's probably good to ask some of the questions you've been asking me,

so that you really know who you are

 

I use this analogy: So many interviewers have asked, "what are you going to wear?".  They never ask that of a man, everybody knows what the man's going to wear!  But I realized that it's not a silly question.  I'm not height of fashion, I'm the last one to catch on to any trend.  But the concept of what I wear holds much more symbolism for me.   You have to be comfortable, feminine, but not too feminine, not draw attention to yourself, because the attention should be on the music, and it has to be YOU. You and unique, all of those apply to what I know today, about being a woman conductor. You have to be completely confident and at ease with yourself, which is much more challenging for a woman than a man.

 

Your body is your instrument.

 

Your question pinpoints the two musicians who are not holding an instrument. 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 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.  It's to do with knowing who you are and being comfortable in your own skin and your own way of doing things.  Once you've got that you can go through life with your eyes open.   No blinders on, and confident, and the rest follows.

  

Do you have a favourite genre or type of music? 

 

I don't really have a favourite genre, I'm so broad in my taste because of my profession. I would go to orchestral, or quartet or song recital if I had to choose.  Choosing in London, it really depends what's on offer - jazz, sometimes Sting!

 

One notion of music, I love conducting Czech and Hungarian, I can't get enough of Dvorak and Brahms, overture or symphony.

  

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 that 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 suggested Parsifal, semi staged, 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.

  

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