The Conductor as Yogi: What Have We Learned

“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.”

Phil Collins

There is a pause, if we choose to take it, after a concert season, academic year, major project, or significant life experience.  Like savasana at the end of a yoga practice, we take the opportunity to assimilate, to feel the effects of what happened and to learn from it.  Though the concert or class has ended, the reverberations of the sounds or the sensations of the postures linger and inform us as both an act of closure and an invitation to the future.

What have we learned?

 Though each of us would answer this differently, I think there are three important lessons to contemplate as we end this year and head into summer.

Holistic awareness.  We have learned in a most powerful way that the people we are and the people we lead are whole beings.  Not “altos” or “ensembles” or “classes” or “directors.”  We are people who breathe and move and worry and strive.  Who want to be seen as significant and to have a purpose for being here.  Whose struggle is often silent except when it shouts through actions or fears.  We are people who need time and encouragement and community and laughter.  And we need to be accepted for who we are and not just what we produce.

Music as a safe space for awakening the senses.  We have learned how our numbed or tamed senses can come alive again in a safe and uplifting way through the musical process.  From the feeling of the breath in our body and the resulting change it makes in our emotional state to the shaping of sounds together for a purpose larger than ourselves, music continues to be there for us, if we see it as more than a technical vehicle to an event on a calendar.

 Our roles as catalysts for positive change.  We have learned that each of us, from our place in the choir or at the piano or behind the podium, can be a change-maker for good.  When we pause to think through the musical text and context as it applies to our life and not just that of “some poet out there,” we invite a conversation that can help restore the spirit and heal the soul.  When we learn what it means to be an ensemble willing to balance independence with interdependence we spark a heart change that can have powerful ripple effects in the larger world.  And when we learn that there are many creative solutions to challenges and that doing the next right thing means growing forward, we are empowered by our sense of agency and fortified by our resilience, applying these strengths again and again to a life well-lived.

As I take a summer break from this blog, I will consider what I have learned and can integrate into my work and life and I encourage you to do the same, wherever you are in your personal and professional journey.  But I also hope to use summer’s time and space to recalibrate and “listen.”  To tune into awareness for whatever may be calling or needed or possible.  To enjoy, just because.  And to love, be grateful, and relish that long, slow exhale.

May we be well.  May we find peace.  May we experience abundant joy.

May we know the light within us and may we see and celebrate that same light in others.

Namaste

Dr. Ramona Wis is the Mimi Rolland Endowed Professor in the Fine Arts, Professor of Music, and Director of Choral Activities at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois and the author of The Conductor as Leader:  Principles of Leadership Applied to Life on the Podium.  Dr. Wis is a 500-hour CYT (Certified Yoga Teacher) and a certified Brain Longevity® Specialist, a research-based certification on yoga and integrative medicine for brain health and healthy aging. Reach her at: or ramonawis.com.