Who is your "Main Character?"

Who is the "Main Character" in your work? 

For a responsible, effective, service-based conductor, it will be your audience, your orchestra, or your community.

Transcript

Jeremy: 0:00

Hi there everybody. Jeremy here. And today I want to talk about the role that we serve in relation to our different constituents. So yesterday was May 4th, may the fourth be with you and thinking about star wars. Are you placing yourself in your life and in your work and in your music as Luke? Or has OB one. In the hero's journey framework. Are you the hero? Or you the guide. For the people around you. And I want to talk about the three different. Constituencies. That we have as conductors. In our communities. In our orchestras and the organization that we work with and our students are in our audience. Each of us has three different groups of people. That we should be serving as the guide for that. We should be serving as OB one, serving as Yoda. Instead of being the main character of what we do. We want to have that active humility. To make sure. That we are supporting people. Because that is our job. Our job is to lead people and help them. Create great music and have. Incredible experiences. So first the obvious one, I want to talk about. The audience. How are you guiding the audience? To having a great experience to changing who they are by experiencing music by having a great evening. You know, I like to think that we can have, we can give audiences a like transformative moving experience. Like a big Mahler symphony or an Adagio for strings. Or we can. Give them fun. Excitement, relaxing. Something that doesn't fundamentally change who they are, but take, lets them take a step out of life. To connect. With. Friends to connect with. Uh, Good evening. To have a good time. But with either of these, whatever you're giving to your audience, through the music that you programming through your performance. Is your guiding them to become better on the other side, in some way, you're guiding them through the experience. And if you guide them through an experience with low energy, and if you guide them through that experience, by getting angry at the orchestra and shaking your head during the performance, you take them out of it and you are not. Guiding them. As well as you could be. And we also have to guide. The orchestra. For teachers, this is going to be a big part of your audience. For more professional. Level conductors. Is there of course going to be the orchestra members. How are we guiding them? This is, this is the, this is what we talk about a lot on the podcast already. How we can guide the orchestras. Go listen to our episode with Tiffany Chang. About how we can be better leaders to the people under us. But just like the energy that we bring. And the passion that we bring to our live performances for the audience. This happens for the orchestra as well. Whatever energy you bring into that. Rehearsal into that concert. You're either bringing people up to your level. Or if you come in low energy, you are pulling people down. To your level. So I encourage you to consider. What you're bringing and don't be the kind of conductor that comes in and pulls the orchestra down. Don't be the kind of conductor that lets the crap in your everyday life. That stresses you out. Don't let that affect your work. Be a professional. If you're a teacher that's super important because you are shaping these people. These students' lives, not just the day and not just the concert, but you are showing them how you show up. Every day. And having that influence. And the third constituent that I want you to think about. Is the organization that you work for? Or your larger mission. Your impact. On the. Orchestra your impact on the world, your impact on the community. What are you bringing to that? What energy are you bringing to that? How much. Good work. Are you bringing to that? How much motivation? How are you lifting people up? How are you setting your orchestra up for success in the future? How are you setting your community up to be transformed by the orchestra? How are you building those connections? And how are you guiding them? Into a better future. As conductors, we get so focused on us, us, us. We get so focused on this is what I want to conduct. This is what I want to conduct. This is what I want to conduct. We trick ourselves into thinking that what we want to do is also good for the community. But I challenge you to consider what's actually good for the community. And then do that better.