Chaowen: 0:02
Hi everyone, this is Chaowen recording in May 2023. After finishing the first season of The Conductor’s Podcast, I have decided to give this podcast project, a dedicated website with more user friendly functions. So now we have a brand new website called theconductorspodcast.com. Straightforward, right? And now we also have its own Instagram handle. It’s also the same, @theconductorspodcast. So all the show notes have been moved to the new side. And I invite you to come check out all the resources and happy listening.

Lina: 0:49
Just because we are different doesn’t mean that we’re not as strong and we are strong in different ways. And we’re weak in different ways. And that’s the thing is we learn how to use our selves, whether it’s the way that we communicate physically, or verbally, or expression, you know, are using our expressions, the way that we communicate can be extraordinarily strong.

Chaowen: 1:25
Hello, hello, welcome back to another episode of The Conductor’s Podcast. I’m your host Chaowen Ting and I’m so glad to have you here with me. Happy Thursday! If you’re listening on a day, this episode as aired, or any day if you’re just catching up to the past episode. My guest today, Alice Edwards, is a great friend. We first met at Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music. I was a fellow there for the conducting class. And Lina came as an observer. I think that year they took about 15 or 20 auditors, but I met some really awesome people. And I still kept in touch with a composer back then that I work with Holly Harrison. She is from Australia and I just fell in love with her music and had been working on her pieces ever since.

Chaowen: 2:18
So that’s another great thing aboutLina going to workshops or festivals because you never know if your main your next best friend there. If you know a little bit about Lina Edwards, you will know that she is a very passionate advocate for diversity in the field. She is a passionate advocate for music from under represented composers on the counselor stage. Currently, she is conducting the Seattle Collaborative Orchestra, and also as music director of the Saratoga Orchestra. And this is the fourth season that she teaches at the Pacific Northwest Conducting Institute, where she co-teaches with a wonderful Diane Wittry. Our topic today is diversity, mentorship, and finding comfort in your own body. We have a lot to share. So let’s dive in. Hey, welcome to the show. Lina, I’m so thrilled to speak with you today on the collectors podcast. Thank you so much for coming.

Lina: 3:27
Oh, thank you so much for having me, Chaowen. This is great. I appreciate the offer.

Chaowen: 3:33
Thank you. And before we get started, can you give everybody a brief intro of your background and how you get to where you are right now?

Lina: 3:41
Sure. Well, first of all, I had kind of an interesting, broad career. You know, I’ve had kind of three phases in my life. I was a violinist, and then I was a teacher, and then I went into the conducting universe. I played for quite a bit on violin and viola, when I first started my career, played with the New Mexico Symphony, moved to Seattle did some work with the Pacific Northwest Ballet and Northwest Chamber Orchestra and did quite a bit of recording stuff. And then I had my son and wanted to have a little bit more regular job. And so I went into teaching and teaching for quite a long time. And during that time, I began working quite a bit with Youth Symphonies and doing a lot of workshopping. And so I began getting very interested in conducting and had a couple of interesting situations where it was very clear to me that I was not going to get particular jobs because, you know, I was a girl so I felt like if I went back to school to get my doctorate that that would help. So anyway, my focus went from kind of teaching into the conducting universe.

Lina: 4:56
And so now that’s what I do and I have two orchestras that are my primary job. One is the Seattle Collaborative Orchestra, which is an ensemble that I love. And I started while I was doing my doctorate. And this is an ensemble that has students, community members and professionals in the area from like the Seattle Symphony and the Pacific Northwest Ballet. And our whole goal is, or our mission, I guess, is dedicated to diversifying symphonic classical music on the stage. And then I also worked with an ensemble called the Saratoga Orchestra, which is on Whidbey Island, which is a gorgeous island that I actually just moved to. So it’s really beautiful. It’s very close to Seattle. And anyway, it’s it’s a pro orchestra that, you know, where we have a lot of musicians from Seattle who come over and play. But we also have a lot of folks who live on the island to play, and many of them are folks who may have retired from big orchestras, you know, all over the world that have come here. And so anyway, it’s a really fun group.

Lina: 5:11
And from this, I also do the Pacific Northwest Conducting Institute, where we do a program every summer with up and coming conductors. And I teach this with Diane Wittry, which is a super fun workshop to run. So anyway, do that. And then, during the pandemic, you know, we all are trying to figure out our stuff. So I got involved with this group called the everything conducting and the thing that we do is we’re interested in sharing information like we all are right, trying to give people as much information as they can to be successful. And this is, was a fun project for me and where I got interested in this database. So my life has been kind of broad. And then fun.

Chaowen: 6:55
I will put everything in the show notes, if you’re listening from the car, or at the gym bench, I would say that’s the Everything Conducting, it’s such a great resource. They have blogs, and also another podcast, and all the great things about a lot of things in the business that people don’t talk about, or the information that people use to not share when I at least when I went to school. I never learned about those things about the business, networking and all the things that I think it’s a wonderful project and also Lina’s database about the underperformed repertory and composers, I kind of have to say I got so many ideas from your list, not all of them work for my ensemble. But that is a wonderful resource. And I’ll put that in the show notes for sure.

Chaowen: 7:43
So I wanted to ask a question about your experience, because from my interaction with some colleagues, a lot of them say what identify themselves as a music educator, first who conduct as part of their jobs. And they don’t necessarily think they are a conductor first, or they say I’m a band director, I’m an orchestra director. And was there any, like pivotal events or experience that made you want to pursue being seen or viewed as a professional conductor? And that led to you getting a doctorate?

Lina: 8:19
There were a couple incidents, actually, one of them was I taught high school for years. And I took a group of mine to a festival. And there was a gentleman there, Mr. Gould, who was a fabulous violinist from San Francisco. And after I conducted, he came up to me, and he said, you know, you really are pretty good. And, you know, I wonder why you are not doing more stuff. And, you know, anyway, so he just kind of put this little thing in my ear about, well, you know, you’re pretty good. You know, why don’t you look more into this. So that was my first kind of little taste. The other part of my job was with Roosevelt, we would do these side by side concerts with the Seattle Symphony. And one year, there was a gentleman, Thomas Hong, who I will always appreciate forever, he was down at Rice for a long time, you know, as one of their assistant conductors. And he said, kind of the same thing to me. And he said, you know, you’re really pretty good. And, you know, why don’t you develop your conducting a little bit more, and I really would encourage you to go to this school called the Pierre Monteux. School. And so anyway, and he did that, and he was kind of the first person who really helped me jump in to, to understanding really what it meant to be a conductor.

Lina: 9:43
And I think before you know, when I was teaching high school, or even with the youth symphony, I wanted to always be better. I wanted to be more communicative. I wanted to be able to help the musicians play better always. And I think that I did a pretty good job for what I did, but I didn’t really understand what it meant to really get into conducting, you know, until I went into. And and those were the two, two, I guess things that I would say that prompted me to get serious about it, and to really begin understanding what conducting means, because it’s not just as you know, and many of you who are listening, it’s not just moving your arms. It’s not just reading scores, it’s a lot more.

Chaowen: 10:28
So what, like, I want to see how I can better phrase my question, because, as you said, there’s a lot more about conducting as a profession, and also how we develop as a conductor. And while a lot of the young people when they first think about conducting they think about waving your arms when since that’s the most visible part. But looking back, what would you see are the most important skills or areas that you would recommend people to look into or develop?

Lina: 11:02
Yeah, well, there are many, one of them would be people skills, how do you lead? How do you get people to want to follow you? And how do you feel comfortable and confident enough to be able to get in front of a bunch of people who know a lot about what they’re doing and feel comfortable and confident enough to be able to share in the music making. And I think that is something that I didn’t really understand for a very long time. And at the end, again, I’m going to say I’m, I’m still learning, because there are so many people out there who have so many ideas of what real leadership is, and what good conducting is, and what good leadership is and what good musicianship is. And so, you know, with everybody having this idea of what things should be, what’s important is that we are comfortable in understanding what we think that it should be an open enough to learn new tricks as we go. And I think that those are things that I did not understand me, you know, when I first started out, was how important those non musical things are in what we do.

Chaowen: 12:15
Of course, I know a lot of the training programs or say graduate programs focus on the musical side, that you have to have decent techniques, you need to understand the music learn. Maybe I think the most extreme about people’s skills were probably how you talk to musicians in rehearsal. But beyond that, at least I didn’t have much training in that part. But I’m glad that you, you mentioned this, because we know that perception is real, and your people skills. And as you say it how people think of a leadership style, or leadership figure, that kind of row difference from their perception or bias and a lot of other things. So I know you’re really big into diversity. And can you tell us a little bit of how you started this? And what are your findings?

Lina: 13:11
Yeah, so first of all, you know, I didn’t really think about it for a long time, as a teacher as a high school music teacher, gender discrimination, or diversity really wasn’t part of my thinking, because I was a teacher. And there were a lot of women teachers. When I was I was conducting for a Youth Symphony program. And I tried twice to get a better job. And the two times that I tried to get a better job, I had two patent answers. These were the two answers that I had. The first one was the music director called me up and said, you know, Lina, you’re so good with the little kids, I can’t imagine who we would be able to replace you with. So that was number one.

Lina: 13:55
Number two time that this happened, the music director took me out to dinner. And the first thing he did was he leaned across the table and he said, you know, Lina, I’m leaning towards this other person, because he’s not married. He doesn’t have kids. He’s getting his doctorate degree, and he lives and breathes music, you know, I just don’t feel like you’re gonna have the time to put into it. And so those two things. So when that happened, my initial reaction was to get out. So I quit the job. And I left. And I just went back to my my high school teaching, and I just wanted to do my thing. I didn’t want to do anything.

Lina: 14:37
And actually, it was interesting, because after that was when this situation with Thomas Hong came up with this side by side concert, because he said, you know, you’re pretty good. And it was like, Well, great. I’m glad somebody’s noticing. And so that was what kind of prompted me to go forward with the doctoral program. So when I was in the doctoral program, what I found very interesting is that I had zero female mentors. And at that time, I didn’t know any women conductors at all. I knew a couple of people who were students, and who had ended up being fantastic, you know, wonderful people. But I didn’t really have a mentor that I knew. So when I started thinking about my doctoral dissertation, I started thinking about, well, what do I want to do? What is the thing that I’m most passionate about? That I want to figure out? And for me, it was the gender aspect, because, for example, I went to the peon to school.

Lina: 15:38
And for the first year, I was there, I was the only female conducting student out of 20. And there was another gal who started but she quit after the first week. Then the second year I was there, I was one of two. And so, you know, I was really interested in why was it that I was so frustrated by this whole journey. So during my dissertation, I didn’t know what I was going to write about exactly. But I did know that what I wanted to do, and so I decided that I wanted to do like an ethnography about what it was like for women to go through their journey, you know, and then I did this thing where I did all these questions to professional musicians across the country, and ask them about their leadership. So while I was there, what I found was that I wanted to find these mentors. And so at this time, this was when I got I called Diane Wittry. And I called Kate Tamarkin and I called JoAnn Falletta. And so, you know, we had these great conversations. And when we were chatting, that was when I realized, wow, I am so not the only person on this planet that’s feeling like this. Now, these people had great careers, and I was, you know, a nobody. But it was great to know that these folks had certain ideas that I was questioning, and that I was concerned about, you know, like, I’m sure we may talk about this a little bit in a minute about gender and you know, body movement and stuff, because k two marking was really key in a lot of findings for me.

Lina: 17:11
But anyway, so Well, I’m going completely around the block with your question here, probably. But I would say that when I went back to school for my dissertation, that was when I was really understanding that gender and the way that you present yourself really, truly matters. And it was these women who I talked to who really made me begin to understand what direction to look towards, in my findings.

Chaowen: 17:39
That’s really interesting. How do you articulate this female mentor thing, because I hear a lot from our younger mentees through girls who conduct but most of the sayings that I heard were, they didn’t have female mentors, or they have never met women conductor in their life solely didn’t know it was possible. It didn’t even prompt them thinking that’s a possible career path. But you had a different one, because you were already into your doctorate you. Like, I’m curious, because that never was a factor to me. I never had any female mentors, and I didn’t really care. I didn’t question that I couldn’t be a conductor because I was a woman until much later, I realized there were more barriers, spoken and kind of implied. But during my school years, even though I was very often one of the the only one or one of the two, that wasn’t a concern for me. So I was wondering, like, if you had a female mentor, during your doctorate, what would have been different for you? Like, why were you looking for that?

Lina: 18:47
Everything would have been different. Everything, every absolute thing would have been different for me. I’m not saying that people that I had were not fabulous and wonderful because they were in their way, but they didn’t understand my body. And you know, honestly, I don’t think they understood how to engage women in finding that within their selves, because and that’s not their fault or anything. It’s just because they just don’t understand that part. You know, I remember, I’ll give you one little tiny story. When I went to the Pyrmont to school, there was this one time where I was conducting this piece. At the end of this piece, I was trying super hard to come off with being super strong and everything. And I’ll tell you a little bit before so when I first went there, one of the things that I told the maestro there, Michael Jinbo, who I love and adore, you know, I was I told him I didn’t want to, I wanted to be better than a US symphony conductor. You know, because I think that was my chip on my shoulder is that I didn’t want people to go oh, well, you look like a teacher. Right? So when I first got there, he he said something to me and I conducted my first thing and he you know, after I was done he was like, Lina, you look like a schoolmarm. And you know he didn’t, and I’m sure that, like, that was not what I wanted to be, right? I mean, that was so not what I wanted to be. And so anyway, then, I was I was trying really hard on this piece to come off, you know, really, really tough at the end. And I finished this, my final gesture and, you know, I turned around and looked up, he said, Stop, and he crossed his arms. And he said, Lina, you look like a man. And, you know, it was just so funny because it was at that moment, you know, that I was like, God dang it, you know, I can’t be a schoolmarm. I don’t want to be a man, I don’t know where I fit in. And so for me, it was this part where I was trying to find out where I fit in. I didn’t want to be a man, I wanted to be me, you know, I wanted to feel comfortable with where I was in my gesturing. And I wasn’t comfortable when I was doing this big aggressive movement. I wasn’t. I looked stupid, I’m sure.

Lina: 21:00
So when I think about what it would have been like to have a female, you know, I think that women feel more comfortable. It’s like anything else, you get into a group of people that you associate with, you feel more comfortable about saying things. I think that probably it was hard for men to tell me that I didn’t look good doing something because they didn’t want to hurt my feelings, or they didn’t want to, you know, I mean, we all have to be very mindful about how we address each other anymore. You don’t want to do inappropriate things or say inappropriate things. So it’s, it’s a hard place to go. So I think that when women are able to talk with each other, we can say things to each other, maybe that we would understand a little easier that maybe, you know, a guy might not be able to address as well. And that’s not saying that they can’t do it. It’s just that I think that maybe the language, the body language, the verbal, the way we deal with things, it just might be easier to have that female approach at times, you know, I don’t want it all the time. I want somebody to tell me when I’m not doing something well, but I also need other things. I need someone to tell me what I am doing well, and how can I develop those skills that I’m doing well into something that maybe the things that I’m not doing? Well, I can change a little bit, you know, to where I’m being more holistically, a better conductor, communicator, whatever, you know.

Chaowen: 22:33
We are going to go deeper in that because I am curious about your thoughts. Now, you and Diane co-teach this workshop, because I always felt this is maybe a little similar to, you know, a male voice teacher teaching a soprano or alto bass, like your area is very different. And your body is very different and asked quite a few voice teachers. And then they say they got used to it. Or they had some other pedagogy that kind of compensates the gender difference. But I just want to say, oh, I want to say for my audience, I want to hear multiple school as well. I think Maestro Michael Jinbo is very good with a certain type of students. And that was a very unique experience. So if anyone is listening, wanting to check it out, please don’t discredit it just because of our stories. I think it’s still a worthwhile festival. I learned quite a lot there. But coming back, I remember when I was in a workshop with Marin Alsop, and she was talking to another conductor and she say, that gesture is very weak. And she say if a man doing it, it’s okay. It’s very sensitive and lyrical. But when you’re a woman, you can’t do it, because it makes you look so weak. And I felt that was the, maybe coming from the other angle, because I have received some comments from the late Gustav Meier. He told me that I should never come back to anything Tchaikovsky because I couldn’t bring out the correct sound from the orchestra. I should focus on Debussy or anything French. I was that was like one of those wow moments to me, but it was a different, older schools, but kind of coming back to how you feel about you and Diane teaching students I and I’m sure they are male and female students, how do you lead them to understand and use their body?

Lina: 24:30
Well, so you just said something that I think is very funny. And I’m gonna give you another little story. So Gustav Meier was part of my dissertation. And one of the my most favorite things that he said was that I called him up and you know, I was going to talk to him about gender and all that stuff. And the first thing he said to me on the phone, there is no difference between men and women conductors. There is no difference. And so what I think is hilarious about that, is that I absolutely disagree fundamentally with that statement, because I do believe that there’s a difference. Absolutely, there’s no question. You know, and I say this a lot, you know, you can see it, by the way we look, you can see it, by the way we talk, you can see it, by the way, we talk to people, and we you see it by the gestures we use.

Lina: 25:27
But just because we are different, doesn’t mean that we’re not as strong. And we are strong in different ways. And we’re weak in different ways. And that’s the thing is we learn how to use our selves, whether it’s the way that we communicate physically, or verbally, or expression, you know, our using our expressions, the way that we communicate, can be extraordinarily strong, when you’re not even doing anything, you know, you can be, I mean, think of all the people that you know, that you just have so much respect for, and the way that they deal with things, you know, every one of them does it a different way. So anyway, I guess, when I think about this, you know, how to teach people how to lead and how to gesture, again, I always go back to that part where if you don’t feel comfortable doing it, you’re probably not going to do it well. And so we find ourselves in these places, and we have to find out those places of strength. And I’ll go to the conversation that I had with Kate Tamarkin, which she’s so beautifully expressed this, she talked to me about strength, and women and men’s bodies by a triangle. So as you know, a triangle, you know, if you look at it with the skinny part on the top, and the long part on the bottom, she equated that to a woman’s body. And she did it if you flip it to a man’s where the long part is on the top, and the skinnier part is on the bottom. And she she said, you know, if you think about it, with the long cart on the top with men, they have big shoulders, they’re more broad and the top not always, but you know, of course, you we think of people having strength a little bit higher up, right. So their weaker spots are a little bit lower in their body. Whereas women, it’s flipped. So women, you know, we have our strength more in our hips. And we have our strength in our breadbasket, you know, you think about, you know, childbearing, you know, you think about the way that we carry things, you know, it’s much easier for us to lift than it is to, or at least for me, it’s easier for me to lift and really use my hips than it is for me to lift from up here, you know, in the in the upper part of my body just because I’m just not as strong there. And so when she talked about that, it really made a difference in the way that I started thinking about where my strength is, and conducting Tchaikovsky if I conducted with everything with my arms up high, I would have the zero strength, but I got a lot of strength when I do it down lower. And you know, and I feel like I can gather that strength and I am very comfortable conducting Tchaikovsky, just like I know you are and so you know, when we feel comfortable in where we can gather that strength in however we present that to the orchestra, that’s when we are going to be the most fabulous, I think is when we you know, get that.

Chaowen: 28:42
I think that is absolutely important for every conductor, because every one has a different unique physics build. And you need to find where you’re comfortable instead of just imitating your teachers. But I wanted to ask the other question about reception, because as you said, when women Express or use our bodies differently, it’s a different way of expressing things, it’s a different way of conducting, it’s a different look on the podium. And that might not be something that the ensemble is used to seeing. And I caught that lightning moment when I was in a workshop in South Germany and the horn player can often say that, hey, you’re really good. You are very different. But it took a while to get used to. But after that you’re really good. And I he told me that JoAnn Falletta came, a few years ago and did a whole new music program. And she was like, You remind me of her new are all very different, but it was very good. But then he went on to say, but the orchestra didn’t like her. She was never invited back. That got me thinking, oh yeah, we have to find like kind of receptive ensembles, but it’s not always that lucky. And I’m wondering you found on this?

Lina: 30:01
Yeah, actually, I think that’s another thing that I found really interesting in my study. And even though the orchestra didn’t like, you know, maybe he said that the orchestra didn’t like her specifically, one of the things that I found in my study, and there are many studies that also agree with this is that once an ensemble has a female leader, then after that, they have no preference for a male, which means that zero preference, that means that they are okay with whoever comes in. And they may not specifically love them or anything, but they don’t have a preference for a male over a female. And I think that what you said is so important, because I think once musicians see that there is a difference in the way that, you know, we bring our music to people, whether they like it, or they don’t like it, they still realize that, you know, it’s not really any different than, you know, liking one male conductor versus another male conductor, we’re all different. And we all have, you know, as I’ll go back to, we have different body types. Just because I feel like my strength is in my hips doesn’t mean that lots of other men don’t feel like their strengths are in their hips, you know, as well as women, I’m sure that there may be women who feel that their strength is in their shoulders. But once you at least see, if you’re used to seeing men on the podium, and then a female comes in, you may not love her, but if another person came in, they are more receptive to it, because at least they’ve seen that happen. And then, you know, of course, if they love the female conductor, then it’s great. You know, I think that that even brings in more positivity to the ensembles.

Chaowen: 31:53
So that tells us the first person breaking in or even the gatekeeper is so important, because I felt that’s a shared experience. Once we get on the podium, we have no problem proving ourselves. That’s the part before how you even get the chance get there to stand up in front of an ensemble to start showing your musicality. And that is, that is so hard. Do you feel things have improved a little bit lately, with more women getting positions?

Lina: 32:26
Yes, I definitely have. That being said. There’s lots of change in the middle and almost zero change at the top. I think about Marin Alsop she lost her position. So there’s gonna be some guy there now. Though that’s great. Then of course, we have Natalie Stutzman who’s going into Philadelphia, but she’s a guest. She’s the principal guest conductor. She’s She didn’t have the music director position. And so

Chaowen: 32:52
She has the music director position with Atlanta.

Lina: 32:55
Oh, that’s right. That’s yeah, okay.

Chaowen: 32:58
After like another year.

Lina: 33:00
Oh that’s right. Okay. So now, so we have another another one in there. But you know, we lost Marin, and now we got another one. So, you know, for me, I feel like change is not really going to happen until people start getting positions in the upper echelons of conducting. And even more importantly, is the upper echelons of the university conservatory system. Because if you don’t have women mentors, bringing up the talented youth, then how are you going to have people who are going to be able to be competitive in our industry? And so to me, it’s like Juilliard, Curtis, you know, all these big schools, University of North, my brains gone, Indiana University, Northwestern, these folks, Rice University, I mean, they all have wonderful teachers there, don’t get me wrong. But when those folks leave, then, you know, I feel very strongly that they need to be bringing in more women and more people of color. And, you know, to where people do see what they look like on the podium, you know, whether it’s through workshops, or wherever, but that university systems are important for this advocacy for change. I think

Chaowen: 34:20
I absolutely see the same thing that we are. The industry is promoting more young women, probably fresh out of school as the assistant or you know, like guest resident and conductors. While we don’t have really a lot of great talented and qualified women get into top positions, and it takes still takes at least a decade or two for that to flip if it does, but I wanted to ask like so looking back to your experience, and working in the industry for so many years. What’s your biggest takeaway? What’s the most important thing that you learned in your journey.

Lina: 35:01
Wow, that is a big question. Yeah. And, you know, I think the biggest thing for me is honestly, finding comfort in who you are. And the biggest thing for me is that, you know, I’ve always wanted to be something different than what I was, you know, I wanted a bigger job, I wanted a better this, I wanted to data and I wanted to be super charismatic, and I wanted to be funny, and I wanted to be all these things. And you know, at the end of the day, I’m really not. I mean, I enjoy chatting, I enjoy doing my thing. Sometimes I can be funny, but usually it’s on accident. I do not consider myself a charismatic person. I think that I’m, I think people like me, I have great friends, I’ve got a lot of wonderful colleagues that I love to hang out with. But you know, I am not the person that somebody wants to go and give a speech. You know, that is not my thing. I love doing music, I love programming music, I love finding new composers, I love helping people get their music out there. That’s been one of my big things lately, you know, and for me, that kind of stuff is something that I love. And so I guess as far as what I feel like, what my journey has given me is that, you know, finding that comfort in who I am, and realizing that you know, really, at the end of the day, what I want to do is make a difference in my own little universe. And hopefully that will help make change in other places.

Chaowen: 36:33
That is wonderful. And I’ll also put this in the show notes, but I wanted to listen to hear it from you. Can you tell everybody how? Or where they can find you if they want to reach out?

Lina: 36:46
Yeah, sure. So there’s a little bit about who I am what I do, I’ve got a website called Linaedwardsconductor.com. And on there, I have my database that I kind of put together. And there’s about 150 or so conductors, or composers that are on the database that I have listened to and put all of the information on there. And I’m trying to one of the things that is on my to do list is to write notes on things, you know, what really worked well, or, you know, this piece really did was a fantastic The audience loved it. I’ll do that eventually, but it hasn’t gotten there yet. So anyway, that’s one thing. The other thing is, if you’re interested in learning a little bit more about the Seattle collaborative orchestra and what they are all about, you can look at that on Seattle, collaborative orchestra.org. And yeah, and then I’m on Facebook, Instagram.

Chaowen: 37:45
Thank you so much, Lina, and it was a great conversation is so glad to chat with you.

Lina: 37:50
Thank you so much. It was really fun. Thanks.

Chaowen: 37:58
All right, my friends, I hope that our chat was inspiring for you. If not, the only thing I want you to take away from today’s episode is that you have to find comfort in your own body. While you express the music. I had some old conducting teachers who insisted us other students and a studio doing exactly what they were doing. They just want us to do the same movement. And we had nicknames of older techniques, you know, like you turn this way you do the circle this way, you term you put your hand to the left side and to add what ankle? Well, it just doesn’t really work that way. Because we all have very different body types and the physics, you know, some people are taller with longer arms, some people are shorter, and some people make, like just the same movement won’t have the same effect on every single conductor. And it has to be something that comes naturally in from you. And in inside of you, I felt is more. It’s probably beyond what Lina was talking about, you know, like a female and a male’s body. But more importantly, really finding what works for you. Instead of just watching the 1000s videos on YouTube and copying whatever famous conductors movement. Again, this episode was one that was really inspiring for myself. And if you’re listening from the car or at the gym, I’ll put all the great resources in the show notes. You can always check it out by visiting chaowenting.com forward slash podcast where you will see all the show notes or listening to all the past episodes of the podcast, or for this specific one. Just go to Chaowen ting.com for slash 37 The episode number 37. Thank you so much for listening and I will see you again next week, same time, same place. Bye for now and take care