How I Got There

Conductor

I remember hearing music before I could speak. My parents would practice every day. I could probably sing you all of the warm-ups my mother used to play on the cello. My earliest memories are of people playing chamber music at our house. I was hearing music all the time. It just becomes part of who you are.

When I was 7, I started going to a summer camp for violinists called Meadowmount. I also enrolled in the precollege program at Juilliard. What I liked about the violin was the physicality of it, the way you hold it. I liked the social dynamic of it. At camp, I started playing in string quartets. At Juilliard, I played in the orchestra for the first time, and that blew me away. I really loved the people aspect. I don't know if that's because I'm an only child, but I was always drawn to being in groups.

I fell in love with the idea of being a conductor when I was 9. I was at a young people's concert and Leonard Bernstein was conducting. It felt a little bit like what I imagine a calling would feel like. You just say, "That's what I want to do." I'm sure it was his charisma but there were other things, too, especially the idea of being part of a huge team. All through my childhood I would always end up being the captain of the team even if I wasn't a very good player. It's all about the thrill of being able to galvanize people to a unified endgame.

After I graduated from Juilliard, I started creating my own mini-galaxies. I had a string quartet, then a piano trio and then a string orchestra which I kind of led, and then a swing band. In the late 1970s, I met an arranger who used to play with Woody Herman's band. He wrote us some music. We didn't even know what swing music was. We were all at Juilliard. We played it like it was Mozart. He's still one of my dear friends and I only wish I had a video of him laughing the first time he heard us!

I started getting called to do a lot of session work and put together string sections for recording dates and commercials. It paid well and I decided to save all my money so I could start my own orchestra, Concordia. All my musician friends in the orchestra were extraordinarily helpful, and they had lots and lots of constructive criticism. Conducting's all body language. When a woman makes a gesture, the same gesture as a man, it's interpreted entirely differently. The thing I struggled with the most was getting a big sound from the brass because you really have to be strong. But if you're too strong, you're a b-i-t-c-h. As a woman, you have to be careful that it's not too harsh. It's a subtle line.