Tara Simoncic has travelled the world as an orchestra conductor. She is part of a growing group of females breaking one of the last glass ceilings in the music industry: wielding the conductor's baton. As part of The Guardian's "A Day's Work" series Tara has agreed to share her passion for music and insights into her fast tempo life. Leave more questions for Tara in the comments, and she will answer them when she has a break later today.
1. What's your typical day like?
There is no typical day as a conductor! But I can give examples. When I'm not in rehearsal or performance, I spend a great deal of time studying and developing my own interpretation of the music. If I'm conducting a ballet, I study the choreography as well as the music. I correspond with the organization's administrative team, and chose repertoire for upcoming concerts, go to fundraising events, and do interviews. On the podium, I am either rehearsing for around three hours at a time or performing. When rehearsing, I pick things apart and try to get exactly the sound and interpretation from the orchestra that I have in mind. In a ballet rehearsal with dancers on stage, I have very limited time to rehearse the orchestra. In that case, the focus is mainly on fitting the music with the choreography and making sure you are conducting the correct tempos for the dancers. If you don't, you might cause an accident!
2. There's been a lot of talk lately about people wanting work/life balance. Does your job provide that?
For me, being a musician is a full-time job. You never really leave your work behind, and it is always on your mind. Your triumphs and failures shape a lot of who you are and can alter your mood, which can be difficult for people to deal with. There are a lot of highs and lows. There is an infinite amount of preparation one can do; there is always something to work on, study, or practice. I travel a lot for work, and sometimes I am gone for a month at a time. Personally, these circumstances make it difficult to have a relationship and keep up with friendships and family. Ideally, I would like to place more focus on my personal life, but I don't know if it's in my nature to do that because conducting is my passion in life and will probably always come first.
3. What's the craziest/most unexpected thing that's ever happened to you while on the job?
Everything is unexpected in live performance. In ballet the conductor has multiple elements to consider simultaneously. When the music stops between scenes and the lights go down on stage, there is a set number of seconds, a cue on stage from the curtain, or a light in the pit that lets the conductor know when to re-start the music. Recently, I was in Russia conducting three ballet productions in a week. Nobody spoke English and there were no cue lights in the pit. As a solution, the concertmaster would lean over and poke me with his bow at the crucial moments to know when to start. It worked out: the musicians saw that I could roll with the situation, and it gave us a stronger bond in the end.
4. What makes for a really good day on the job?
It's hard to describe, but there is an electricity and energy that exists between the conductor and musicians. If you bring the right energy, they will know exactly what you want from the music through your physical movement, facial expressions and energy. I can't describe how cool it is to make a movement with my arm that conveys a message to the musicians, and as a result, to hear back the sound I wanted to convey through my physical movement. It's an amazing feeling and does not always happen, but when it does, it's a great day on the job.
5. What's your annual salary? Do you get benefits?
I am freelance conductor, so there is no annual salary. Conductors are not part of a musician's union, and we do not have job security. There is often no limit to the amount of hours that we are asked to work for a particular job. I am given a contract for each job I have and sometimes the fee is negotiable. Conductor's fees vary greatly from job to job. With orchestra jobs, I am usually paid for the amount of time I spend on the podium in rehearsal and at the concert. For ballet, I am often paid for the amount of time on the podium as well as the time spent watching the dancers rehearse without orchestra present in order to learn the choreography. Since I am freelancer, I do not get benefits with any of my conducting jobs. All that said, I feel incredibly lucky that I can make my living solely as a conductor right now.
6. What's the biggest mistake you've ever made while working?
When I was first learning to conduct, I made a lot of mistakes. I was in my early 20s and had never conducted a full size orchestra until I got the opportunity to conduct Brahms Symphony No 1 in the Czech Republic in a master class. There is a famous horn solo in the last movement, and because I was young and didn't know any better, I was trying to imitate a recording of a famous conductor. The tempo in the recording was quite slow, and being a young conductor, I probably conducted it even more slowly than the recording. The horn player put down his instrument mid-solo and refused to play. I had no idea why he stopped until it was explained to me in front of all of my peers and the orchestra that my tempo was impossible to play. The horn player would only play again when I agreed to speed up the tempo. Lesson learned.