Episode 4 with Jeri Lynne Johnson: The Power of Grit

Jeri Lynne Johnson, the founder and artistic director of Philadelphia’s Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, continues to break barriers across the US and Europe as the first woman and/or the first African-American woman on the podium for many orchestras and opera companies. In our conversation about sustaining a creative life, she shares the challenges she’s overcome along her artistic journey, what keeps her going, and how to transform grit into grace.

Transcript

Tricia: [00:00:03] Hey there. I’m Tricia Rose Burt, and I want to ask you a question. What creative work are you called to do but are too afraid to try? Are you in IT but dream of doing stand up? A PR exec who longs to write a screenplay? Did you change your priorities and now you want to leave your fully funded PhD/MD program and go to New Mexico and paint? Or maybe you’re like I was in my early career, trapped in a lucrative, but soul crushing corporate job when what I really wanted to do was tell stories on stage. In this podcast, we’ll hear from artists who took unexpected leaps and found the courage to answer their creative call so we can inspire you to answer yours. This is no time to be timid. [00:00:50][47.3]

Tricia: [00:00:56] Welcome to the show. It’s our fourth episode this season, and so we’ve already identified several traits that come in handy if you want to sustain a more creative life. Amy Grant said it was connection. Shannon Cason said perspective. Perry Howard said exploration. And our guest today, Jeri Lynne Johnson, says the trait for her is grit. And she should know. Jeri is a black female conductor and in case you’re wondering, there’s not very many of them. Less than 10% of conductors around the world are women. In 2005, Jeri made history as the first black woman to receive an international conducting prize, the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship. And she’s been breaking barriers ever since as the first woman and often the first African-American woman on the podium for orchestras and opera companies across the United States and Europe. And it’s not always been an easy road. So we’ll be using both definitions of grit in this episode. The first one, that small, hard, sharp particle, like sand, that can irritate and cause all sorts of trouble. And the second one, strength of character, an unyielding courage that can transform a difficult experience into a beautiful gift. Among her many roles, Jeri is the founder and artistic director of the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra. And throughout this episode, you’ll hear excerpts from their performances of Haydn’s Symphony Number 44 in E minor and Beethoven Symphony Number five in C Minor. It’s a terrific show, and I’m so glad you can join us. [00:02:35][98.9]

Tricia: [00:02:41] Hey, Jeri. Thank you so much for joining me. [00:02:43][2.1]

Jeri: [00:02:44] It is my pleasure and honor to be on your show, Tricia. [00:02:47][3.3]

Tricia: [00:02:48] Thank you. Okay. So I have to tell you this. I’m sitting in the audience at the Kennedy Center Honors. I was there for my friend Amy. You were there for Tania Leon. And you walked on stage. And I had never seen a woman conductor before. I kind of got all choked up and I’m like, she’s not only a woman, she’s a black woman. This is unbelievable. I mean, I was like, are people looking at this? This is amazing. It was so moving. It was really something, which is why I went up to afterwards and introduced myself and was just like, Yay! [00:03:24][35.9]

Jeri: [00:03:25] Well, I’m so glad that you did it. And I have to say, your reaction is really gratifying and humbling to me. And I’ll tell you why. You know, I’m used to moms bringing their young girls up and kind of saying that and like, I want to see my daughter. But I think there’s something happening right now with with with women kind of, you know, who’ve who’ve had a life and a career, but looking at other women, kind of also doing things even, you know, I think things still happening at different times in their lives and that there’s always room for growth. And when you’re a creative person and that interesting things keep happening and that there are women of a variety of ages and stages from whom you can find inspiration, especially in the arts, where that creative, you know, I guess inspiration for, for lack of a better word, it just continues to flow and become richer and deeper as as we get older. And so I think for me, I was honored, you know, I’d grown up knowing about Tania Leon and her work. But there are so few African-American women in classical music who have that recognition as conductors and leaders like that. And so to have been tapped to lead her piece and not be able to tell her about it because, you know, they’re all surprises there at the Kennedy Center, like you’re seeing everybody at the parties, but they don’t know why you’re there. And so you just have to be like, hey, how you doing? Like, nothing special was happening. I don’t know anything at all. And then you get up there on stage and they’re completely surprised when they see you. So it was an honor for me to be there. [00:05:02][97.4]

Tricia: [00:05:03] I was just so struck as an artist, as a woman, about how important it was for me to have you up there. And so I’ve had the most fun learning about you, because really, I really am like, I need to know all about… I guess first I’m like, I just need to be in her orbit. I mean, courage is contagious. If you’re rubbing up next to people who are doing courageous things. [00:05:25][22.4]

Jeri: [00:05:26] That’s absolutely true. [00:05:27][0.7]

Tricia: [00:05:27] Yeah. And so I just sort of like have a radar for people who are like, I need to follow her and see what she’s up to. And I’m always very fascinated with those of us who step out of what we were supposed to do. And in one of your interviews, you said someone ask you, why are you doing that? Black people don’t do that. [00:05:50][22.9]

Jeri: [00:05:50] When people are comfortable with ideas and systems and in, you know, status and, you know, relationships as they are, anyone who changes that or goes outside of that, it creates change in the system and people get uncomfortable with change. Even change makers are uncomfortable with the change, but I think they’re more comfortable with being uncomfortable than other people. And that’s important to be comfortable with the discomfort. [00:06:18][27.4]

Tricia: [00:06:19] Absolutely. [00:06:19][0.0]

Jeri: [00:06:20] That’s part of the creative process. And so I think there was from people inside my own family kind of like, wow, what are you doing? Like, black people don’t really do that. That’s kind of weird. And other people just not expecting me to to be there for the purposes that I was there for. People looking at my white male colleagues, asking them questions when they have to turn to me and say, “Actually she’s the conductor. She’s in, you know, in charge.” [00:06:42][21.7]

Tricia: [00:06:43] Over there. [00:06:43][0.2]

Jeri: [00:06:44] As as I’ve gotten older and wiser is is learning to find grace in those moments where there’s a some assumptions or some biases playing out and giving people the space to grow. [00:06:58][13.7]

Tricia: [00:06:59] You have this wonderful quote said, It just didn’t occur to me, I love this, it just didn’t occur to me that just because I didn’t see people that looked like me, that this isn’t something I should be interested in or that I should be doing. I just love it — just didn’t even cross my radar screen. Like I’m just moving forward and doing this. [00:07:17][18.6]

Jeri: [00:07:18] It really didn’t. And, you know, my family has moved a lot with my dad’s job over the years. He was a old AT&T executive and then they broke up into the Baby Bell system. For those of your listeners who may be old enough to remember when AT&T was the phone company. And so we kind of moved all over the place for for his job. And so I think part of that peripatetic lifestyle led to sort of me having to reframe what’s normal for me on the basis of, you know, kind of local realities or or to keep something constant by kind of keeping the focus on, but what I needed and what I felt and what I was interested in. And so music was the one thing that I could take with me wherever I went. [00:08:01][42.4]

Tricia: [00:08:01] Isn’t that interesting? [00:08:02][1.3]

Jeri: [00:08:03] Yeah, it was something that was deeply personal, that no matter where I was, it would always be with me. And so I think just by the nature of us moving a lot, it kind of gave me this insulation from other people’s perceptions or expectations. [00:08:16][12.7]

Tricia: [00:08:17] I love how music was just the thread that sort of held it all together. give me a little bit of your history. I know you started playing the piano. What at t four? At four. By ear, you started it by ear. And then a little bit of your origin story around I want to do that. I want to be that the conductor. [00:08:34][16.6]

Jeri: [00:08:35] I just I had it in me all the time. And my parents, you know, listen to all kinds of music, whether it was jazz and pop, you know, disco at the time and, you know, all kinds of stuff. And so and classical, of course, I heard all kinds of things, and we were blessed to have a wide circle of friends who also were into arts and culture. And so it was a group of one of my parents friends who took me to my first orchestra concert when I was seven. And I just I was hooked. I just I loved the music, but I didn’t see a piano on the stage. And that was that was my instrument. And so I kind of reasoned if I wanted to make that music that I saw up on the stage, I was going to have to do what I saw that man with the stick doing and that was, you know, be a conductor. And that was that was really it. I mean, it’s been a pretty constant dream of mine, you know, throughout my whole life. And it it guided my steps in education and what I wanted to do. [00:09:30][55.2]

Tricia: [00:09:30] And yeah, I read one interview and I loved this line so much. It was in the article and cultural Attache and you’re talking with Jennifer Higdon, who’s also a composer. And you said we were talking, I was lamenting when I was younger, like, Oh, this is never going to work. I should just give up and become a buyer for Neiman Marcus or something. [00:09:53][23.0]

Jeri: [00:09:55] Yeah, I like clothes. [00:09:56][0.7]

Tricia: [00:09:58] Talk a little bit about those moments. Did it ever feel too hard? [00:10:02][3.7]

Jeri: [00:10:02] Oh, you know, it it always feels too hard. It always feels too hard for a variety of reasons. And I always peg it down now that I’m older. It’s just exhaustion in the moment. Like, yeah, it’s not that this is too hard. It’s that I got a little bit too much going on right now. Yeah, but at that time, I think most artists who end up being successful go through a period where, you know, if you don’t have instant success, like you’re not discovered like, or coming out of conservatory and you just, you know, the establishment just kind of picks you as like a soloist star to just go around and you’ve already had a 20-year career by the time you’re 30 kind of thing, you know, you’re not a child prodigy. You know, it takes time to to find success and make your way as an artist and I was just exhausted, I think, being younger at seeing people who were decent at what they did, getting opportunities when nobody would give me the time of day, you know, people that I had been to workshops with and or Aspen Music Festival or other places with and getting all these opportunities. And here I am still struggling to find a way to get in front of an orchestra or, you know, get anyone to pay attention to me in front of my own orchestra. And I just didn’t know what to do. And she gave me such great advice. It’s been borne out by the fact that I’m sitting here talking to you for this podcast right now, and she says, You know, when you’re an artist, you know, success is is a war of attrition. A lot of times it’s whoever lasts the longest wins. Yeah. And so, you know, I, I think about that survival as an artist. And what does that mean and how do you do that? And you know, the other line that kind of comes to mind is that scene in The Matrix where, you know, the Architect is telling Neo, you know, there are levels of existence we’re prepared to accept. There are levels of creativity we’re prepared to accept. Like sometimes you have to take a job in order to support your ability to be creative, even though it’s not the greatest job, but it still gives you what you need to survive and to nurture that spark until it can finally ignite into a flame and you can really just be an artist. [00:12:12][129.9]

Tricia: [00:12:14] Yeah. And then and it everybody does it differently, too. I mean, I know I’ve had jobs just to keep the revenue gun from my head so I could go make what I wanted to make. Yeah. And there are other people who are really happy just a balance of a job that they enjoy and then a component of their life that’s very creative that feeds whatever their job is. You know, they may be a little bit more balanced than you or me, but, you know, but it’s just what success means to you around your creativity, you know? Is it something that you want to do every moment of your life and make it a livelihood? Is it something that you’re okay if it’s, you know, not everything that you’re living for every day when you wake up? [00:12:59][45.3]

Jeri: [00:12:59] And I think it’s important for caregivers in particular, whether it’s caregivers of children or, you know, when you’re in that sandwich generation of of elderly relations, is that that definition of success changes. And that’s okay to give yourself permission to let that balance, you know, kind of go on a sliding scale of, okay, I’m more artist than mom, I’m more mom than artist right now. And those yes, those things shift. And so it doesn’t have to be sort of an either or calculation that you make. It can be a both/and and then how how you kind of mix and match that can really ebb and flow. [00:13:35][35.6]

Tricia: [00:13:35] You know, there are seasons, I think, that we have to pay attention to. [00:13:38][2.9]

Jeri: [00:13:39] Absolutely. [00:13:39][0.0]

Tricia: [00:14:19] Talk a little bit about your impetus for starting your orchestra, the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra. [00:14:27][7.2]

Jeri: [00:14:28] Yeah, that was a big moment in my life. I was really excited, too. So, you know, the first woman conductor that I had been able to work with and study with was her name is Marin Alsop. She was formerly music director of the Baltimore Symphony, and she just got the Vienna Radio Orchestra over in Europe. Just an amazing woman. She had been a mentee of Leonard Bernstein and had really kind of broken the glass ceiling for a lot of the younger generation of women conductors. And so I had won her fellowship for women conductors that year, for younger women conductors to kind of, you know, because she had struggled as well and to kind of if she could use her position to help get more exposure and opportunities for that next generation and hopefully make it easier for them. That’s what the fellowship was designed to do. So I had a great time. I was I was all over the world in England and in Germany and California and Colorado doing this and learning the business, you know, from her and with all these wonderful orchestras and really thinking, okay, this is yet another great thing to add to my resumé. I’ve done all these different kind of jobs from youth orchestras to, you know, community orchestras, professional orchestras all around the world and operas and, you know, musicals, all kinds of things. And I’m thinking, okay, I’ve got a great resumé. And so when I start going back out onto the job circuit, I should really be able to land a spot somewhere. And I made it to the top three finalists for a number of orchestras and didn’t get the job. You know, between orchestra and conductors, finding that right match is a little bit like dating. It’s not so much that these aren’t all great orchestras or these are all aren’t great conductors. It’s who’s the right match and how do you all get together. So it’s it’s a dating game a little bit. Yeah. You know, I didn’t get the job in a few places. And what was nice is that one orchestra offered feedback to the two conductors who were not offered the position. And we rarely get that kind of opportunity for feedback. So I contacted the gentleman who was the chairman of the search committee, and we had a lovely conversation, and he told me that the orchestra had nothing but positive things to say about me and how wonderful that was. And he said they just didn’t know how to market me. You know, I asked him, you know, pretty naively at the time, you know, what did he mean by that? And he said, Well, you just don’t look like what our audience expects the maestro to look like. And so then I understood what he meant by that. And I was really upset by that. And I don’t mean like I cried about it. I mean, I was ready to just burn down the world when I heard that. I mean, I just there’s really no other way to say it. I mean, you know, you think about that Langston Hughes poem about rage and does it explode and that kind of thing. And you know, what happens to a dream deferred? And that was how I felt. I mean, I’ve worked this hard. I’ve got great connections. I’ve done all the right things. I played the game the way everybody says you’re supposed to play. And I played it by the rules. I’ve done everything that everybody says you’re supposed to and no matter how good I am or no matter what I do, you’re just never going to give me a job because I’m a black woman. Yeah. So I was furious because I had great advice from, you know, my parents who’ve experienced this themselves, who are very high achieving and always in places where people don’t think they should be — first black member of this club or, you know, those kinds of things — and so I, I began once I could kind of, you know, think straight and the rage sort of subsided, I began to just really think about what I was going to do about this. And so I tell young people all the time that, you know, rage can be a very, very powerful creative force. If you use it properly. It can be very destructive if you don’t use it properly. But if you do use it privately, if you can harness that energy, it can help you create real momentum and change and inspiration. And that’s what I did. As I basically used that rage about what I had heard to create change in classical music and create an orchestra led by me that would really embrace all kinds of people and dispel these ideas about who belongs to what and what belongs to whom and who can do what and who’s not allowed to do anything and who are these gatekeepers anyway? And why do you get to tell me what to do? And, you know, just challenging all of these ideas about, you know, insiders, outsiders, us versus them and power and race and culture and gender in America. And so Black Pearl, I’ve said this many times, it’s an orchestra. We perform Mozart and Jessie Montgomery and all kinds of great composers, Beethoven and stuff like that. But but also the performances in the audiences minds when they see us, when they hear us, when they don’t expect to hear the most amazing French horn playing coming out of this African-American gentleman’s French horn or, you know, what did they expect? If they were to close their eyes, which many people have heard our recordings, like, wow, is that, you know, this and this orchestra? Like, no, that’s my orchestra. And people are genuinely shocked at how amazingly good they sound. And so it challenges people’s assumptions without saying a word. It’s just us being there, doing what we do, is a statement in itself. [00:19:58][330.5]

Tricia: [00:20:19] What I love the most in all of this is you’re like. Okay. If you say no to me, I’m just going to start it myself. I’m just going to do it myself. And that works for you and really, every artist that gets said no to for whatever those reasons are, is then I’m going to go create a platform for myself. I’m going to create those opportunities for me and for other people that I want to bring with me and not wait for someone to say you’re picked. I mean, I remember a couple of years ago in my studio going, I am so tired of waiting for someone to pick me. [00:20:56][37.2]

Jeri: [00:20:57] Right. [00:20:57][0.0]

Tricia: [00:20:58] I don’t want to wait for anyone to pick me anymore. You know, and it was a real game changing mindset to go… [00:21:06][7.6]

Jeri: [00:21:06] It’s a complete paradigm shift when you stop waiting for other people to pick you for things. [00:21:09][3.4]

Tricia: [00:21:10] Yeah. You know, I felt like I’m waiting to be picked for the volleyball team and I’m in the fifth grade and all of that stuff is coming. It’s like, wait a second… [00:21:18][7.9]

Jeri: [00:21:19] Volleyball trauma is coming back. [00:21:21][1.3]

Tricia: [00:21:21] Volleyball trauma’s coming back. I’m like, I’m a grown woman. I have agency. I’m going to do this, you know? Yeah. We have to remember that. And you’re such a great example of Don’t say no to me. I’m going to go take this and I’m going to create this thing over here that’s even more powerful. [00:21:37][15.6]

Jeri: [00:21:37] Well, that word that you used is it’s it’s probably become one of my most favorite words of, you know, ever since I started Black Pearl and the idea of agency. And for me, I think that’s why art and creativity are so fundamental, not only to our individual ability to engage in self-expression, but I think it’s also fundamental to democracy, because, you know, the ability to imagine and act and create is, you know, a fundamental human right. And I think without the ability to practice agency through art or through creativity, which then allows you to go out and have agency in other ways because you’re now accustomed to thinking about what you want and acting on that and achieving it, I think we lose something fundamental to democracy if we don’t support creativity. [00:22:32][55.0]

Tricia: [00:22:47] We’ll get back to the second half of our conversation in a moment, but right now, I want to tell you about our sponsor Interbang Books, a Dallas-based independent bookstore with a terrific online collection and entire being their dedicated staff of book enthusiasts will guide you on your search for knowledge and the excitement of discovery. Shop their curated collection online at interabangbooks.com. That’s interabangbooks.com. [00:23:17][30.8]

Tricia: [00:23:34] There’s a quote that I’ve read from your interview on MSNBC. “I decided I’m going to fix this problem in classical music that we have in which power is male dominated and authenticity can apparently only be in European bodies for this art form. It’s like we have this piece of grit. How do you create something beautiful out of that awfulness that makes it somehow better and more valuable for other people?” I love this idea of turning a piece of grit into something wonderful. [00:24:03][29.1]

Jeri: [00:24:05] Yeah. [00:24:05][0.0]

Tricia: [00:24:06] You know, and I think that grit can show up in all kinds of different forms. And instead of being knocked over by it, look at it and go, How do I turn this into something better? [00:24:18][12.8]

Jeri: [00:24:19] I think the ability to transform grit into grace is probably one of the greatest gifts that artists can give to humanity. I think some people call it magic. I think, you know, there’s lots of names for it, but that ability to change and grow and evolve and to direct that into something more beautiful and better and beneficial for everyone, I think is so important. And you see that ability not just in the arts, but I think in people who can take, you know, just the most horrible personal tragedies and create like a foundation like, you know, you think of, you know, the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims and the foundations that they’ve set up to create better, healthier school environments and all those kinds of things. And, you know, just all kinds of things like that, that the traumas that individuals go through and the courage that they have to both grieve and create something useful and beneficial out of that. I marvel at those stories every time I hear them, because, you know, I mean, what I went through and it was painful to me, but not traumatic on the level of a loss of a loved one or something like that and yet you see these people all the time being able to create some really amazing work out of it. Yeah. When you talk to people about their work and why they do it, I think that’s for me is what I find so inspirational and what I hope, you know, my daughter or any of the young artists that I work with that they can begin to learn to do is transform something painful into something better that makes them stronger and makes, you know, other people more hopeful. [00:26:16][117.0]

Tricia: [00:26:17] Yeah, because I think anything that can give us all hope is really so important. And, you know, in my manifesto that we wrote for No Time to be Timid, one of the lines is creativity is not a frivolous pursuit. And it’s not. I mean, it’s essential. It’s so for just the reasons why you’re talking, Right. That’s where the new growth comes from. You know, it’s where new anything comes from. [00:26:46][29.3]

Jeri: [00:26:47] Yeah. [00:26:47][0.0]

Tricia: [00:26:47] Lots of us were raised where creativity was almost an inferior skill. Like it was let’s be logical, let’s be, let’s do math, let’s do all these practical things and these other things like intuition and creativity and more of the softer skills, if you want to call them were not given the same kind of importance. Right. And they are as important, you know, if not sometimes more important with my biased opinion, just to keep us all going and moving forward. [00:27:16][29.2]

Jeri: [00:27:17] I could not agree more. And I think now people are beginning to really understand, you know, they have the STEM programs, but they you know, now they call them STEAM where the A is is for arts and they include that. But to your point about that understanding of the role of creativity. And so I think there should be the distinction between artistic and creative. People may not be artists in terms of painters or poets or dancers, but they can still be creative. I mean, I think, yes, when you look at what it takes to design an electric car, when you think about what it takes to be able to do the mathematics to, you know, predict black holes, you know, these kind of things require a great deal of creativity. [00:27:54][36.8]

Tricia: [00:28:14] I mean, this is me not knowing enough about the world of being a conductor, that you can’t practice what you do unless you have 80 people in a room. Yeah, I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s crazy. You know, you can’t just be on your own, as you said, practicing to a mirror. You have to be working with the individuals that are there. Right. I also loved your explanation around conducting is that for you, your instrument is the orchestra. You’re playing all of the instruments at one time. Yeah. Because, you know, I watch a conductor and go, I’m sure they’re doing something important. I’m not entirely sure what it is. Right. And so to hear that you were playing all of the instruments was like, Well, that makes total sense. That’s what that’s about. [00:28:58][44.0]

Jeri: [00:28:58] I’m not playing the instruments. I’m playing the people who are playing the instruments. I do corporate talks a lot of the times. And so there’s always, you know, when companies bring me in to talk to their kind of middle management people that are on their way to becoming executives. It’s that switch in mentality of what your role as a leader now is, because especially when you have tech firms or engineering firms where people are used to, you know, working with their hands or dealing with objects and manipulating objects and then having to go to now managing people. So you’re not into the nitty gritty anymore and you’re not responsible for an object, you’re now responsible for people. And that requires a different way of engaging in aligning people around things. And it requires a lot of those quote unquote, soft skills because again, unlike plastic, people have feelings and they’re motivated or demotivated by certain things. It’s a completely different mindset. And that isn’t something that you can practice in a mirror, of course. There’s all the things that I do to prepare for being with an auction advance, like studying the music, but every time you step in front of a new orchestra, they’ve probably done Beethoven five a billion times. You’ve done it, you know, seven or eight times yourself. But when you, the orchestra, and you, the conductor, get together for the first time, it’s a completely new experience. And so there’s always a little bit of learning not about the music but about the relationship. [00:30:21][82.6]

Tricia: [00:30:22] What do you do to keep yourself, you know, in a state of readiness? How do you keep your skills sharp if you, if it requires you having 80 people in a room which you can’t have all the time? Like what do you do to sustain what you do? [00:30:36][14.3]

Jeri: [00:30:37] Sure. I make sure that my day does not have meetings in it. I try to really stack my day so that I have lots of empty days for like, like, you know, it’s seven or 8 hours at a clip, and then I’ll have specific days in the week where I take meetings and do things that require me to interact with people. Because for me, what I have found is that my creativity works best when it’s got an open field in front of it and my time is not bounded because then all I can think about is what I have to do coming up and then working to that deadline that’s artificial and not just allowing myself to be in the moment, to be with the music, to allow these connections to occur, just to kind of follow a connection that I’m interested in. I have to give my mind room and space and time to play. My my first creative habit is that I’m very structured with my time, so I’m kind of boring. I can’t be spontaneous. [00:31:35][58.0]

Tricia: [00:31:36] Yeah, well, there is you know, there’s this rumor that artists just like, Oh, we do our own thing. It’s like, if I don’t structure my time, nothing’s getting done. Yeah, nothing’s getting done. [00:31:43][7.1]

Jeri: [00:31:43] Yeah. And I think part of that comes from knowing your muses. Knowing how your muses speak to you and what they require of you. And my muses require a great width of time for me to just be able to be in the moment and focus. And also knowing how my mind works. I love to say that I can multitask very well and there are some things I can multitask. But when I’m in the creative mode and doing all these things, I get a little bit of tunnel vision in that and then I start dreaming about it all the time and it’s just running through my head when I’m washing dishes or driving the car and all these kinds of things that my daughter says “can we start listening to this opera? Mommy can I listen to some rock and roll?” Oh, I’m sorry. We’re still… [00:32:23][39.9]

Jeri: [00:32:26] Like everyone’s now, you know, in the world. But it becomes something that you eat and breathe all the time, and it just becomes how you function. And then I have to say, one of the things that I find difficult and I don’t know if this is common to performing artists, but you know, opera is, you know, people come to the opera and you see us at night, but we’ve actually been working on that opera for a month and a half. Yeah. And actually longer than that, because we’ve been meeting about it before we actually come together in production. And so we’ve been living and breathing this for, you know, six months to a year. And so by the time you get to the performance and you’re with all these people in you’re just all this energy and engaging when it’s over and you have to kind of reenter the real world, that’s a real transition back to paying bills and cooking dinner every night. And, you know, I gotta do laundry, like, oh, like, you know, all of these things. And so I think being able to exist in a lot of different worlds, like you said, the discipline that requires, but also the acknowledgment of giving yourself the grace and space to have time to make those transitions into and out of those worlds. This is something that I’ve I’ve had to learn about myself, you know, as my career has developed and these patterns begin to emerge of, you know, creative spells and then like, oh, I don’t want to look at another piece, I don’t want to talk. And then, you know, you get all excited and it starts up all over again and then you get tired again. And so that’s part of it. [00:33:50][84.0]

Tricia: [00:33:50] So how do you keep your creative well filled out? [00:33:53][2.2]

Jeri: [00:33:54] Oh, gosh, I keep the well filled up by by being so grateful to be a mom and to mother. I travel a lot to guest conduct other places. And, you know, when you’re gone and you’re working hard and great colleagues and making great friends in the process. But the emptiness of walking off the stage of all that adulation and all the congratulations and having the dinner with the donors and everything and going back to your empty hotel room, if that was all I had in my life, it would be — no matter how successful I would be as a conductor — that would be the most depressing thing to go from city to city or country to country, and just having an empty hotel room and like nothing else in my life to balance this out with. And so having my daughter is what makes all of this worthwhile. Being able to put all of that wonderfulness of the podium aside and be a mom makes me enjoy being a mom so much more. And then when I’m a mom like, oof, I’m really, oh God, I’m sick of doing laundry. Like it’s time for me to go back out, you know, and to be able to balance that. And then sometimes she comes with me. But I think it’s having both both of those loves in my life together. They enhance each other. It’s hard to to balance them. And you have to do a lot of juggling and being really structured with your time. But being one with like I couldn’t imagine being a mom and not also being a conductor. I think I would be a terrible mom. I would be miserable and depressed and unhappy. And so for me, I need both of them. I need both of them. [00:35:24][90.4]

Tricia: [00:35:25] Yeah. I think a lot of us do, you know. And I mean, I’m a much better wife because I’m an artist. Right? [00:35:32][7.1]

Jeri: [00:35:32] Exactly. [00:35:32][0.0]

Tricia: [00:35:34] There’s just no question there. You know, because I think that we all need something that’s ours. It’s selfish in the best sense of the word. Yeah. [00:35:45][11.5]

Jeri: [00:35:46] It’s self-preservation in every way. [00:35:48][2.7]

Tricia: [00:35:49] Yes, it’s self-preservation. [00:35:50][0.6]

Jeri: [00:35:51] I completely get it. [00:35:51][0.9]

Tricia: [00:36:30] I want you to explain a little bit about this. You said the ultimate aim of Black Pearl is to take the entire community beyond spectatorship to participation in the artistic experience. What does that look like? [00:36:43][13.5]

Jeri: [00:36:44] I think our ultimate goal is kind of what your podcast is about. It’s about creativity. It’s about transforming the idea that we as individual artists or arts institutions are kind of gatekeepers of an artistic product. Like when you go to the museum, you have to go there because that’s where all the art is. You just can’t find Van Gogh out on the street. You know, you’ve got to go to the museum because that’s where the Van Gogh is. But there’s a gatekeeping sort of aspect to that. And I think that that mentality holds for whatever art form it is. You have to go to whatever Center for the Performing Arts to see the ballet, because that’s where it is. And so as a result, people kind of compartmentalize that creativity or that experience in a particular location without being able to extrapolate that those experiences are possible for them outside of that building. Yeah. And so for me, what we want to do is transform the idea from artistic organizations or artists being gatekeepers to being facilitators of the creative process. In other words, yes, we are the subject matter experts, but part of our job is to encourage agency. One of my favorite programs that that we we do is called I Conduct. And again, that that kind of goes back to that conversation with the that the chairperson of the orchestra, who said, you know, you don’t look like what our audience expects the maestro to look like. And so for me, when I started, I Conduct it was I’m going to make everybody look like a maestro, I’m going to teach everybody to conduct it. And so we would just put batons in people’s hands and I would give them a conducting lesson right there with the orchestra out in public. And people really loved it. We’ve had people come up in like walkers. We had one gentleman come up who actually was an amputee and had one leg and was on, you know, his crutches. And, you know, we’ve had all we’ve had a blind individual come up and conduct. And so I think they’re excited about the idea of conducting, because I think they have the stereotype in their mind of, like conductors are these domineering kind of bullies who are just screaming at the orchestra, and the orchestra is just cowering in fear and awe and just doing whatever the conductors are telling them to do, you know? But you have to think about like that Stokowski cartoon with, you know, Bugs Bunny just, you know, with this crazy wig on and just being mean. I think that’s what people really think it’s like. And it, you know, honestly it used to be like tha. It’s not that far off. [00:39:08][144.6]

Jeri: [00:39:09] It’s not so much like that anymore. But I think, you know, people still have that fantasy in their head that, you know, this is the one time in my life I get to be the big boss and everybody has to do what I say. And then when we show them about conducting, I think something really magical happens, you know, because I tell the orchestra, don’t play beautifully for our guests when they come up. So they are not allowed to sound wonderful unless someone is really conducting and it is looking wonderful. But their instruction is to absolutely follow the person in front of them. And what you see happening over time is that eventually people get their hands and everything together because they understand, Oh, what I’m doing matters. And so that immediate feedback loop, they begin to now govern their emotions in such a way that the music then feels better. And so when we do that with, you know, with our program with kids, we do that over a 12-week period with them and you can see that the light is just beginning to turn on that they’re learning in real time the lesson that what I put out into the universe is what I get back. Yeah. And so how do I present what I want from them? How do I present respect? How do I present intelligence and kindness and, you know, all these different kinds of things to get back what I want out of the world? And that is agency. It’s agency. [00:40:33][84.0]

Tricia: [00:40:33] Yeah. I can just think of so many people that need to go to that program. [00:40:36][2.8]

Jeri: [00:40:37] Oh, you know, we’ll do it. [00:40:38][1.1]

Tricia: [00:40:38] I was watching the video clip of you and I loved the instruction you gave, like gravity falling. I just loved the language you were using to communicate this to the orchestra. [00:40:50][11.8]

Jeri: [00:40:51] You know, in the performative arts, for sure, it’s very different than in the visual arts. But you know, what I find fascinating is how you can have a two dimensional art form that then projects as three dimensional through painting techniques or through whatever the visual techniques are. And I think our version of that in music is how do you make music sound alive? It’s just a series of sounds, but how do you imitate life? And that is by having…Imagine that music is an object in three dimensional space and how would that object move? Like when you throw a ball up into the air, it doesn’t fall slowly the farther it falls. It gets faste the farther it falls. And so how do you imitate, like the laws of physics in sound, essentially. And so I always am talking to my musicians about that. [00:41:32][40.6]

Tricia: [00:41:32] It was such a visual component anyway, which was fascinating, to kind of see, those two things overlap. Now I’m going to ask you about where you are with your dream that you said you really want to be the first black woman to have a set of Beethoven’s nine symphonies recorded. How are you in that dream? [00:41:49][17.1]

Jeri: [00:41:50] You know, I just I would love to find a really great sponsor to underwrite that project for me. [00:41:56][6.6]

Tricia: [00:41:57] I’m familiar with that. [00:41:58][0.9]

Jeri: [00:41:58] That dream is is still there, but I’m living my dream. I had one of my best friends. He says, You know, you can take your foot off the gas. He said this to me a few weeks ago, You can take your foot off the gas. I’m like, What are you talking about? He’s like, The whole thing is like, What are you going to be when you grow up? I want to be a conductor. Well, I got news for you. You’re a conductor. You can take your foot off the gas like it’s happening. You can just live. And I was like, mind blown. He’s right. Yes, I’m finally an actual grown up. Every time I get in front of an orchestra, every time I’m at an opera rehearsal, I’m so blessed. I’m so happy, I’m so excited and so grateful that I had all the support that I did from any number of places, not just my parents, but little notes of encouragement from friends and from family and from strangers and from audience members and people in the industry. Just little bits here and there. It was enough to keep me going so that I could, you know, win that war of attrition. Yeah. [00:42:58][60.3]

Tricia: [00:42:59] I’m so delighted, Jeri, that you took the time to be on the show. I really am so tickled. We’ll be looking for the donor that comes and underwrites your nine Beethoven symphonies. But in the meantime, we’re just going to be just cheering you on. And thank you for all the good work you’re doing. [00:43:13][14.2]

Jeri: [00:43:13] Well, you are so, so gracious for for having me on here. And all your guests are so wonderful. I’m just honored to be in their company as well. Thank you. [00:43:22][8.5]

Tricia: [00:43:22] Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. I’m so glad I introduced myself to Jeri when I had the chance. Then four months later, screwed up my courage again and asked her to be on the show. Listen, if there’s somebody you want to talk to, go do it. Most people are delighted to connect. Jeri’s amazing, filled with grit and even more grace. And like all of my guests, she gave me some things to think about. First, is there something you’re not doing because you’ve been told people in your community don’t do that sort of thing? Second, are you waiting to be picked or can you make your own magic? And third, is there any grit in your life that you can transform into grace? Follow both Jeri and the Black Pearl Orchestra on Instagram. Make sure to go to Jeri website jerilynnejohnson.com to explore her work, as well as the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra at blackpearlco.org to learn more about them. And check out our shownotes, we’ve got links to their performances so you can hear their beautiful music. If you haven’t had a chance to download the No Time to be Timid manifesto yet, make sure to visit my website triciaroseburt.com. While you’re there, please reach out and give us some feedback about the show. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Join us for episode five when we talk to Nancy Perot, owner of the independent bookstore, Interabang, our sponsor. Nancy dreamed of owning a bookstore for nearly 25 years, and after just two years of operation, it was wiped out by a tornado. And that was just the beginning. The bookstore in Nancy has survived events that would make the rest of us take to our beds. And despite it all, it was just named one of the top five bookstores in the country by Publishers Weekly. It’s an incredible story of resilience you won’t want to miss. No Time to Be Timid is written and produced by me, Tricia Rose Burt. Our episodes are produced and scored by Adam Arnone of Echo Finch, and our theme music is Twists and Turns by the Paul Dunlea Group. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the show, spread the word, and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. No Time to be Timid is a presentation of I Will Be Good Productions. [00:43:22]