The Music Babes

The Music Babes. Three of us. Taking over.

The music department at the school where I got sick was huge. The woman who ran the program for over thirty years was brilliant. The program included music education, choir and instrumental lessons taught during the day. Children left classes to have a lesson every week or two times a week if they where in a special program. There were 17-19 instrumental teachers on staff who where highly respected musicians in their own careers. One had to be a performing musician to be on the staff as it was a performance oriented program. How could one teach a child to prepare for an audition, competition or performance if one had never done it? It was that experience that we expected them to share and teach to the children. And they did. Even taking children to international competitions. She expanded the program in every direction including a competition that drew young musician from hundreds of miles away. She worked with another program that she founded, which brought high level music education into public schools.

But, when she was getting older, she was losing patience with the students. She was always a bit of a bristle and would sometimes yell at the kids but mostly, she was amazing with them. But suddenly, there was a lot more yelling and frustration. It was time for her to retire before she thought she was ready. She hand-picked her replacement who I hated. He was horrible to the children, had no sense to change the rules when needed, smelled of body odor to the point where I would gag and he thought he was the smartest person and best musician ever.

I was not going to work for him as I didn't want my name connected to his in any way within the music community. I was offered another job with a highly respected private youth orchestra. The afternoon before the final interview with their board, I told one of the parents who was connected with this other organization. She asked if she could tell the head of the school that I was having this final interview. I told her yes and with that, the head of the school begged me not to sign anything and to meet him in his office the next morning.

He offered me the position of being head of the music program at the school and that the woman would be forced to retire. Moved to a separate office, she would be given a couple of years to sort her huge pile of files to be handed over to the school archives.

I accepted. The smelly guy stayed my first year but was not happy. It was so difficult working with him, as you can imagine. Every time I tried to move the program forward or streamline it, the now former head would sit in my office for an afternoon while I explained why I changed some aspect of the program until she agreed it would be fine. It was a hard year.

Finally, we fired the smelly guy after that year and I was able to hire a new Pre-k through 5th grade classroom/choir music teacher and a 6th through 8th grade classroom/choir music teacher. I went through a huge number of applications and interviews. Through the process, I hired Natalie (now the mother of Winnie and Oliver) and Jeannette.

We were now in charge of this amazing program.

Natalie had never taught children but she had a wonderful education and had just received her Master of Music Degree from the Conservatory. She had and has a glorious voice. She was young and willing to learn the program. She was the best hired I ever made and we became best friends!

Jeanette had taught vocal lessons and also worked with private choruses. She had a great education. What I learned through her hire was to go with my gut about a person. It was most important to like the person. To have to work with someone like the smelly guy made the working environment difficult. Ultimately, it didn't matter how good of a teacher or musician he was, I just didn't like him. But, I really liked Jeannette.

She was the one who named us - The Music Babes.

There was a reunion of the Music Babes yesterday at a place near Natalie's house. The three of us sat and had cocktails and chatted for almost three hours. They have grown both personally and professionally this past decade. It was so satisfying to sit and listen and laugh and remember all of our long hard days working together.

It was the best time of my professional life.