The Conductor's Podcast

Diversity Statement has become a more and more frequently asked application material. No matter you are applying for a music directorship or an educational role, the organization very often is interested in knowing your vision on diversity, inclusion, and equity.

Feeling stuck as a straight white man (or anything else)? No worries, let me show you how to kill your diversity vision, and how to revive it.

Best Ways to Kill Your Diversity Statement:

• Claiming that "I have a friend / daughter-son / husband-wife / student who is XXX (fill in any gender, race, color,...) so I am such a diversity supporter
• Give All Talk and No Action
• Draw a Pie in the Sky with your promises

TO REVIVE YOUR STATEMENT (Even if you don't have much experience in diversity and bias and have been very privileged)

• Draw from your experiences - even if you have a very single-dimensioned upbringing, you can still talk about that and explain how this affects your actions and plans
• Genuinely reflect why diversity is important - and how that affect your vision for this position
• Create a sample concert program for the ensemble even without them asking for it in the first place
• Commit to program at least one living composer, one woman composer, one composer of color, or one composer from any historically marginalized group

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Zoom Interviews are now more common since Covid - and organizations are often skipping the traditional phone interview and conduct a zoom interview for shortlisted candidates instead.

If you've had unsuccessful zoom interviews in the past, you want to do a quick self-check and see if you've got it right, and know the purpose of the interview: to obtain enough interest in order advance to the next round

Some Zoom Interview Setting Tips from my friend Tim Verville:

• Set up a nice corner with good light (not natural light) and and an appropriate background
• Establish your brand with your image (concert posters, bookshelves, etc)
• Make sure your eye contact is toward your camera, not the people on your screen

Interview Tips:

• Do your homework, research research research
• Quickly state the obvious, and go to your uniqueness
• It’s not about what they asked, but what you want to say and how you say it
• Practice, Practice, Practice!!
  • Research and outline a few questions they might ask
  • Write out what you want say and practice
• Have good questions to ask
  • Search timeline
  • The 5-year vision of the organization
  • Current challenges
  • Traits of ideal candidates
  • DO NOT ASK ABOUT SALARIES

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• Get stuck in bowing discussions
• Not knowing your terms
• Give instructions on bowing or fingering 

• Always have a set of bowings marked in the part before distributing them 
• Describe the sounds you want
• Let the principals / concertmaster adjust things as they see fit
• Get help, be over-prepared, and bring an open mind to see what they are offering you!

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Welcome Back to Season 2 of The Conductor's Podcast! 

With a carefully designed season, we will be focusing on Conductors How-To and share all the tips on planning efficient rehearsals, preparing for auditions, giving a great job interview, marketing and branding for musicians, and even more! 

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In this wisdom-filled episode, my guest is the world-renowned conductor, Diane Wittry. She is the music director of the Allentown Symphony and the Music Director and Conductor of the Garden State Philharmonic. She is also the author of award-winning books, “Beyond the Baton” and “Baton Basics - Communicating Music through Gestures.”

To understand the essence of conducting and how to improve as a conductor, you’ll need to indulge in this episode and learn.

Conductor, Diane Wittry, named nationally as one of the "Top 30 Professional Musicians" by Musical America Worldwide for her work leading orchestras, is a highly respected conductor in the United States today.   Frequently engaged as a guest conductor, she has led symphonic performances in more than 11 countries and throughout the U.S.  Diane Wittry is the Music Director and Conductor of the Allentown Symphony, PA, and the Garden State Philharmonic, NJ. In the past she has served as the Associate Conductor of the renowned Ojai Music Festival (CA); the Artistic Director of the International Music Program with the Sarajevo Philharmonic, Bosnia; and Music Director and Conductor of the Symphony of Southeast Texas, and the Norwalk Symphony (CT). Wittry is also recognized as a composer and a respected conducting teacher. Her books "Beyond the Baton," and "Baton Basics-Communicating Music through Gestures," have become standards in the conducting field. 

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Hi there! 

Happy end of September and welcome to episode no.9 of the Conductor’s Podcast Wisdom series, a new series full of shared life experiences and, of course, wisdom! This series is aired on the last Thursday of each month, and in each episode, I am going to pose a question to 10 musicians, conductors, or business gurus. So including myself, you will hear all the goodies from a wide variety of people, thus called the wisdom series. Now, without further ado, let’s get started.

This month’s question that I am asking my people is, “Your favorite thing about what you do.”

My guests today are: 

Alice Farnham (opera conductor, episode 26)

Aubrey Bergauer (founder, Changing the Narrative, episode 52)

Julia Baumanis (Assistant Director of Bands, Rutgers University, episode 31)

Carolyn Watson (Director of Orchestras, UIUC, episode 53)

Tianyi Lu (Principal Guest Conductor, Stavanger Symphony, episode 34)

Lina Gonzalez Granados (Conducting Fellow, Philadelphia Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra, episode 38)

Sarah Ioannides (Conductor, Symphony Tacoma, episode 42)

Susie Seiter (Film conductor, episode 29)

Maria Sensi Sellner (founder, resonance work, episode 45)

Cynthia Johnston Turner (Dean of the Faculty of Music, Wilfrid Laurier University, episode 56)

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In this episode of The Conductor’s Podcast, my guest is Gabriel Lena Frank.  As she continues to be a remarkable composer, she’s fulfilling her passion of wanting to live by 100 years and seeing that music becomes more accessible to individuals who really want and need it. 

Tune in this episode and be inspired on how creativity impacts society and how you can navigate the world of music despite being bombarded with biases and different gender or race-related conundrums.

Currently serving as Composer-in-Residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra and included in the Washington Post’ s list of the 35 most significant women composers in history, identity has always been at the center of composer/pianist Gabriela Lena Frank's music. Born in 1972 to a mother of Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Gabriela explores her multicultural American heritage through her compositions. 

In 2017, Gabriela founded the award-winning Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, a non-profit training institution held on her two rural properties in Boonville, CA for emerging composers from a broad array of demographics and aesthetics. Civic outreach is an essential part of Gabriela’s work.  She has volunteered extensively in hospitals and prisons, with her current focus on developing the music school program at Anderson Valley High School, a rural public school of modest means with a large Latino population in Boonville, CA.

In the 2022-23 season, she will see the premiere of her first opera, El último sueño de Frida y Diego with Pulitzer playwright Nilo Cruz, co-commissioned by San Diego Opera and San Francisco Opera.

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Opera is one of the greatest and the most classic art forms. It combines the ingenuity of a great storyline and the elegance of music in one captivating show. 

As this classic art form continue to become a favorite among enthusiasts, new operas are giving audiences a fresh perspective to shows that feature newly-composed music and storylines that haven’t been heard yet. 

In this episode, Kanma Gupta discusses the process of developing new operas and more!

Kamna Gupta is an American Prize-winning conductor experienced in operatic, orchestral, and choral repertoires. In the 2022-23 season, Ms. Gupta will make her Canadian debut with Vancouver Opera conducting Les Pêcheurs de Perles, and will conduct the East Coast premiere of In Our Daughter’s Eyes (Du Yun / McQuilken and featuring Nathan Gunn) at Prototype Festival, which received its world premiere under her baton at LA Opera Redcat. 

In 2022, she made her debut with the International Contemporary Ensemble, and she returned to The Glimmerglass Festival to conduct the world premiere of Jungle Book (Sankaram / O’Rourke). She will also conduct the highly interdisciplinary work The Ritual of Breath is the Right to Resist (Berger / Reily / Francis), premiering at the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth. She is also excited to return to Mannes Opera in Fall 2022 to conduct La Calisto, Cavalli’s Baroque masterpiece.

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In this truly exciting episode, the one and only Dr. Cynthia Johnson Turner discuss the broad meaning behind good conducting and how you can stand up on the podium as a leader. 

Johnston Turner, a dual citizen of Canada and the United States, earned her Doctor of Musical Arts in Conducting from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY and her Master of Education in Music Education from the University of Victoria, B.C.

Her professional success is readily apparent on both sides of the border and abroad. She comes to Laurier from the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia, where she served as the Director of Bands since 2014. She has also been a conductor for the Eastman School at the University of Rochester; the Society for New Music Ensemble in Syracuse, NY; the Paris Lodron Ensemble in Salzburg, Austria; the Orquesta Sinfonica de Heredia in Costa Rica; the Performing Arts Institute at Wyoming Seminary in Pennsylvania; and numerous honour ensembles in Canada, the U.S. and Australia. She has also presented her research on innovating the rehearsal and performance experience at numerous national and international conferences. 

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Want to booster your productivity? Listen to today's episode where I share my newly discovred productivity hacks!

1. Always check your why: What's your purpose?
2. Morning Pages Journal: clear your mind before starting your day!
3. App: Todoist
Answer these questions daily:

• Identify the most important tasks (one or two)
• Is what I am doing today supporting my long-term goals?
• The setback of the day
• What can I do differently tomorrow

4. Find the duration chunk that works for you
5. Set an environment that is not distracting

And make sure that you check out these two previous episodes with wonderful guests:

• #38 Organize Your Score, Time, and Journey with Lina Gonzalez Granados
• #14 Productivity and Time Management Tips with Kalena Bovell

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