March 28, 2024 • 51 mins
This week Scott is joined by Assistant Principal Cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Yumi Kendall. They discuss classical music's role in human flourishing and human transcendence, how life changes once you're a mother, and the sublime coincidence of Yumi occupying the same chair as Scott's grandfather in the Philadelphia Orchestra.
2:01-The Suzuki Method
7:53-What Is A Waldorf Education?
12:19-Yumi's Crystalizing Experience With The Cello
15:59-What Does Talent Mean?
25:33-What Are The Characteristics Of A Creative Musician?
32:28-What Are Tiers Of Transcendence?
40:32-The Importance of Self Compassion
42:12-How Can We Cultivate Healthy Organizations?
48:59-How Motherhood Has Enriched Yumi's Life
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Play is learning, playing with each other, learning how to
balance on blocks, building things, watching it crash over because wow,
it was so hot. These are all how we learn.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
On this episode of the Psychology Podcast, I had a
delightful chat with Umi Kendall, Assistant Principal Cellist of the
Philadelphia Orchestra. Umi began studying cello at the age of five,
following the Suzuki method, and at age sixteen, she made
her solo debut at the Kennedy Center with the National
Symphony Orchestra. Umi is a very multifaceted, thoughtful, and creative human.
(00:42):
In this episode, we discussed her experiences in Waldorf education,
classical music's role in human flourishing and creating a feeling
of all and transcendence, and her interests surrounding organizational flourishing.
More generally, we also discuss her life changing experience as
a mom and the development of her talent over the years.
You and I have something very special in common that
(01:03):
I want to share it with you all. Both of
our grandfathers are the reasonably learned how to play the cello,
and in fact, her chair in the Philadelphia Orchestra is
the same exact chair my grandfather Harry Gourdett's are occupied
in the Philadelphia Orchestra for fifty years before her. So you,
me and I clearly have this very special bond, and
(01:25):
I'm so excited to shine the spotlight on her today.
So without further ado, I bring you Umi Kendall.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
You me.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
How old the heck are you.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
It's great to be with you. Thank you so much
for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Great to reconnect. We are going to talk everything good
and beautiful today.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
That sounds like a plan. I still remember that first
day at the Positive Psychology Center for me and realizing
that your grandfather was a connection that was amazing.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, there's an interesting connection there in multiple levels. One level,
you currently hold the chair in the philip Orchestra that
my grandfather held for fifty years. He's the last one
that was hired by Stakovsky and Normandy together. They were
in the same room together. So Stakovski's last audition, Wow.
(02:23):
And then he was in Fantasia the movie, the original Fantasie. Wow.
He was a graduate of Curtis and yeah, I went
through uh, Eugene Normandy and then Ricardo Mouti, who was
a good friend of the family. And yeah, so anyway,
So there's that amazing connection you currently hold you, I mean,
(02:43):
you hold that chair, you're carrying on the torch in
a beautiful, beautiful way, and then you're carrying on the
torch bogo. And then secondly, it turns out, as I'm
reading deeper into your work, that that well, both of
our grandfathers are the reason why we both play cello.
I play. I play cello too, not to the extent
you do, but both of our grandfathers are responsible. So
(03:04):
can you tell me a little bit about your grandfather
and how he influenced you, because I guess there's multiple
grandfather levels here.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
It's amazing to have those family connections, both between us
of course and within my own family. And of course
we can't help who we're born to, so it's just
good luck on my end that I feel this way.
My American grandfather, John Kendall, is largely credited with introducing
(03:32):
the Suzuki method of music education to the Americas back
in the nineteen sixties, and he yeah, of course, my
Japanese grandfather had no idea about classical music in Japan,
like in the rice fields and no electricity until I
think I was twelve or thirteen, and it was no
(03:53):
running water until I was until we were visiting. So
really beautiful contrasts and in life in our family backgrounds. Grandfather,
American grandfather John Kendall was always a violin pedagogue and
saw a video of several hundred violinists all playing Japanese violinists,
(04:17):
little ones to teenagers playing all together a violin concerto,
and you couldn't believe. These teachers could not believe that
what they were seeing was actually happening. And they thought,
oh gosh, ninety percent of them they must be ringers.
They're not actually playing, They're just leaning on the five
or ten folks who are actually playing their hearts out.
(04:40):
And they this contingent of teachers flew over to Japan
to investigate, is what we saw on this video actually happening?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Is it a magic trick?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Is it a magic trick? Right? And in fact, all
of these children were actually playing and well. And so
that that was from the suzuki a suzuki conference or
or a group group session that was being toured around
(05:13):
the US. That's that was what they saw. And so
that's how grandfather got connected to the suzuki education. And
then to Shinichi Suzuki himself, and Suzuki education started in
Japan post World War Two. Suzuki believed that if all
(05:34):
children learn how to make a beautiful tone, they will
also have beautiful hearts. And this was partly in the
aftermath of the traumas of the of World War two,
at least on the Pacific Front for Suzuki in Japan,
and the atrocities and the traumas, and and a humanitarian
(05:56):
kind of belief that music can make us beautiful people
and that every child can. In fact, that is the
prerequisite course for Suzuki teacher trainers, which I took my
teacher training. Before you can even take the teacher training,
there is a course every every teacher in training must
(06:17):
take called every child Can. And that is the innate
belief that every child has potential. And yeah, a world, right,
this is all your school.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I'm just saying that should be the title of my
next book.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
It's a really beautiful concept. Beautiful, a beautiful world. And
when it's applied, well, this Iszuki method of education. When
the approach is applied, well it is you know, it's
not intended to create child prodigies. It's intended to create
citizens of the world who know how to play music,
who appreciate music, who appreciate beauty, beauty and creating beauty
(06:58):
and effort.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, yeah, there's so much more to Suzuki method. You
know it as you just illustrate in like a couple
of minutes, you know, there's so much greater depth to
Suzuki method. Then I think what comes to immediately mind,
what comes immediately to mind for people? So that is
really helpful, immensely helpful. I started on Suzuki method with violin.
(07:22):
Oh that was two two or three two?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Were you even like out of diapers? I had a
three year old, So that's why I'm she's not she's.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
My second I think my second birthday. My my grandfather
got me a violin for my birthday. But yeah, you know,
it's just I very I don't have that many memories
of this is, you know, fleeting memories. But yeah, it's
so it can be really helpful. You your own education
(07:53):
path was unique. You were in Waldorf education, which I
really think and what must have influenced you and the
way you see the world and your playfulness and your
creativity and your spirit. Can you tell me a little
bit about what is Waldorf system while.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Their education is It started last century early last century
in Germany Austria by Rudosh Steiner, and it is a
now a worldwide movement, much like Suzuki is. And it
is about educating the whole person. We don't have tests,
(08:37):
we don't have anything extrinsic motivators. It's a it's about,
at least in early childhood, play is learning, playing with
each other, learning how to balance on blocks, building things,
watching it crash over because wow, it was so hot.
These are all how we learn. And it was so
(08:58):
interesting for me when I went through MAP at Penn
for Positive Psychology and hearing one of the presenters talk
about positive education and how the data is showing how
effective positive education is and all of the criteria and
parameters for that. It was very, very similar to Waldorf education.
(09:24):
And the problem quote unquote problem with walderf education is
because it doesn't test, at least in the lower school
through the first eight grades. There are no formal tests.
There is no data to show how successful it is
as compared to another group. Because it understands the approach
of education, understands that creativity and play and letting children
(09:51):
learn at their own pace, in their own environment with
each other, of course, in the social structure that is
part of the school, meaning there is social network. It's
not in isolation. We know from experience. I knew from
experience how wonderful my childhood was because of my Suzuki
and Wilder educations. And the problem with the Wilder of
(10:16):
education was that it wasn't being measured because that's not
part of the education system is measuring those things. So
it was like an intrinsic problem. And I loved seeing
this presenter at school at Penn doing this presentation because
it just validated everything from a data perspective of my experience,
(10:36):
of my positive experience with Wilder of education, and it
Let's see, I think there were three tiers we learned
at the end of senior year. The first sort of
tier is children learn through their through their senses. We
learned through feeling, our sense of set we're taking in
(10:58):
the world through our senses and so soft beautiful textures,
natural fibers, wood, beautiful craftsmanship, soft cloth and rainbow cloth,
and all of the texture in sight and sound and smell,
like the baking that happens in kindergarten, that we all
get to bake and roll the dough together and smell
(11:19):
the bread as it's baking while you're going to go
outside and play. It's very it sounds very idyllic, and
it is. The belief is that children first learn through
their senses. The next phase, more through elementary school, is
that we learn through our hearts, through our sense of
goodness and through our innate sense of human kindness. And
(11:39):
then in high school we learn more cerebrally, more cognitively
and become more more the complete sort of thinking the
whole person through the goodness in our sort of hearts,
as we've hopefully been established in the younger years. But
(11:59):
that's that's why the whole weald of education is is
about teaching the whole or cultivating the whole person. It's
not about teaching like putting things in and you regurgitate
correct facts out. It's about cultivating, like watering a plant.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Makes sense, Yeah, I really like that approach. Well, so
you started playing when you were five, Celle, you know.
And there there's a there's a term in psychology that
Howard Gardner coined called a crystallizing experience. A lot of
people who are very creative. They can point to a
crystallizing inexperience where they encountered something and they're like, oh wow,
(12:39):
this is me, this is what I want to do
moving forward. Did you know Yoyama passed? You know, I
believe he passed. You know when he saw cello in
a window and he's like, oh cello. You know Jackuin
Duprez heard heard it on the radio and she's like, oh,
I want to play that instrument. Did you have a
(12:59):
crystallizing experience?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
My crystallizing experience. I'll tell two anecdotes. The first one
is I did not have a young age crystallizing experience
because my whole childhood was surrounded by family playing music.
Doesn't every family play like string quartets with the second
(13:22):
violin subed out for French horn at the holidays gatherings?
And doesn't everybody sing four part harmony carols or even
get neighbors together to sing versions of handle Messiah? You know,
doesn't everybody do this? Isn't this normal? So? I had
my older brother plays violin. He's in Nick Kendall. He's
(13:44):
in a group called Time for Three. I have an
older cousin who is principal Viola of National Symphony. His dad,
my uncle was second chair of Viola of the National
Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. Of course, my grandfather,
I have an uncle who is in the arts performing
arts world as well, and so and everybody plays or
(14:08):
participates in music in the family, in the American my
American family somehow, so at holiday gatherings and birthday parties,
and we were all in the same area, and it
was just normal for us to participate in music, and
so as an invite for me. Children, you know, children
(14:28):
are a mirror of their environments and are and that's
a Suzuki sort of philosophical belief that we will learn
by imitation and positive encouragement and repetition. That triumphant is
like one of the main teaching tenets in music in Suzuki.
And so for that imitation, of course, I wanted to
(14:49):
do what my family was doing because that's what I see.
So my turn came when I was five and grand
and grandfather had a pawn shop cello under their piano,
and that was my that became my cello. It was
my aunt Nancy's cello when she was a little girl,
and they just kept it and it became my cello,
(15:11):
and so there was a sense of family connection. Although
I was not aware of it at the time, I
just knew I would get to start advancing. Instead of
playing from cereal boxes with little rubber bands attached to
it to pretend to participate in making music, I would
get to play this this cello that was from a
pawn chat that was Aunt Nancy's.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
What was it like a one sixteenth maybe so Phoebe.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
My daughter's right now is a one tenth and she's three,
so it might have been more like a one eighth.
But you know, it's all like jumbo size cereal black
size with the pins like in the bottom.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
So well, yeah, I'm super interested in the development of expertise.
I mean, this is I'm obsessed with this time, and
it's interaction with talent. I think talent matters. I mean
it's you know, I think that people who want to
say there's no such thing as talent are are blind.
(16:11):
But but the idea of what what does talent mean?
You know, what does that really look like when you
really dissect it? I think that's a really interesting question.
So some people do get more bang for their buck
out of particular things, particular training regimens. Kobe Bryant got
a pretty good bang for his buck with basketball. You
(16:32):
know that that others would not get the same bang
for their buck for you know, you got a great
bang for your buck with the cello. You know. But
but can you describe to me your first person experience
about the acceleration of that curve and and you know
what it was experientially like for you to work your
(16:52):
way up to the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Well, I can say that, Well, first of all, the
Philadelphia Orchestra is called the Destination Orchestra in much the
same way you've described it. Like once, if you've been
validated and being accepted by a jury of your peers,
meaning other musicians, you know you're gonna be okay, You've
(17:19):
pretty much you're good to go. But I can say
I'll give a couple of moments that when I was
a teenager and I definitely put in the whatever ten
thousand hours by the time I was fifteen or so.
When I was I remember this passage in shastakovich First
Cello Concerto on the second to last page that has
a very fast thirty second notes with scales and some position.
(17:43):
Each one is slightly different than the previous, very very challenging,
and it was the first time in my cello playing
experience ever that I cried. I was so frustrated because
I did not know how to overcome that challenge. It
(18:05):
was the first time that I was so challenged. I
didn't know how. I know I had work ethic, I
know I had repetition. I knew how to practice. I
knew how to break things down so that I could
work them back up again at tempo in different patterns,
in different permutations and backwards and forwards and slurs, articulations,
all these different techniques that I knew of from my
(18:26):
grandfather actually practiced techniques that he would call unit practice.
And that was the first time I was so frustrated.
I felt like, I don't know if I can do this,
And that was very good for me to go through that,
to have that humbling experience. Eventually, the perseverance just kicked in.
(18:46):
I just had to believe in myself that I would
get it, and I did. I performed it. It went fine,
but it took longer than my previous iterations of typical
practicing had taken and that was very good for me
to go through that because I realized I really have
to try. I mean, I was already trying, but before
(19:10):
that point and even after that point, I had what
I referred to as just lots of green lights. I'm
so fortunate to have had the tools with a cello
under my grandparents piano, to have had lessons which take
financial resources from my grandparents it happens to be and opportunities,
(19:38):
and that those opportunities were green lights for me. It
didn't matter if I won second or first Pride, but
there were performance opportunities that helped me grow. And all
of those opportunities from you know, age five or six,
my first recital to up through winning the Philadelphia Orchestra
job and since then, which my my one my orchestra
(20:00):
job twenty years ago in two thousand and four, all
of those are not just about having the tools and
the lessons. It's about having the opportunities to challenge myself
in those competitions or recitals, low key, big key, small
town to big national things. They're all growth opportunities. That's
(20:25):
another thing I'd love to chat with you about, Scott,
about is about increasing those opportunities for everybody because beautiful.
Access to beautiful music and learning how to make beautiful
music is for It's a part of the human experience.
But anyway, the second story I wanted to actually tell
you about as well was I did not decide to
(20:49):
go into music until the day after my SATs and
senior year.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
What did you think you were going to be?
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I didn't know the green lights. I had a biology
teacher who was like, you mean you should go to
med school, and I've become a you know, I was
interested in setting the brain. I did a brain project
in high school in Waldorf, right like my pe teacher
wanted me to do. Wanted me to do track and
fields because I was very fast. I just a very
good sprinter. I did not have the patience for a marathon,
(21:27):
but I'm a very good sprinter and sort of naturally jumpy.
And you know, I had different teachers and in eurrhythmy,
which is a sort of movement spiritual related movement, almost
dance with music, classical music, I had very supportive teachers
(21:50):
who were encouraging me to quote unquote go into their genre,
study deeply in their arena, in their field. And I
loved all of that, and so I didn't decide to
go to take auditions from music school until the day
after my essayts when my friends and I were discussing
(22:12):
what at the time was personal essays for entrances entr
or entrance applications, and I was struggling with what my
personal essay content would be. And that's when I realized, oh, music,
that's my personal story. That's how I tell my story
is through music. And it all made sense then and
(22:36):
then I so then I changed from doing homework first
to practicing, to them doing practicing first and then my homework,
and that wasn't until senior year. So I had many
green lights when I talk about green lights and music,
with the competitions and the recital opportunities and family recital
opportunities when it's just a very safe space with people
(22:58):
who love you no matter what, and it's just a
chance to have fun with friends playing. We had four
family get togethers where our four of our Suzuki families
would get together and all the kids would play, would
play Capture the Flag outside in the afternoon on a
Saturday afternoon once a month, go in have dinner. We
would program our own recital with each of us play
(23:20):
in whoever's living room we were at, and then we'd
play our little recital in whatever order. I remember being
under the dining table, like right handwriting out the program
and the order in which. You know, Jay, You're going
first with Lafolio, okay, I'll go second with the swan.
Who's got something fast to follow the swan okay, and
then we'll all do a big group thing at the end,
(23:40):
after all ten of the kids had played. And so
it was just fun and all of these, all of
these opportunities for green lights happened in each of the
kind of arenas in which I was studying at Waldorf School.
It was all just it was fun, it was intriguing.
(24:01):
It was just I want to learn more, and okay,
well now i'll study music, I'll audition for music conservatories.
And that all worked out fine. But I always knew
I wanted to know, I wanted I always want to
learn more. It doesn't stop for me. I'm a I'm
a forever student. Okay, i'll stop.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
I'll never stop, but i'll stop. I love all of that.
You are a forever student. You're also there's a little
bit of a well, there's a curiosity there there's a
playfulness there. These are characteristics traits I see in in
virtually all highly creative people, highly successful creative people. There
(24:49):
was this like, well, my favorite celist besides my grandfather
is Jack and Duprey. Yes, and there's such a childlike
well I am thinking about her her age sixteen performance,
you know, you know, with Baron Baum conducting, which is
little interesting that they ended up and then they ended
(25:10):
up getting together. Yeah, but we won't go there. But yeah,
it's just interesting. You know, there's this there's this like
childlike wonder and and uh and excitement and they and
I've seen you play too, and uh and and I
see something similar. So do you think that's kind of
an essential part of being a creative musician, whatever that is,
(25:33):
whatever that essences.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I wouldn't call myself a creative musician. I would call
my brother a creative musician, because he's he. They in
Time for Three, which is two violins and a double bass,
and just yesterday we saw them play their concerto with
the Baltimore Symphony, the same concerto that weave Philadelphi Orchestra
recorded with them, and they won a Grammy for they
(25:56):
Nicholas my brother has a playfulness and he does amazing improvisation.
He's great with just hearing where something needs to be where,
like musically speaking, ah, this needs to have a jam
in it, just like this rhythmic rhythmic section coming along here.
His whole group is super super adept at that, and
(26:18):
I certainly could learn the language as as he is.
But he never had any formal training in this. He's
just been drumming his whole life in the basement, driving
us nuts with upturned trash cans, and then climbing the
streets of Philly outside Curtis, like banging on the lamp
posts with sticks is drumming, and I mean he is.
(26:39):
If you think I'm creative, Nicholas is oodles or what
I would call creative. But I think to your point,
playfulness and curiosity, which I think I do as a
personality and body, I do feel like the help me
(27:02):
continue to keep learning and growing myself. I'm never I'm
not done, never finished. And you know, interviews when I
first got into the orchestra, I was twenty two when
I won the job. I finished Curtis and I started
when I was twenty three, and I had some interviews like,
what do you do now that you've reached the top
(27:22):
of your twenty three? But this is always just the beginning,
as soon as we think of ourselves as a finished product,
which society often treats us as consumers, and we're just
supposed to absorb things and turn them out, but we're living.
I think the human experience is about varieties of interaction
(27:46):
and creativity, of interactive interaction with creativity, and it's our
opportunities and it's the tools that were given that can
cultivate our creativity. So I haven't had less. I don't
feel like it searching my brother to comparison with my
to compare with my brother in improvisation, specifically in music,
(28:10):
he is easily a stronger improvisation like just jam hands
down than me. I'm really good at interpreting classical music
that somebody else has written. Nicholas is really excellent at
generating music on the spot. I'm also capable of generating music.
(28:32):
It takes me longer, but the time. If we're not
constrained by time, then the whole concept of creativity for
me does change, because, like Adam Grant says, with procrastination
and procrastination you know, everything that gels in our minds
sometimes needs time. Maybe if we have a conversation again
when I'm fifty or sixty, and we'll see when I'm
(28:54):
not so sleep deprived other things that that grow.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Gotcha? What are your what are your top character strengths?
Then I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
My I have my top character strengths from five years ago,
zest hope and kindness, and zest has consistently meaning enthusiasm
or enthusiasm for life. Zest has consistently been in the top.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Well, that's what I was commenting on Zest. I see
when you play, it's wonderful, it's wonderful. You've you've described
the experience of playing in an orchestra as being engulfed
in the casmir of sound. It's a very poetic description,
(29:50):
like you're wrapped in a beautiful blanket.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Do you uh?
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Do you still feel that? Does that never cease? That feeling?
Never sees.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
That to depends on what piece and of course what ensemble,
but yes, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, I feel like sound
is texture. Sound is feeling like I mean, feeling on
my skin, like how soft cashmere feels is how it.
(30:20):
That's my experience, that's my lived experience. Playing in the
Philadelphia Orchestra. It is like being It is like sitting
on your favorite couch and it just envelops you and
you are covered up in your favorite blanket or your
favorite cozy fuzzy if that is your texture of choice.
But it is so it feels so right, and I'm
(30:42):
so grateful every day that I get to go to work.
And or as Amy, we're just a Nebsci would say,
it's my calling. I feel like I get to do
what I'm supposed to be doing. I call it work
because it's functionally that's what it is. But it is
I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and I
feel so fortunate to be able to do that. Is
(31:02):
it challenging some days? Yes? Is it also rewarding while
also being challenging. Yes, socially and also musically, meaning there
are interactions, you know, with any workplace or group of
a social network. We need to work things out and
that's rewarding as well as it is to make the music.
(31:23):
Sitting on stage. I still remember the very first day
that I substituted as a student after winning an audition
to be able to do that, and that lit my
fire even more that when the audition would happen, I said,
(31:44):
oh my gosh, if I could do this every day,
I would take it in a heartbeat. And what a
blessing it is to get to do that. I was
sandwiched at the back of the cella sections section, in
front of the double basses, so as in the low
dark chocolate register of the taste buds, like sixty seven
percent dark chocolate is my favorite chocolate. And I get
(32:07):
to I get to live.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah, you do?
Speaker 1 (32:10):
You do? You do?
Speaker 2 (32:14):
I think there is a transcendence there. There is that,
you know that talk about transcendent experience. There's something that
just transcends any individual ideology or belief system. I mean
everyone in that room can feel that. Feel the chills, yes,
the aesthetic chills, these set chills. You've talked about tiers
(32:37):
of transcendence. Do you do? You do? You do? You
have experience that while you're performing?
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I did? I actually talked about that with with Daker
with Daker a little bit. Yeah, with some awe and
these tingling the chills that happen. One of those was
I cried in a performance of Mozart Requiem, and we
did it at we performed it at Saratoga Springs, and
(33:06):
I think I was crying because it brought me back
to the week that my grandfather, the John Kendall's Suzuki Grandfather,
that he died in January of twenty eleven, and at
work that week in January twenty eleven, we also played
Mozart's Requiem. And for me, there is a connection in
(33:31):
time between myselves from the twenty twenty nineteen version of
the Mozart Requiem at Saratoga to the twenty eleven version
of the Mozart's Requiem that we performed in Reisenhall when
grandfather died, and to honor him, I was playing it
that week to honor him. Nobody else needed to know
that was my own personal avenue of delivery in our
(33:54):
performances that week. And so when I ended up crying
in that twenty nineteen version in Sarahga, I, I was
doing a lot of internal reflection and transportation of my
sort of inner self, of sadness, of grief, of anger,
of also the musical anger that happens in Konfutatis in
(34:18):
the specific movement with dun lumpumpum. It's a very angry movement,
and so that helped conjure my own emotional connection to
that with the many layers of my own personal experience,
so that that had, you know, grandfather's death, grief, the
beauty of the piece itself just separate from me personally,
(34:39):
to transcending time with myself, from my from my current
then to the past self, sort of reliving some of
the grief that I felt or maybe unacknowledged grief that
was coming out eight years later. So there are a
lot of layers in all of that that I live.
When I perform piece, I'm thinking about my past self
(35:02):
that introduced that first met a piece of music, that
same piece of music to my current self, to sharing
of course with the audience. Somebody in the audience is
a grandfather, they're living it for the first time or
sadly maybe the last time. Maybe they don't know it.
So there are a lot of a lot of emotional
(35:24):
connections for me in any given performance week, but that
particular one, the tears of transcendence for me that that
was really specific to that piece and those moments in
time that I was just describing, does that make sense.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Oh that makes so much sense.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Sometimes I don't know if what I'm saying is just gibberished.
It's my it's my lived experience, though, so it is
to me.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
What it is. Yeah, you know, I think we can
all kind of apply that experience to whatever it is
we do when we feel like we're having a peak
experience for what we're doing. You know, the peak experiences
are pretty universal in their manifestations, and that's what we
should be doing, right, is helping people find their own
unique pathway to peak experience. Yes, I mean I think
(36:19):
I know you're really interested in excellence, and you know,
I think sometimes we make too much of excellence as
being the goal, you know, as opposed to just self actualization.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yes, yes, I love that because the striving as we
have a say I'm a saying from one of my
mentors at Curtis the music is always better than it
can be played. There is a constant striving in specifically
for me as a musician, I'm never good enough. I
(36:51):
don't mean that in a downplay. I mean that in
a sense of being humble and inspired at the same
time to continue to grow. And so the constant striving
is for me, what this reaching our potential? Yes, but
also continuing to grow our potential because like I said,
(37:12):
I don't stop learning, so we just keep growing, We
just keep using, We just keep growing, keep being curious,
keep being interested in things beyond ourselves that challenge us,
that push me, that interest me. When I had the baby,
I really couldn't doin anything else, So that was kind
of a fermata, a pause button with self compassion, because
(37:33):
we need the ebbs and flows of life or if
someone has a grieving time or all of these. You know,
the ebb and flow of life happens. But when we're
when we're able, we I put my foot on the accelerator,
not in terms of I shouldn't say accelerator. I fuel
myself with the nutrients for growth, That's what I should say,
(37:58):
because accelerator sounds like it's externally motivated and I want
to be fast, and that's not That's not how I
think of reaching or continuing to strive. For knowing our
potential and seeing it. There's so much there, Scott.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
There is, and I mean, and I mean on one level,
I'm like like, of course, with you on the constant growing,
growth is so important but I guess what am I
I'm trying to say also that I think it's like
okay sometimes to reach a happy place, even for a moment,
(38:36):
where you're allowed to just enjoy what the journey that
you've been on, and to just not have the pressure
to grow.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Absolutely can't you.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Have like a year of no growth exactly? But cultivation, well,
I guess we know from appreciation of.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Course, I mean the peacefulness and the self reflection that
we need to just live like that. So two thoughts.
One is in biology, like physiologically we need sleep to grow.
We can't. If we don't sleep, your brain can't regenerate
and grow and just be. So we need to sleep.
In that sense, there's a metaphorical validation for what you're saying,
(39:16):
and I totally agree with that from a lived experience
as well. I can't if I don't sleep, if I
don't let myself rest, if I don't pause, then how
do you refuel? That's my and that's the big And
even in nature in the season, of course, we are
natural beings in nature. We have in the tropics anyway,
(39:40):
we have the seasons where there's hibernation, the bears go
into hibernation the plants, at least here in Pennsylvania, they
the leaves fall off, the trees, the wind, the nature
goes to sleep for the new springtime. And I think
(40:00):
this is also Waldworf Like immersion in nature and appreciation
for in connection to nature, I think is a key
part of our understanding ourselves and how we work.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Totally, that's totally.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Totally agreeing with what you're saying about that need to reset,
reflect and just yeah, we're human beings. We're not human doers.
We're human beings.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
First, right, Yeah, because I just think there's such an
emphasis and excellence even in like music conservatories, and it's
just a lot of people get burnt a lot of
musicians get burnt out, you know, and and end up
not even enjoying it anymore. I've seen that before.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yes, I'm doing some coaching. I'm teaching, and of course
that that's often one of the most important topics is
actually balancing towards that self compassion and just being just
being enjoying remember why we're connected to this in the
(41:09):
first place, or even just take a break. Yeah, that's
just so important to our ability to and that's yeah,
being able to be like a rubber or resilience and
being able to go back and forth, breathe in, breathe out.
These are like the rhythm, the Cicadian rhythms of life.
(41:30):
We need to emulate that absolutely. In fact, I wonder
if there's studies on excellence without sleep like you can't
or the equivalent, the analogy, the equivalent of sleep and rest.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, I mean ericson a lot of people quote his
ten year, ten thousand hours or ten years to excellence,
but they don't cite as much is that those who
were the most accomplished musicians were those who had the
most amount of downtime. Yeah, people don't. People don't say
(42:06):
that as much as really finding Yeah, yeah, you are
in You're very multi facet in your interest of the things.
You've got this Masters of Positive of Applied Positive Psychology,
which is where I met you at Penn, and I
know that you're really interested in classical music's role in
human flourishing and the importance of cultivating healthy organizations as
(42:27):
pathways to serve the arts and public community. Where's your
thinking these days around how we can cultivate healthy organizations?
I know this is a deep passion of yours.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Wow, thank you for asking. Interestingly, the reason I found MAP,
the Applied Positive Psychology Program at Penn was because the
Philadelphia Orchestra went through a pretty traumatizing Chapter eleven bankruptcy
about fifteen years ago. Fourteen years ago, and I felt helpless.
(43:02):
And I don't like feeling helpless. I like to know
what I can do to help. I like to know
how I can contribute, how I can participate. And we
were still playing, we played all our concerts. We didn't
We had to. The organization had to restructure for its
long term health. So I'm not going to discuss disagreeing
(43:23):
we're agreeing with the actual decision to go through that process,
except to say from an experience point of view for
the musicians, it was very traumatizing. And I found myself
at the then Barnes and Noble at the corner of
eighteenth and Walnut and Philly in Center City, at the
Barnes and Noble in the business section, looking at a
lot of red books like Power and Leadership Authority, you know,
(43:47):
because I was looking at what do other organizations do
when they go through a struggle. We can't be the
only ones who are facing a challenge. What do other
people do when they're struggling with motivation or employee connection
and all of these I loved it. I just soaked
up as much as I could, and I read specifically
(44:08):
two books whose authors I ended up writing. Dan Pink's
book called Drive subtitled The Surprising Truth of Intrinsic Motivation,
and then Adam Grant's book Give and Take, and I
wrote both of them and very brief emails saying, hi
(44:29):
and Fanks, and do you have any knowledge of application
of your research to the classical music industry blah blah blah,
and the orchestra Adam Grant, I wrote on a Sunday
evening at like eleven pm hits end, and at seven
twenty one I got the auto reply, like very excellently written,
beautiful auto reply, And then like a minute later got
a personal reply from Adam Grant seeseing me into the
(44:52):
directors at the Positive Psychology Center saying, ah, there's a
bunch of interaction here, intersection here that might be interesting.
And literally ten days later, this was December twenty eighth,
so no, it was about fourteen days later. The map class,
the pen class and Positive Psychology came scheduled came to
(45:13):
a Philadelphia Orchestra concerto and then the roof just blew
off with all the connections there because I met James,
I'd met them backstage. We chatted. They invited me to
come the next morning, Sunday morning, at like eight am
to Penn to help the class debrief their concert experience,
(45:35):
which for many of them was their first classical music experience.
And that for me was the beginning of everything map
for the applied positive psychology program. So, to go back
to your original question, I believe that healthy arts organizations,
healthy nonprofit organizations that deliver public good goods like arts.
(46:04):
If those are we can only be as good as
our arts organization is, right, the organization needs to run
well in order to be able to be effective for
the public good. And so I feel like the healthier
the more we know about positive psychology and its possible
applications to arts organizations, the healthier we can be, and
(46:29):
the more effective we can be in our delivery in
our concerts, in our and we're already giving our we're
already pouring our hearts out on stage as the musicians,
but from the patron experience to programming to EDI efforts
that we're doing, you know, making strides on in an
otherwise very antiquated industry, and antiquated because of its history
(46:54):
in Western Europe aristocracy and so is this was the
original sort of nucleus connection to positive psychology and the
program at PEN And while I have not officially applied
it back to the Philadelphia Orchestra, I feel that the
(47:15):
organization has, for a variety of reasons, grown and flourished
in ways. Maybe it's from post traumatic growth, maybe it's
from just being aware of the possibilities, but we have
definitely grown from the challenges of before and artistically, at
(47:39):
least with the leadership of jan Nique, our music director,
we are we are just poised ever more for continued
beloved representation and delivery of arts messengers of music to
Philadelphia and the country and internationally on tours. But that's
(48:03):
the anyway, that's that's the answer to that question. Is
that's where it stems from my my belief in strengthening
arts organizations. Was that serendipitous email exchange with Adam Grant, Adam,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
I'll share this episode with him, and also I'll share
this episode with Dan Pink. What did not.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Respond, but Dan did not respond. I got the auto reply,
and then like the possibility that I'm in like three
months I might get to get a reply or something,
but that never happened.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
He's usually really good at that. He's usually really good
at that. I'll say, I'll stand up for Dan think
for a second when he when he has time. But
very cool, It's it. I mean, I could talk to
you all day, but I want to be respectful of
your time. Let's just end with just give me a
little bit of idea of how having a child has
(49:00):
enriched your life and has has it changed your music
at all?
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Becoming a mom, becoming a parent has been the most
humbling experience and also the most rewarding experience. Well, right now,
I'm actually having a hard time with practicing at home
because Phoebe stays awake when I practice, and she wants
to hear. She says, Mama, are you going to play
(49:27):
the divorceeac? Now?
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Is that the Broms? Are you practicing the Broms Requiem?
She's so verbal and so much interaction, is so much
attention to what I'm practicing, that I've become aware that
I'm keeping her awake actually or keeping her away from
her things. So, and she wants to sit right next
to me when I practice. And she also just started cello,
(49:50):
so there's a lot of things that are happening. She
wanted to start cello because I think she wanted to
imitate me, which of course makes sense as a parent,
and our connection is great, but it's been definitely a
challenging thing to manage practice time from a practical standpoint. Emotionally,
(50:11):
sense of meaning has skyrocketed because I just have.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Beautiful, a.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Deeper sense of being of my why is for her. Wow. Yeah,
there's a lot more there in the parent aspect and
being a performing musician and managing time and all of this.
But I know all parents go through this in some degree.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Yeah, getting outside of your self aspect of human experience
through your music, through children, through you know, it looks
like you're hidden transcend in some multiple fronts. I always
find talking to you a trans and and experience. Remy,
thank you so much for being so gracious with your
time today and for being on my show.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
Thank you so much for having me Scott, and for
you for all of your work. I've enjoyed reading your
books about thinking about your perspective and your experience and
how you're making the world a better place based on
your experience and what you've been through. It's you're an
incredible inspiration for education, for psychology, and for human the
human experience. So thank you for being who you are.
Play is learning, playing with each other, learning how to
balance on blocks, building things, watching it crash over because wow,
it was so hot. These are all how we learn.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
On this episode of the Psychology Podcast, I had a
delightful chat with Umi Kendall, Assistant Principal Cellist of the
Philadelphia Orchestra. Umi began studying cello at the age of five,
following the Suzuki method, and at age sixteen, she made
her solo debut at the Kennedy Center with the National
Symphony Orchestra. Umi is a very multifaceted, thoughtful, and creative human.
(00:42):
In this episode, we discussed her experiences in Waldorf education,
classical music's role in human flourishing and creating a feeling
of all and transcendence, and her interests surrounding organizational flourishing.
More generally, we also discuss her life changing experience as
a mom and the development of her talent over the years.
You and I have something very special in common that
(01:03):
I want to share it with you all. Both of
our grandfathers are the reasonably learned how to play the cello,
and in fact, her chair in the Philadelphia Orchestra is
the same exact chair my grandfather Harry Gourdett's are occupied
in the Philadelphia Orchestra for fifty years before her. So you,
me and I clearly have this very special bond, and
(01:25):
I'm so excited to shine the spotlight on her today.
So without further ado, I bring you Umi Kendall.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
You me.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
How old the heck are you.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
It's great to be with you. Thank you so much
for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Great to reconnect. We are going to talk everything good
and beautiful today.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
That sounds like a plan. I still remember that first
day at the Positive Psychology Center for me and realizing
that your grandfather was a connection that was amazing.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, there's an interesting connection there in multiple levels. One level,
you currently hold the chair in the philip Orchestra that
my grandfather held for fifty years. He's the last one
that was hired by Stakovsky and Normandy together. They were
in the same room together. So Stakovski's last audition, Wow.
(02:23):
And then he was in Fantasia the movie, the original Fantasie. Wow.
He was a graduate of Curtis and yeah, I went
through uh, Eugene Normandy and then Ricardo Mouti, who was
a good friend of the family. And yeah, so anyway,
So there's that amazing connection you currently hold you, I mean,
(02:43):
you hold that chair, you're carrying on the torch in
a beautiful, beautiful way, and then you're carrying on the
torch bogo. And then secondly, it turns out, as I'm
reading deeper into your work, that that well, both of
our grandfathers are the reason why we both play cello.
I play. I play cello too, not to the extent
you do, but both of our grandfathers are responsible. So
(03:04):
can you tell me a little bit about your grandfather
and how he influenced you, because I guess there's multiple
grandfather levels here.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
It's amazing to have those family connections, both between us
of course and within my own family. And of course
we can't help who we're born to, so it's just
good luck on my end that I feel this way.
My American grandfather, John Kendall, is largely credited with introducing
(03:32):
the Suzuki method of music education to the Americas back
in the nineteen sixties, and he yeah, of course, my
Japanese grandfather had no idea about classical music in Japan,
like in the rice fields and no electricity until I
think I was twelve or thirteen, and it was no
(03:53):
running water until I was until we were visiting. So
really beautiful contrasts and in life in our family backgrounds. Grandfather,
American grandfather John Kendall was always a violin pedagogue and
saw a video of several hundred violinists all playing Japanese violinists,
(04:17):
little ones to teenagers playing all together a violin concerto,
and you couldn't believe. These teachers could not believe that
what they were seeing was actually happening. And they thought,
oh gosh, ninety percent of them they must be ringers.
They're not actually playing, They're just leaning on the five
or ten folks who are actually playing their hearts out.
(04:40):
And they this contingent of teachers flew over to Japan
to investigate, is what we saw on this video actually happening?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Is it a magic trick?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Is it a magic trick? Right? And in fact, all
of these children were actually playing and well. And so
that that was from the suzuki a suzuki conference or
or a group group session that was being toured around
(05:13):
the US. That's that was what they saw. And so
that's how grandfather got connected to the suzuki education. And
then to Shinichi Suzuki himself, and Suzuki education started in
Japan post World War Two. Suzuki believed that if all
(05:34):
children learn how to make a beautiful tone, they will
also have beautiful hearts. And this was partly in the
aftermath of the traumas of the of World War two,
at least on the Pacific Front for Suzuki in Japan,
and the atrocities and the traumas, and and a humanitarian
(05:56):
kind of belief that music can make us beautiful people
and that every child can. In fact, that is the
prerequisite course for Suzuki teacher trainers, which I took my
teacher training. Before you can even take the teacher training,
there is a course every every teacher in training must
(06:17):
take called every child Can. And that is the innate
belief that every child has potential. And yeah, a world, right,
this is all your school.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I'm just saying that should be the title of my
next book.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
It's a really beautiful concept. Beautiful, a beautiful world. And
when it's applied, well, this Iszuki method of education. When
the approach is applied, well it is you know, it's
not intended to create child prodigies. It's intended to create
citizens of the world who know how to play music,
who appreciate music, who appreciate beauty, beauty and creating beauty
(06:58):
and effort.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, yeah, there's so much more to Suzuki method. You
know it as you just illustrate in like a couple
of minutes, you know, there's so much greater depth to
Suzuki method. Then I think what comes to immediately mind,
what comes immediately to mind for people? So that is
really helpful, immensely helpful. I started on Suzuki method with violin.
(07:22):
Oh that was two two or three two?
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Were you even like out of diapers? I had a
three year old, So that's why I'm she's not she's.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
My second I think my second birthday. My my grandfather
got me a violin for my birthday. But yeah, you know,
it's just I very I don't have that many memories
of this is, you know, fleeting memories. But yeah, it's
so it can be really helpful. You your own education
(07:53):
path was unique. You were in Waldorf education, which I
really think and what must have influenced you and the
way you see the world and your playfulness and your
creativity and your spirit. Can you tell me a little
bit about what is Waldorf system while.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Their education is It started last century early last century
in Germany Austria by Rudosh Steiner, and it is a
now a worldwide movement, much like Suzuki is. And it
is about educating the whole person. We don't have tests,
(08:37):
we don't have anything extrinsic motivators. It's a it's about,
at least in early childhood, play is learning, playing with
each other, learning how to balance on blocks, building things,
watching it crash over because wow, it was so hot.
These are all how we learn. And it was so
(08:58):
interesting for me when I went through MAP at Penn
for Positive Psychology and hearing one of the presenters talk
about positive education and how the data is showing how
effective positive education is and all of the criteria and
parameters for that. It was very, very similar to Waldorf education.
(09:24):
And the problem quote unquote problem with walderf education is
because it doesn't test, at least in the lower school
through the first eight grades. There are no formal tests.
There is no data to show how successful it is
as compared to another group. Because it understands the approach
of education, understands that creativity and play and letting children
(09:51):
learn at their own pace, in their own environment with
each other, of course, in the social structure that is
part of the school, meaning there is social network. It's
not in isolation. We know from experience. I knew from
experience how wonderful my childhood was because of my Suzuki
and Wilder educations. And the problem with the Wilder of
(10:16):
education was that it wasn't being measured because that's not
part of the education system is measuring those things. So
it was like an intrinsic problem. And I loved seeing
this presenter at school at Penn doing this presentation because
it just validated everything from a data perspective of my experience,
(10:36):
of my positive experience with Wilder of education, and it
Let's see, I think there were three tiers we learned
at the end of senior year. The first sort of
tier is children learn through their through their senses. We
learned through feeling, our sense of set we're taking in
(10:58):
the world through our senses and so soft beautiful textures,
natural fibers, wood, beautiful craftsmanship, soft cloth and rainbow cloth,
and all of the texture in sight and sound and smell,
like the baking that happens in kindergarten, that we all
get to bake and roll the dough together and smell
(11:19):
the bread as it's baking while you're going to go
outside and play. It's very it sounds very idyllic, and
it is. The belief is that children first learn through
their senses. The next phase, more through elementary school, is
that we learn through our hearts, through our sense of
goodness and through our innate sense of human kindness. And
(11:39):
then in high school we learn more cerebrally, more cognitively
and become more more the complete sort of thinking the
whole person through the goodness in our sort of hearts,
as we've hopefully been established in the younger years. But
(11:59):
that's that's why the whole weald of education is is
about teaching the whole or cultivating the whole person. It's
not about teaching like putting things in and you regurgitate
correct facts out. It's about cultivating, like watering a plant.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Makes sense, Yeah, I really like that approach. Well, so
you started playing when you were five, Celle, you know.
And there there's a there's a term in psychology that
Howard Gardner coined called a crystallizing experience. A lot of
people who are very creative. They can point to a
crystallizing inexperience where they encountered something and they're like, oh wow,
(12:39):
this is me, this is what I want to do
moving forward. Did you know Yoyama passed? You know, I
believe he passed. You know when he saw cello in
a window and he's like, oh cello. You know Jackuin
Duprez heard heard it on the radio and she's like, oh,
I want to play that instrument. Did you have a
(12:59):
crystallizing experience?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
My crystallizing experience. I'll tell two anecdotes. The first one
is I did not have a young age crystallizing experience
because my whole childhood was surrounded by family playing music.
Doesn't every family play like string quartets with the second
(13:22):
violin subed out for French horn at the holidays gatherings?
And doesn't everybody sing four part harmony carols or even
get neighbors together to sing versions of handle Messiah? You know,
doesn't everybody do this? Isn't this normal? So? I had
my older brother plays violin. He's in Nick Kendall. He's
(13:44):
in a group called Time for Three. I have an
older cousin who is principal Viola of National Symphony. His dad,
my uncle was second chair of Viola of the National
Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. Of course, my grandfather,
I have an uncle who is in the arts performing
arts world as well, and so and everybody plays or
(14:08):
participates in music in the family, in the American my
American family somehow, so at holiday gatherings and birthday parties,
and we were all in the same area, and it
was just normal for us to participate in music, and
so as an invite for me. Children, you know, children
(14:28):
are a mirror of their environments and are and that's
a Suzuki sort of philosophical belief that we will learn
by imitation and positive encouragement and repetition. That triumphant is
like one of the main teaching tenets in music in Suzuki.
And so for that imitation, of course, I wanted to
(14:49):
do what my family was doing because that's what I see.
So my turn came when I was five and grand
and grandfather had a pawn shop cello under their piano,
and that was my that became my cello. It was
my aunt Nancy's cello when she was a little girl,
and they just kept it and it became my cello,
(15:11):
and so there was a sense of family connection. Although
I was not aware of it at the time, I
just knew I would get to start advancing. Instead of
playing from cereal boxes with little rubber bands attached to
it to pretend to participate in making music, I would
get to play this this cello that was from a
pawn chat that was Aunt Nancy's.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
What was it like a one sixteenth maybe so Phoebe.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
My daughter's right now is a one tenth and she's three,
so it might have been more like a one eighth.
But you know, it's all like jumbo size cereal black
size with the pins like in the bottom.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
So well, yeah, I'm super interested in the development of expertise.
I mean, this is I'm obsessed with this time, and
it's interaction with talent. I think talent matters. I mean
it's you know, I think that people who want to
say there's no such thing as talent are are blind.
(16:11):
But but the idea of what what does talent mean?
You know, what does that really look like when you
really dissect it? I think that's a really interesting question.
So some people do get more bang for their buck
out of particular things, particular training regimens. Kobe Bryant got
a pretty good bang for his buck with basketball. You
(16:32):
know that that others would not get the same bang
for their buck for you know, you got a great
bang for your buck with the cello. You know. But
but can you describe to me your first person experience
about the acceleration of that curve and and you know
what it was experientially like for you to work your
(16:52):
way up to the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Well, I can say that, Well, first of all, the
Philadelphia Orchestra is called the Destination Orchestra in much the
same way you've described it. Like once, if you've been
validated and being accepted by a jury of your peers,
meaning other musicians, you know you're gonna be okay, You've
(17:19):
pretty much you're good to go. But I can say
I'll give a couple of moments that when I was
a teenager and I definitely put in the whatever ten
thousand hours by the time I was fifteen or so.
When I was I remember this passage in shastakovich First
Cello Concerto on the second to last page that has
a very fast thirty second notes with scales and some position.
(17:43):
Each one is slightly different than the previous, very very challenging,
and it was the first time in my cello playing
experience ever that I cried. I was so frustrated because
I did not know how to overcome that challenge. It
(18:05):
was the first time that I was so challenged. I
didn't know how. I know I had work ethic, I
know I had repetition. I knew how to practice. I
knew how to break things down so that I could
work them back up again at tempo in different patterns,
in different permutations and backwards and forwards and slurs, articulations,
all these different techniques that I knew of from my
(18:26):
grandfather actually practiced techniques that he would call unit practice.
And that was the first time I was so frustrated.
I felt like, I don't know if I can do this,
And that was very good for me to go through that,
to have that humbling experience. Eventually, the perseverance just kicked in.
(18:46):
I just had to believe in myself that I would
get it, and I did. I performed it. It went fine,
but it took longer than my previous iterations of typical
practicing had taken and that was very good for me
to go through that because I realized I really have
to try. I mean, I was already trying, but before
(19:10):
that point and even after that point, I had what
I referred to as just lots of green lights. I'm
so fortunate to have had the tools with a cello
under my grandparents piano, to have had lessons which take
financial resources from my grandparents it happens to be and opportunities,
(19:38):
and that those opportunities were green lights for me. It
didn't matter if I won second or first Pride, but
there were performance opportunities that helped me grow. And all
of those opportunities from you know, age five or six,
my first recital to up through winning the Philadelphia Orchestra
job and since then, which my my one my orchestra
(20:00):
job twenty years ago in two thousand and four, all
of those are not just about having the tools and
the lessons. It's about having the opportunities to challenge myself
in those competitions or recitals, low key, big key, small
town to big national things. They're all growth opportunities. That's
(20:25):
another thing I'd love to chat with you about, Scott,
about is about increasing those opportunities for everybody because beautiful.
Access to beautiful music and learning how to make beautiful
music is for It's a part of the human experience.
But anyway, the second story I wanted to actually tell
you about as well was I did not decide to
(20:49):
go into music until the day after my SATs and
senior year.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
What did you think you were going to be?
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I didn't know the green lights. I had a biology
teacher who was like, you mean you should go to
med school, and I've become a you know, I was
interested in setting the brain. I did a brain project
in high school in Waldorf, right like my pe teacher
wanted me to do. Wanted me to do track and
fields because I was very fast. I just a very
good sprinter. I did not have the patience for a marathon,
(21:27):
but I'm a very good sprinter and sort of naturally jumpy.
And you know, I had different teachers and in eurrhythmy,
which is a sort of movement spiritual related movement, almost
dance with music, classical music, I had very supportive teachers
(21:50):
who were encouraging me to quote unquote go into their genre,
study deeply in their arena, in their field. And I
loved all of that, and so I didn't decide to
go to take auditions from music school until the day
after my essayts when my friends and I were discussing
(22:12):
what at the time was personal essays for entrances entr
or entrance applications, and I was struggling with what my
personal essay content would be. And that's when I realized, oh, music,
that's my personal story. That's how I tell my story
is through music. And it all made sense then and
(22:36):
then I so then I changed from doing homework first
to practicing, to them doing practicing first and then my homework,
and that wasn't until senior year. So I had many
green lights when I talk about green lights and music,
with the competitions and the recital opportunities and family recital
opportunities when it's just a very safe space with people
(22:58):
who love you no matter what, and it's just a
chance to have fun with friends playing. We had four
family get togethers where our four of our Suzuki families
would get together and all the kids would play, would
play Capture the Flag outside in the afternoon on a
Saturday afternoon once a month, go in have dinner. We
would program our own recital with each of us play
(23:20):
in whoever's living room we were at, and then we'd
play our little recital in whatever order. I remember being
under the dining table, like right handwriting out the program
and the order in which. You know, Jay, You're going
first with Lafolio, okay, I'll go second with the swan.
Who's got something fast to follow the swan okay, and
then we'll all do a big group thing at the end,
(23:40):
after all ten of the kids had played. And so
it was just fun and all of these, all of
these opportunities for green lights happened in each of the
kind of arenas in which I was studying at Waldorf School.
It was all just it was fun, it was intriguing.
(24:01):
It was just I want to learn more, and okay,
well now i'll study music, I'll audition for music conservatories.
And that all worked out fine. But I always knew
I wanted to know, I wanted I always want to
learn more. It doesn't stop for me. I'm a I'm
a forever student. Okay, i'll stop.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
I'll never stop, but i'll stop. I love all of that.
You are a forever student. You're also there's a little
bit of a well, there's a curiosity there there's a
playfulness there. These are characteristics traits I see in in
virtually all highly creative people, highly successful creative people. There
(24:49):
was this like, well, my favorite celist besides my grandfather
is Jack and Duprey. Yes, and there's such a childlike
well I am thinking about her her age sixteen performance,
you know, you know, with Baron Baum conducting, which is
little interesting that they ended up and then they ended
(25:10):
up getting together. Yeah, but we won't go there. But yeah,
it's just interesting. You know, there's this there's this like
childlike wonder and and uh and excitement and they and
I've seen you play too, and uh and and I
see something similar. So do you think that's kind of
an essential part of being a creative musician, whatever that is,
(25:33):
whatever that essences.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I wouldn't call myself a creative musician. I would call
my brother a creative musician, because he's he. They in
Time for Three, which is two violins and a double bass,
and just yesterday we saw them play their concerto with
the Baltimore Symphony, the same concerto that weave Philadelphi Orchestra
recorded with them, and they won a Grammy for they
(25:56):
Nicholas my brother has a playfulness and he does amazing improvisation.
He's great with just hearing where something needs to be where,
like musically speaking, ah, this needs to have a jam
in it, just like this rhythmic rhythmic section coming along here.
His whole group is super super adept at that, and
(26:18):
I certainly could learn the language as as he is.
But he never had any formal training in this. He's
just been drumming his whole life in the basement, driving
us nuts with upturned trash cans, and then climbing the
streets of Philly outside Curtis, like banging on the lamp
posts with sticks is drumming, and I mean he is.
(26:39):
If you think I'm creative, Nicholas is oodles or what
I would call creative. But I think to your point,
playfulness and curiosity, which I think I do as a
personality and body, I do feel like the help me
(27:02):
continue to keep learning and growing myself. I'm never I'm
not done, never finished. And you know, interviews when I
first got into the orchestra, I was twenty two when
I won the job. I finished Curtis and I started
when I was twenty three, and I had some interviews like,
what do you do now that you've reached the top
(27:22):
of your twenty three? But this is always just the beginning,
as soon as we think of ourselves as a finished product,
which society often treats us as consumers, and we're just
supposed to absorb things and turn them out, but we're living.
I think the human experience is about varieties of interaction
(27:46):
and creativity, of interactive interaction with creativity, and it's our
opportunities and it's the tools that were given that can
cultivate our creativity. So I haven't had less. I don't
feel like it searching my brother to comparison with my
to compare with my brother in improvisation, specifically in music,
(28:10):
he is easily a stronger improvisation like just jam hands
down than me. I'm really good at interpreting classical music
that somebody else has written. Nicholas is really excellent at
generating music on the spot. I'm also capable of generating music.
(28:32):
It takes me longer, but the time. If we're not
constrained by time, then the whole concept of creativity for
me does change, because, like Adam Grant says, with procrastination
and procrastination you know, everything that gels in our minds
sometimes needs time. Maybe if we have a conversation again
when I'm fifty or sixty, and we'll see when I'm
(28:54):
not so sleep deprived other things that that grow.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Gotcha? What are your what are your top character strengths?
Then I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
My I have my top character strengths from five years ago,
zest hope and kindness, and zest has consistently meaning enthusiasm
or enthusiasm for life. Zest has consistently been in the top.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Well, that's what I was commenting on Zest. I see
when you play, it's wonderful, it's wonderful. You've you've described
the experience of playing in an orchestra as being engulfed
in the casmir of sound. It's a very poetic description,
(29:50):
like you're wrapped in a beautiful blanket.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Do you uh?
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Do you still feel that? Does that never cease? That feeling?
Never sees.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
That to depends on what piece and of course what ensemble,
but yes, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, I feel like sound
is texture. Sound is feeling like I mean, feeling on
my skin, like how soft cashmere feels is how it.
(30:20):
That's my experience, that's my lived experience. Playing in the
Philadelphia Orchestra. It is like being It is like sitting
on your favorite couch and it just envelops you and
you are covered up in your favorite blanket or your
favorite cozy fuzzy if that is your texture of choice.
But it is so it feels so right, and I'm
(30:42):
so grateful every day that I get to go to work.
And or as Amy, we're just a Nebsci would say,
it's my calling. I feel like I get to do
what I'm supposed to be doing. I call it work
because it's functionally that's what it is. But it is
I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, and I
feel so fortunate to be able to do that. Is
(31:02):
it challenging some days? Yes? Is it also rewarding while
also being challenging. Yes, socially and also musically, meaning there
are interactions, you know, with any workplace or group of
a social network. We need to work things out and
that's rewarding as well as it is to make the music.
(31:23):
Sitting on stage. I still remember the very first day
that I substituted as a student after winning an audition
to be able to do that, and that lit my
fire even more that when the audition would happen, I said,
(31:44):
oh my gosh, if I could do this every day,
I would take it in a heartbeat. And what a
blessing it is to get to do that. I was
sandwiched at the back of the cella sections section, in
front of the double basses, so as in the low
dark chocolate register of the taste buds, like sixty seven
percent dark chocolate is my favorite chocolate. And I get
(32:07):
to I get to live.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah, you do?
Speaker 1 (32:10):
You do? You do?
Speaker 2 (32:14):
I think there is a transcendence there. There is that,
you know that talk about transcendent experience. There's something that
just transcends any individual ideology or belief system. I mean
everyone in that room can feel that. Feel the chills, yes,
the aesthetic chills, these set chills. You've talked about tiers
(32:37):
of transcendence. Do you do? You do? You do? You
have experience that while you're performing?
Speaker 1 (32:43):
I did? I actually talked about that with with Daker
with Daker a little bit. Yeah, with some awe and
these tingling the chills that happen. One of those was
I cried in a performance of Mozart Requiem, and we
did it at we performed it at Saratoga Springs, and
(33:06):
I think I was crying because it brought me back
to the week that my grandfather, the John Kendall's Suzuki Grandfather,
that he died in January of twenty eleven, and at
work that week in January twenty eleven, we also played
Mozart's Requiem. And for me, there is a connection in
(33:31):
time between myselves from the twenty twenty nineteen version of
the Mozart Requiem at Saratoga to the twenty eleven version
of the Mozart's Requiem that we performed in Reisenhall when
grandfather died, and to honor him, I was playing it
that week to honor him. Nobody else needed to know
that was my own personal avenue of delivery in our
(33:54):
performances that week. And so when I ended up crying
in that twenty nineteen version in Sarahga, I, I was
doing a lot of internal reflection and transportation of my
sort of inner self, of sadness, of grief, of anger,
of also the musical anger that happens in Konfutatis in
(34:18):
the specific movement with dun lumpumpum. It's a very angry movement,
and so that helped conjure my own emotional connection to
that with the many layers of my own personal experience,
so that that had, you know, grandfather's death, grief, the
beauty of the piece itself just separate from me personally,
(34:39):
to transcending time with myself, from my from my current
then to the past self, sort of reliving some of
the grief that I felt or maybe unacknowledged grief that
was coming out eight years later. So there are a
lot of layers in all of that that I live.
When I perform piece, I'm thinking about my past self
(35:02):
that introduced that first met a piece of music, that
same piece of music to my current self, to sharing
of course with the audience. Somebody in the audience is
a grandfather, they're living it for the first time or
sadly maybe the last time. Maybe they don't know it.
So there are a lot of a lot of emotional
(35:24):
connections for me in any given performance week, but that
particular one, the tears of transcendence for me that that
was really specific to that piece and those moments in
time that I was just describing, does that make sense.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Oh that makes so much sense.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Sometimes I don't know if what I'm saying is just gibberished.
It's my it's my lived experience, though, so it is
to me.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
What it is. Yeah, you know, I think we can
all kind of apply that experience to whatever it is
we do when we feel like we're having a peak
experience for what we're doing. You know, the peak experiences
are pretty universal in their manifestations, and that's what we
should be doing, right, is helping people find their own
unique pathway to peak experience. Yes, I mean I think
(36:19):
I know you're really interested in excellence, and you know,
I think sometimes we make too much of excellence as
being the goal, you know, as opposed to just self actualization.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yes, yes, I love that because the striving as we
have a say I'm a saying from one of my
mentors at Curtis the music is always better than it
can be played. There is a constant striving in specifically
for me as a musician, I'm never good enough. I
(36:51):
don't mean that in a downplay. I mean that in
a sense of being humble and inspired at the same
time to continue to grow. And so the constant striving
is for me, what this reaching our potential? Yes, but
also continuing to grow our potential because like I said,
(37:12):
I don't stop learning, so we just keep growing, We
just keep using, We just keep growing, keep being curious,
keep being interested in things beyond ourselves that challenge us,
that push me, that interest me. When I had the baby,
I really couldn't doin anything else, So that was kind
of a fermata, a pause button with self compassion, because
(37:33):
we need the ebbs and flows of life or if
someone has a grieving time or all of these. You know,
the ebb and flow of life happens. But when we're
when we're able, we I put my foot on the accelerator,
not in terms of I shouldn't say accelerator. I fuel
myself with the nutrients for growth, That's what I should say,
(37:58):
because accelerator sounds like it's externally motivated and I want
to be fast, and that's not That's not how I
think of reaching or continuing to strive. For knowing our
potential and seeing it. There's so much there, Scott.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
There is, and I mean, and I mean on one level,
I'm like like, of course, with you on the constant growing,
growth is so important but I guess what am I
I'm trying to say also that I think it's like
okay sometimes to reach a happy place, even for a moment,
(38:36):
where you're allowed to just enjoy what the journey that
you've been on, and to just not have the pressure
to grow.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Absolutely can't you.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
Have like a year of no growth exactly? But cultivation, well,
I guess we know from appreciation of.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Course, I mean the peacefulness and the self reflection that
we need to just live like that. So two thoughts.
One is in biology, like physiologically we need sleep to grow.
We can't. If we don't sleep, your brain can't regenerate
and grow and just be. So we need to sleep.
In that sense, there's a metaphorical validation for what you're saying,
(39:16):
and I totally agree with that from a lived experience
as well. I can't if I don't sleep, if I
don't let myself rest, if I don't pause, then how
do you refuel? That's my and that's the big And
even in nature in the season, of course, we are
natural beings in nature. We have in the tropics anyway,
(39:40):
we have the seasons where there's hibernation, the bears go
into hibernation the plants, at least here in Pennsylvania, they
the leaves fall off, the trees, the wind, the nature
goes to sleep for the new springtime. And I think
(40:00):
this is also Waldworf Like immersion in nature and appreciation
for in connection to nature, I think is a key
part of our understanding ourselves and how we work.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Totally, that's totally.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Totally agreeing with what you're saying about that need to reset,
reflect and just yeah, we're human beings. We're not human doers.
We're human beings.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
First, right, Yeah, because I just think there's such an
emphasis and excellence even in like music conservatories, and it's
just a lot of people get burnt a lot of
musicians get burnt out, you know, and and end up
not even enjoying it anymore. I've seen that before.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yes, I'm doing some coaching. I'm teaching, and of course
that that's often one of the most important topics is
actually balancing towards that self compassion and just being just
being enjoying remember why we're connected to this in the
(41:09):
first place, or even just take a break. Yeah, that's
just so important to our ability to and that's yeah,
being able to be like a rubber or resilience and
being able to go back and forth, breathe in, breathe out.
These are like the rhythm, the Cicadian rhythms of life.
(41:30):
We need to emulate that absolutely. In fact, I wonder
if there's studies on excellence without sleep like you can't
or the equivalent, the analogy, the equivalent of sleep and rest.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, I mean ericson a lot of people quote his
ten year, ten thousand hours or ten years to excellence,
but they don't cite as much is that those who
were the most accomplished musicians were those who had the
most amount of downtime. Yeah, people don't. People don't say
(42:06):
that as much as really finding Yeah, yeah, you are
in You're very multi facet in your interest of the things.
You've got this Masters of Positive of Applied Positive Psychology,
which is where I met you at Penn, and I
know that you're really interested in classical music's role in
human flourishing and the importance of cultivating healthy organizations as
(42:27):
pathways to serve the arts and public community. Where's your
thinking these days around how we can cultivate healthy organizations?
I know this is a deep passion of yours.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Wow, thank you for asking. Interestingly, the reason I found MAP,
the Applied Positive Psychology Program at Penn was because the
Philadelphia Orchestra went through a pretty traumatizing Chapter eleven bankruptcy
about fifteen years ago. Fourteen years ago, and I felt helpless.
(43:02):
And I don't like feeling helpless. I like to know
what I can do to help. I like to know
how I can contribute, how I can participate. And we
were still playing, we played all our concerts. We didn't
We had to. The organization had to restructure for its
long term health. So I'm not going to discuss disagreeing
(43:23):
we're agreeing with the actual decision to go through that process,
except to say from an experience point of view for
the musicians, it was very traumatizing. And I found myself
at the then Barnes and Noble at the corner of
eighteenth and Walnut and Philly in Center City, at the
Barnes and Noble in the business section, looking at a
lot of red books like Power and Leadership Authority, you know,
(43:47):
because I was looking at what do other organizations do
when they go through a struggle. We can't be the
only ones who are facing a challenge. What do other
people do when they're struggling with motivation or employee connection
and all of these I loved it. I just soaked
up as much as I could, and I read specifically
(44:08):
two books whose authors I ended up writing. Dan Pink's
book called Drive subtitled The Surprising Truth of Intrinsic Motivation,
and then Adam Grant's book Give and Take, and I
wrote both of them and very brief emails saying, hi
(44:29):
and Fanks, and do you have any knowledge of application
of your research to the classical music industry blah blah blah,
and the orchestra Adam Grant, I wrote on a Sunday
evening at like eleven pm hits end, and at seven
twenty one I got the auto reply, like very excellently written,
beautiful auto reply, And then like a minute later got
a personal reply from Adam Grant seeseing me into the
(44:52):
directors at the Positive Psychology Center saying, ah, there's a
bunch of interaction here, intersection here that might be interesting.
And literally ten days later, this was December twenty eighth,
so no, it was about fourteen days later. The map class,
the pen class and Positive Psychology came scheduled came to
(45:13):
a Philadelphia Orchestra concerto and then the roof just blew
off with all the connections there because I met James,
I'd met them backstage. We chatted. They invited me to
come the next morning, Sunday morning, at like eight am
to Penn to help the class debrief their concert experience,
(45:35):
which for many of them was their first classical music experience.
And that for me was the beginning of everything map
for the applied positive psychology program. So, to go back
to your original question, I believe that healthy arts organizations,
healthy nonprofit organizations that deliver public good goods like arts.
(46:04):
If those are we can only be as good as
our arts organization is, right, the organization needs to run
well in order to be able to be effective for
the public good. And so I feel like the healthier
the more we know about positive psychology and its possible
applications to arts organizations, the healthier we can be, and
(46:29):
the more effective we can be in our delivery in
our concerts, in our and we're already giving our we're
already pouring our hearts out on stage as the musicians,
but from the patron experience to programming to EDI efforts
that we're doing, you know, making strides on in an
otherwise very antiquated industry, and antiquated because of its history
(46:54):
in Western Europe aristocracy and so is this was the
original sort of nucleus connection to positive psychology and the
program at PEN And while I have not officially applied
it back to the Philadelphia Orchestra, I feel that the
(47:15):
organization has, for a variety of reasons, grown and flourished
in ways. Maybe it's from post traumatic growth, maybe it's
from just being aware of the possibilities, but we have
definitely grown from the challenges of before and artistically, at
(47:39):
least with the leadership of jan Nique, our music director,
we are we are just poised ever more for continued
beloved representation and delivery of arts messengers of music to
Philadelphia and the country and internationally on tours. But that's
(48:03):
the anyway, that's that's the answer to that question. Is
that's where it stems from my my belief in strengthening
arts organizations. Was that serendipitous email exchange with Adam Grant, Adam,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
I'll share this episode with him, and also I'll share
this episode with Dan Pink. What did not.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Respond, but Dan did not respond. I got the auto reply,
and then like the possibility that I'm in like three
months I might get to get a reply or something,
but that never happened.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
He's usually really good at that. He's usually really good
at that. I'll say, I'll stand up for Dan think
for a second when he when he has time. But
very cool, It's it. I mean, I could talk to
you all day, but I want to be respectful of
your time. Let's just end with just give me a
little bit of idea of how having a child has
(49:00):
enriched your life and has has it changed your music
at all?
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Becoming a mom, becoming a parent has been the most
humbling experience and also the most rewarding experience. Well, right now,
I'm actually having a hard time with practicing at home
because Phoebe stays awake when I practice, and she wants
to hear. She says, Mama, are you going to play
(49:27):
the divorceeac? Now?
Speaker 2 (49:29):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (49:29):
Is that the Broms? Are you practicing the Broms Requiem?
She's so verbal and so much interaction, is so much
attention to what I'm practicing, that I've become aware that
I'm keeping her awake actually or keeping her away from
her things. So, and she wants to sit right next
to me when I practice. And she also just started cello,
(49:50):
so there's a lot of things that are happening. She
wanted to start cello because I think she wanted to
imitate me, which of course makes sense as a parent,
and our connection is great, but it's been definitely a
challenging thing to manage practice time from a practical standpoint. Emotionally,
(50:11):
sense of meaning has skyrocketed because I just have.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Beautiful, a.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Deeper sense of being of my why is for her. Wow. Yeah,
there's a lot more there in the parent aspect and
being a performing musician and managing time and all of this.
But I know all parents go through this in some degree.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
Yeah, getting outside of your self aspect of human experience
through your music, through children, through you know, it looks
like you're hidden transcend in some multiple fronts. I always
find talking to you a trans and and experience. Remy,
thank you so much for being so gracious with your
time today and for being on my show.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
Thank you so much for having me Scott, and for
you for all of your work. I've enjoyed reading your
books about thinking about your perspective and your experience and
how you're making the world a better place based on
your experience and what you've been through. It's you're an
incredible inspiration for education, for psychology, and for human the
human experience. So thank you for being who you are.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.