in the country. He was set to have a fabulous career in music. Simone, as I see now, was an equally talented young person. The difference being, of course, was that Simone had to work far harder and had to rely on help outside of her inherited support system in order to achieve her successes as our existing system is NOT constructed to help support students of color or of financial need. Watching Simone thrive after receiving just a few opportunities has driven my quest for diversity and equity. A few years earlier, I experienced my first encounter of what it meant to be an outsider, though I did not understand it at the time. As a first year student at the Pierre Monteux School, I was the only female of seventeen conducting students. The second year I attended, I was one of two female conductors out of twenty conducting students. For me, my feeling of being an outsider had to do with gender, which brought about complex and frustrating emotions for me. It was clear that I felt different and I felt like I did not belong. 1 What I understand now, is that I was surrounded by mostly men and had only male conducting teachers. During this time I began to realize that I was in a position where I was not comfortable nor confident and this made a difference. The painful feeling of not belonging prompted me to question gender and leadership, which propelled me towards the subject matter for my dissertation. The ethnographic portion of my dissertation came from my third summer at Monteux and what a difference that year made! There were 20 conductors - 14 men and 6 women. During the summer I watched, listened to stories, and questioned behaviors. It was life changing to watch other talented women on the podium. I felt like I belonged. Because I wanted to have a deeper understanding of why this experience was so powerful, I delved into gender statistics within the top American symphonies, conservatories, and universities to try and understand my feeling of disconnection with conducting. It was during this time that it became apparent that women have been woefully underrepresented in leadership positions. This revelation prompted the inaugural launch of Seattle Collaborative Orchestra which was, in part, research for my D.M.A dissertation at the University of Washington. 1 Catherine Strong and Sarah Raine wrote an excellent editorial introduction “Gender Politics in the Music Industry” for the International Association for the Study of Popular Music that offers some excellent resource material on this subject. https://iaspmjournal.net/index.php/IASPM_Journal/article/ view/906/pdf_1 https://iaspmjournal.net/index.php/IASPM_Journal/index
During these talks, Simone asked me multiple times to help her find a private teacher. I gave her many excellent teacher contacts though the suggestions never seemed to go anywhere. Over time, our conversations led to many discoveries, which I had not anticipated. Simone lived alone with her mom - a single parent who had diagnosed mental disorder. Simone began cello in the 6 th grade, did not own a cello, and her mom did not have enough funds for private lessons. Wow! Though Simone was not really on my “future professional musician” educational radar (or, a student that would continue into music in college), her continued desire to perform better and her personal living circumstances definitely sparked an emotion. I contacted a fabulous teacher (who was also a person of color) in Seattle and he graciously took on Simone with the help of a private donor. In her junior year, Simone was upgraded to a decent school cello and finally made it into the Symphony class. Private lessons were making an obvious difference for her. This was also my 3rd season with the Seattle Collaborative Orchestra. Research on my dissertation “Gender and the Symphonic Conductor” was in full swing. My view of music and who gets to succeed began to come front and center in my mind. Before starting SCO, I had had the luxury of having two professions where I never had to consider my gender, skin color, or privilege. I was a violinist and a public-school teacher. Both professions had a substantial number of white females. Equity and equality were not considerations in my teaching career. As I began my next professional career as a conductor beginning with the Seattle Youth Symphony and then as a DMA candidate, gender equity quickly came clearly into focus when looking at the vast differences between the number of conducting opportunities being given to male conductors over their female counterparts. It was the first time I had ever felt excluded or discriminated against. Though for this article I will not go into gender discrimination, I point this out because it was the first time that I understood what it meant to be excluded from an opportunity that was out of my control. Years of study, research, and listening have completely changed how I view talent, excellence, and potential. Factors that are out of our control, including race, finances, gender, age, ability, education, and mental capacity are important to recognize. When I initially think of James and Simone during their high school years, I think of two students who could not have been more different. James started violin at age 5. He had excellent teaching during his formative years so by the time I had him in high school, he was concertmaster for the regional youth symphony and had multiple opportunities to solo with orchestras across the country. He attended reputable summer music institutes, performed on NPR’s “From the Top,’’ and went on to attend the top conservatory
Voice of Washington Music Educators Association January 2023
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