French horn player Rachel Childers recently won the second horn chair on the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). She will be the first woman ever in the brass section of the BSO. The Daily's own PanharithChhum had a chance to sit and talk to Childers about her musical background, new position and upcoming season.
PanharithChhum: Would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself — how you grew up in terms of music?
Rachel Childers: I grew up outside of Detroit, Mich., in Farmington Hills suburbs. My family, my parents are not professional musicians; they're both amateurs. They sing in a choir, and my dad plays piano. In my extended family, I have a cousin who plays viola… and her parents are both pianists. So I had musical people working professionally in the extended part of my family, but not in my immediate family.
PC: How is this period in terms of the transition between BSO music director James Levine to the assistant conductor, Sean Newhouse?
RC: Actually I know Sean. I played for him in L.A. He conducted — it was called the Debut Orchestra — it was really like college-age students in L.A. In Denver, I had a similar situation: Their music director had left the year before last, and so we ended up playing a whole year under guest conductors which is, I think, pretty cool. It's the same group of musicians, but you get different leadership each time and you get… to see how different the orchestra can sound under different people.
PC: Was it drastic?
RC: For some, it is. It depends on the effect the conductor has on the orchestra because… the orchestra somehow collectively decides as a whole to just retreat back to our own instincts. So the orchestra kind of narrows itself down under a guest conductor, but sometimes the guest conductor is really good and inspires musicians, and then it ends up sounding totally different.
PC: How was the audition process? I hear it's quite arduous.
RC: Yeah, it was. I had to first send a CD of about five or six excerpts. I had to record and send it a couple months in advance of the audition. I think I sent my resume first and… then I sent a CD and I got invited to the audition. The audition was over two days, and the first day was preliminary — so everyone who had been invited gets to play their five minutes on stage, and at the end of the day they take a vote. I got moved on to the next round. Then the next day there was a semi-final round, and a final round, and a round beyond that playing with the section!
PC: So let's talk about the 2011-2012 season. How do you feel about this program as a whole?
RC: Well, I'm excited. One of the cool things about having a season of guest conductors is you end up doing a really good rep. You know, all the big guns, like [Gustav] Mahler, [PyotrIlyich] Tchaikovsky, [Jean] Sibelius.
PC: So, who are some of your favorite composers?
RC: OK. Well, I'm a horn player so I like [Richard] Strauss. I really like his chamber music and also his two horn concertos. They're pretty great. And the tone poem. We're doing [Ein] Heldenleben this year, which is exciting. I've never actually played it — I've only worked on it and heard it many times.
PC: So what's on your iPod that's non-classical? This information will be published!
RC: [Laughs] Well, I have a lot of jazz and big band and a lot of Latin jazz. I love jazz — I don't understand it all. I like listening to it because I can have it on and it doesn't take all my brainpower listening to it because I'm not also analyzing it, so it's a nice break. And I like Beck and Mötley [Crüe].
PC: If you were a musical chord, what would you be?
RC: Well I'm a horn player, so probably a major triad. It's not really that interesting, but when I was at the Colburn School — I did my artist diploma there, which is a post-grad degree — I started, and I was at least four years out of ear-training class. We had to do an ear-training test for my grad school. The teachers played an interval. No hesitation: "That was a major triad." They kind of look at each other: "OK. Listen again." I was sure that was a major triad. "What am I missing?" They played it a third time and that was all I was hearing. So they go, "What instrument do you play?" I was like, "French horn," and they go, "OK, that makes a lot of sense." They're like, "We were just playing a perfect fifth, and you were hearing the resulting tone. You're so used to hearing it." It was highly embarrassing!
