Episode 48: Mallory Thompson ’79, ’80 MS on Making Connections & Community
Listen to "Mallory Thompson ’79, ’80 MS on Making Connections & Building an Alumni Community" on Spreaker.
Transcript:
[MUSIC PLAYING] CASSIE PETOSKEY: Welcome to Northwestern Intersections, a Northwestern Network podcast where we talk to alumni about their careers. We'll hear what they've done right, what they've done wrong, and the stories behind both. My name is Cassie Petoskey with the Northwestern Alumni Association career advancement team.
Today I'm speaking with Mallory Thompson. Mallory is the director of bands, professor of music, coordinator of the conducting program, and holds the John W. Beattie Chair of Music at Northwestern. As the third person in the university's history to hold the director of bands position, Dr. Thompson conducts the symphonic wind ensemble, teaches undergraduate and graduate conducting, and administers all aspects of the band program. Thank you so much for being here with us today, Mallory.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Thank you. It's my pleasure. I'm very happy to be here.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: And we're so excited to chat with you about what you've been up to these last few years, of course. But before we get started in that, I like to start where you started. And that is your first job. So where did you start in your career?
MALLORY THOMPSON: Wow. Well, my first job was as director of instrumental music at Alma College in Michigan. And I got this job right out of finishing my master's degree in conducting at Northwestern. And I had zero experience.
So with this job, I was conducting the concert band, the symphony orchestra, the jazz ensemble, the marching band. I taught lessons in horn and trumpet, conducting, orchestration, and music ed methods. It was horrifying. I was sick all of the time because I was one lesson ahead of every class that I taught.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: And so busy doing so many things. And I'm curious what you took from Northwestern that was most useful in that first role.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Oh, what an interesting question. I think I took the confidence that I believed I could do it because I had been through so many difficult things during my bachelor's and master's degree at Northwestern-- the times where you just feel like, oh, I'm never going to get everything finished. Or this is so overwhelming. I learned that I could get things finished. And I believed I'd be able to follow through and accomplish what I wanted to do.
I think another thing that I took with me was that I really loved what I was doing. And I had a great desire to make the music with the students and to do the job. And I knew I was really fortunate to have this first position. So I think the confidence combined with the desire to do the work and connect with the people I think were deciding factors for me in that.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. Yeah, that's great. And you were so busy in that first role. When did you realize you wanted to transition into something new?
MALLORY THOMPSON: Well, I remember when I was a senior in high school taking my SAT tests. They asked-- one of the questions was, what do you think your terminal degree will be? And at the time, I thought my terminal degree would be a PhD. I didn't know in what. But I just knew that I loved learning.
And at some point when I was in my position at Alma, those two things converged-- my desire to learn and my awareness of what I needed to do to do a better job for my students. So I was doing so much conducting at the time that I thought that maybe this was something that I had some actual natural skill with and that I wanted to pursue it to a greater degree.
Initially I thought maybe I would do a PhD in musicology because I loved music history. And I loved learning and reading and research and listening to music. But I think the thing that I discovered in my position at Alma was that the thing that suited my nature most was working with groups of people. And that brought together my love of being with others, my natural skills as an artist and a leader, and my desire to make something beautiful as part of a group.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah, that's great, the group dynamics. That's so interesting as a musician and a conductor the individual element of being really good at what it is you're doing, but then also bringing that together as a whole.
MALLORY THOMPSON: That's right. Yeah, kind of a funny story about me in kindergarten, of all things, was that the kindergarten teacher told my parents that she thought that I should be held back in kindergarten for two reasons. One, because I couldn't tie my shoes. And two, because I went a little bit crazy when the school buses came with all the little kids.
I grew up in a neighborhood where there weren't a lot of little kids to play with. And I distinctly remember standing at the window, watching the school buses come. And the doors open. Then all these kids came out. And it was an opportunity for me to get everybody organized to play games before it was time for class, whatever class you have in kindergarten. And so I got all of these kids organized. And we were playing all these things.
Anyway, the teacher, Ms. [? Bullard, ?] told my mother she thought I should be held back and that I should be held back because I had this social problem. And my mother said, no, thank you very much. I think that's a great part of Mallory's personality. And I'm not going to punish her for it.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: That is amazing that your mom was like, no, this is good.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Yep. And honest to goodness truth is that I feel that exact same way every time I walk to rehearsal. I feel that same, ooh, what can I get these kids to do today? We're going to go in, and we're going to play this music. What can we do today-- the exact same feeling that I felt when those doors opened to the school bus.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: That's amazing. That's great. And so you've enjoyed that type of work forever.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Yeah. It's just there's something about it that suits my nature.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. And so when you are in school, how much of your work was individual based and how much of your work was group based? And what was more of a challenge for you?
MALLORY THOMPSON: Well, for a conductor, you earn the privilege of standing in front of a group with the hours of preparation that you spend developing your craft, becoming a better musician, and studying and learning the music that you're going to be conducting and performing with the ensemble. So really, being a conductor is often a very lonely thing because your work is done alone.
And your work is done in silence. You're audiating. The music audiating means to hear imagine it in your mind. You're trying on different interpretations. You're getting a sense of balance, orchestration, pacing, articulation, an infinite possibility of nuances. So you spend a lot of time alone doing this work.
And then I think that makes me really elated to finally get with people and actually breathe life into what I've been imagining and to try to engage them fully in the process of making the music at the highest level we possibly can. So it's a hard question to answer because there's so much time alone and taking classes. And music theory so you can better understand what the composer wrote. And music history so you have a greater sense of context for how the music you are performing fits into the world.
There's all of that. And then there's actually getting into the rehearsal process. And how believable are you at convincing other people to do what you ask? There's the aspect of your believability, your communicative abilities with your own physical technique in conducting, and your ability to motivate them through the rehearsal process.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Absolutely. It's so interesting. I come from a world of sports. And I'm just thinking of-- you know, you train, but to respect someone when you're playing with them and to sense their confidence. You can really feel that.
And whether you're motivated to play with them or not is really a big aspect of a team's success. And you can feel it. Like you said, am I motivated by this individual in that respect that you need to have for someone? Do you ever have those situations where you have to coach someone through having that aura, that confidence, as a conductor?
MALLORY THOMPSON: Making music is incredibly personal. And there is an unrealistic goal of perfection that gets in the way of a lot of things for people in different ways. Very few players or conductors are able to just do it. Most people have to deal with their own little demons in one way or another.
And I think over my tenure at Northwestern, there have been a lot of really wonderful, talented players that had stopped by my office that just had such crippling self-doubt that we had to talk through it a little bit, many tearful conversations. And I think that's something that conductors often deal with in their own way as well.
The difficulty for the conductor is that you stand on a box in front of people. And you're supposed to be vulnerable and be expressive. For the player, the vulnerability comes in. And it's so personal when you play your instrument that anything that comes out that isn't what you intended is-- it almost hurts. It almost bites you. It makes you flinch.
And that's something that they have to work through and find something for themselves that's more motivating than aversion therapy. OK. I'm going to do this because I certainly don't want to goof that up. You need a positive, not avoiding a negative to really motivate you. You can't hope to not screw up.
You have to hope for and have motivation for something that's past that to, in a way, be able to trick yourself to do the thing that you want to do. You can't really control yourself to do what you want to do. You really have to release yourself to do it. It's very much like sports, I think, in a lot of regards.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. And that introspective work that you have to do with yourself to make yourself more self-aware--
MALLORY THOMPSON: It's endless.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Endless. And it's so interesting hearing you describe how musicians have to go through this process of figuring it out and becoming self-aware to be good at what they're doing. And it just seems like that self-awareness must pay off in dividends in any career that these people choose.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Absolutely it does. Absolutely it does. And it's a kind of self-empathy that you want to be able to have for your colleagues, for your peers, for your audience.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. Yeah, definitely life skills that are helpful in music and beyond.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Also, it's a matter of being thoughtful about why you're doing what you're doing. So you're not just going on reflex or impulse or habit, but taking the time to think, I'm good at this. But why am I doing it?
One of the things that I usually-- I'm about due to say this to the students. Every year, one of the things that I say is that a lot of times, I hear you say, oh, thank goodness. My recital is over. But don't you do this because you want to play? Why would we want to wish everything passed when we do it because we allegedly want to do it?
And I get it. I'm really not different than anybody else. It's the pressure of having to do it that we don't like. The actual doing it is usually fun. Then being done with it is this wonderful sense of accomplishment and relief until you have to do the next thing.
And then you cycle through it again and again and again. But finding a way to be comfortable with that is an important predictor, I think, of someone's longevity in the business-- and also their ability to keep loving what they're doing.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Right. Yeah, because I was wondering about the burnout when you're constantly doing it. And you're relieved that it's over. But the people that come back are the most passionate about it. I'm curious what you've seen with burnout and longevity and how that plays out. Do you work through burnout with folks?
MALLORY THOMPSON: You know, I don't generally see people that have been out with the exception of during our conducting symposium or any other conducting symposium that I am working with. A conducting symposium is generally an event where people who are working in the profession come and attend for a week to get some additional feedback, skills, ideas, score study, physical technique, rehearsal techniques, musicianship, and so on.
And I host a conducting symposium at Northwestern every summer that usually draws around 35 to 40 people. So I've done that here for 23 years. I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of conductors here and other places.
And making music is never the thing that burns people out. It's the administrative aspects. Or it's other pressures or financial-- you don't have enough support for your program-- or difficulty with other aspects. It's never, oh, gosh, I have to do this piece by Hindemith again. Darn it.
It's not that. Everybody loves doing the music. But sometimes people kind of grind down into the work. And they forget the end game. So the work might be fixing things in the sound, getting rid of things that are wrong.
Well, the only point to get rid of things that people are playing that are wrong is so-- you're not getting rid of things that are wrong. You're revealing what's right. You're revealing what's beautiful. You're not just getting rid of things. And I think that's something that leads to burnout and being detached from that larger why. What is your why?
And being really clear in your mind, reminding yourself as often as you can, this is why I'm doing this. And if I can align my behavior with my beliefs as much as possible, I will be powerful. There will be a really good, positive impulse behind what I do. And that'll keep me from getting burned out.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah, no. I love how you describe that it's not the music. It's these other things and not seeing that end game of the music that can lead to this, which is really interesting. And coming back to your long career in music, you made a couple really interesting stops between that last degree and where you are now at Northwestern. And I'd love to hear a little bit about some of those transition points and some of the things that you took from each of those positions.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Great. I'd love to. I loved every place I've been. And I've learned something every place I've been. Even if at the time it didn't seem like the place that I thought I should be, it became the place I needed to be.
So after I finished my doctorate, I taught at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania for three years. That was a shock because I went from getting my doctorate at the Eastman School of Music, which is comparable in level of performance to Northwestern, to-- I went from Eastman to Bucknell, which was largely non-majors. And I was just in musical disbelief the whole first semester.
And I think I was probably depressed because the doctorate is such a goal. And then in a way, you almost never think you're really going to finish it. And then you finish it. And you're like, that's it? Now what do I do? Because I certainly didn't feel like I knew everything. I felt like, wow, now what's going to motivate me?
And then I got into this job. And it really wasn't the music that was that motivating until I found my way. And I thoroughly enjoyed working with the students at Bucknell. And I think one of the great positives of my time at Bucknell was involvement in a course that was taught to the entire entering freshman class.
And this course involved one day a week lectures. It was a liberal arts course. One day a week would be a lecture. Everybody would come together. And then there were lectures in different time periods about art, literature, philosophy, and music. And then we would break out into discussion sections.
And I gave the lectures on music. But I also had a discussion section of my own. So we would talk about the other lectures as well and how the different aspects within the time period would fit together. And in preparation for doing this after my first year teaching at Bucknell, they had a seminar in the summer for all of us that were going to be teaching the discussion sections.
And so we read all of the literature. We studied the art. And then we would go in and discuss all of these things. And it was spectacular for me because it was the liberal arts education that I never received. And that's not Northwestern's fault. That's my fault.
But when I was an undergraduate student here, I was very single-minded about practicing my instrument and doing my music classes. And I was not the greatest student in my other classes. So having a chance to read Descartes and look at Rembrandt and-- it was fantastic. It was really, really fantastic. And I know that that experience has given me a different frame to put around all of the music that I make.
And from there, I had a one-year appointment at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. I was able to just conduct the wind ensemble and teach an advance conducting class there. It was a very small job description, the smallest I've ever had. So I had a lot of time to study.
And so the repertoire that I did there-- I was able to be really, really well-prepared on repertoire that I had never done before that was complex. And I was able to dig in with a small class of advanced conductors of, I think, no more than six of them. And that was really great preparation for me for one day having my own graduate students because I had the same class for the entire year.
And then I went to the University of South Florida, where I was the director of bands for six years-- fantastic, priceless experience. We had just enough players that could play at a high enough level that, oh, if nothing went wrong, we could do most repertoire barely. So that was a place where I did a lot of big major wind repertoire for the first time.
And there weren't too many witnesses, you know? You don't want a lot of witnesses the first time you-- no matter how hard you try or how much you study, it's still the first time you do the x piece. And so I really took advantage of that opportunity. And I learned a lot about building a group. I learned a lot about myself as a motivator.
I had to work pretty relentlessly to get them to play at a level that I desired. I think in a lot of regards, I might have been too rough. And that was something that I had to learn, too. But I will always be incredibly grateful for the experience that I had there. That was my first real stand.
I was there for six years. And I became involved with the public school teachers in the state. I felt like I was really embedded in the instrumental music culture and in the music education culture of the state. And I felt I was able to do something to contribute. And that really meant a lot to me.
And then from there, I went to the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, where I taught for one year. I expected to be there much longer. But I left after a year to come home to Northwestern in the position that I've held for the last 23 years.
At Cincinnati, that's a wonderful school with fantastic faculty, terrific students. I did not have to be relentless to get them to play at the highest level. But I did have to find ways to inspire them and motivate them to take risk musically and be vulnerable. And that was a place that I could see what that challenge would entail and how I would need to grow in those aspects of who I was.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. And I find it so interesting. You mentioned the community aspect in Florida. And you've been in a lot of different areas in the United States. And I'm curious if the music culture is different in these different locations.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Not really, no. Like-minded musicians tend to find each other. And not everyone is the same in any line of work. But people that love music are going to find each other. People that want to enjoy what they're doing are going to find each other. People with a positive outlook are going to find each other.
And to the degree that I as a leader of an organization or, as I often call it, an organism-- a group is an organism. As the leader of an organism, I have a responsibility to set the table and monitor and feed and care for and nourish what I think is going to be a healthy organism in which people can play their best and feel their best doing it.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah, that's great. That's really interesting. And so you've moved-- talking geographically, the music community has a similar vibe. Like-minded people find each other. What was it like moving yourself and your family and your personal network?
MALLORY THOMPSON: Moving was very difficult. I'm single. I've always been single. And gosh, I remember so many times just feeling this sinking feeling in my chest when I would leave one place and go to another. I remember feeling that way. My parents drove me from Evanston to Alma, dropped me off there when I was going to be starting my first job.
And I just remember that awful feeling. Every single time, I felt it. And I remember driving from Rochester, New York, after finishing my doctorate south to Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. And just-- oh, here I go again, every single time. It was hard. It's hard. You learn a lot about yourself. And I would always want to cry, and I never would.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Good for you. I remember when I moved to Delaware. And I bawled my eyes out.
MALLORY THOMPSON: I don't know that it's good for me. I think it might have been better if I had just let myself feel it. But I was just too stubborn. I was too stubborn.
But the things that you give up with moving like that pale in comparison to the things that you gain because then you find your next family. And they find you-- those like-minded people. And I have wonderful-- I would call them my family. I have wonderful family members all over that I have been fortunate enough to find over the course of a life of living different places that I would not have otherwise.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Such an amazing and vast network of close ties.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Yes.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: And it seems like you get so-- in sports, you get so close with the people you work with. They're almost like your, like you said, family. And so I would imagine that's how it is when you're investing so much time and energy with these people. The ups and downs-- that really builds that bond.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Right. Here at Northwestern, especially my graduate conducting students, we actually call it "the family." And part of what I want to do is introduce the new ones to the older ones. And now the older ones are at an age that the newer ones could be their children, which horrifies everyone, especially me. Because what does that make me, the grandmother? I don't know.
But there's a convention that takes place in Chicago every December called the Midwest Clinic. And in any given year for this music convention, 25 or 30 of my former graduate students will be in attendance. And always the Friday night of the clinic is Northwestern family night. And I have a party at my apartment for all of the graduate conducting students that are in town. And then we go to dinner.
And I can't even tell you the pleasure and satisfaction and pride that I feel watching them in little conversation groups in my apartment talking. It's so loud. It is so loud because they're so enthusiastic. And they're all just talking and laughing. And seeing them from these different generations getting to know each other-- it's just spectacular. And then the side bar of that is the networking that happens, which is spectacular.
But more important than the networking is the actual connections that are made. And I've always described myself as a herding animal. I'm that border collie, you know? I make sure nobody goes astray. And I nip them in the ankles and direct them back. And I just sort of watch and make sure there are no predators.
I don't need to be the middle of everything. As I always say, I don't need any more attention. I get enough attention. What I want to do is get everybody together and just give them that opportunity to get the benefits of what I know all of them have to offer to each other. And it's just so pleasing to me. And to know then that they now look out for each other and will always look out for each other--
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. Yeah, that family aspect-- that's great. I love that you brought that to the Northwestern community and your folks here. And thinking about the transition from Cincinnati to Northwestern, how special was that for you?
MALLORY THOMPSON: It was hard. It was very, very hard. My former teacher, John Paynter-- the position was open before he passed. But he actually died in his last year in the job. And there were a number of-- the conventional wisdom in the profession was that anyone that followed him would be cannon fodder. It would be disastrous.
And all kinds of people said, oh, I sure wouldn't want to follow John Paynter. Those were the people that all really wished they had a chance to follow John Paynter secretly, I think. And I knew that I was not going to try to become another person. He was hallowed and revered by all of us that knew him.
I had no design or intention or illusion of becoming him. What I always intended to do was do the job. It had nothing to do with him. And the job is to tend to what is in front of you. So what was in front of me were incredibly talented students and music that needed to be performed at the highest possible level. That seemed pretty simple to me.
And as long as I knew myself well enough, which I did-- I worked hard at that. I still do. But as long as I didn't confuse the job with the person that held the job previously, I was fine. Then I just had to be true to myself and be honest in evaluating my own work and my own effectiveness with the students that were playing in front of me.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: I've heard a lot recently about being authentic in your career, being authentic in your work. And it sounds like that's what you intended to do. And you've been extremely successful at that. How does that play out in your work? How does being you and yourself play out in some of the stories and experiences that you develop for these students?
MALLORY THOMPSON: Yeah, well, I'm not ashamed to say that I've been the beneficiary of therapy. And I'm a big advocate for it. I don't really think there's anybody that wouldn't benefit from a few years of looking at their own habits and their own psychological pathology to try to figure out, really, is this behavior serving me? Or is it time to put that aside and give myself a little more freedom in the choices that I make under certain circumstances?
I'll have to say that I think that the work that I have done in therapy is probably the thing that I'm more proud of than anything else. And I'm really proud of my work here. But I couldn't have done-- I couldn't continue to do the work that I do here without having the courage to ask a lot of questions and live in a gray area, which I don't like. And I think most type-A personalities don't believe in gray areas. We believe in black and white. So that was really super important to me.
And I think you can't be authentic if you don't know who you're dealing with. And that person is yourself. So I think that means that you're going to make mistakes. Everybody does. You try to make as few as possible. And you try to not hurt anyone too badly along the way, though you probably will.
And my first six years teaching at Northwestern, I lived in Wilmette. I had a nice little townhouse in Wilmette. And I kept a little folding lounge chair in the back of my car. And I'd go and set up at Gilson Park on the beach on my way home and just sit there and exhale.
It was a lot of pressure taking on the position. And I was very young. I wasn't even 40 when I started the position. And I just remember so many important things so vividly in my imagination. I remember the light. I remember how I felt. I remember what the air smelled like.
I remember sitting there and taking a deep breath and thinking, OK, what does it feel like being a member of my group? And just thinking, oh, no. You need to try this. You need to try this. You need to try this. And then I'll try to alter those things. I'll try to do a better job.
It's really hard to have this mindset of always wanting to be better. And if you always want to be better, for sure sometime you're going to do something that you're going to be worse. If everything you do works, you're not trying enough things. And one of the things that I have to try sometimes is making people uncomfortable.
And I don't ever want to demoralize anybody. And then that's a tough line because I have to kind of guess everybody's psychological makeup. But that's where they need to know through layer upon layer upon layer of experience with me that everything I ask of them is because I believe they can do it. It's not because I think they're uncapable or incompetent. The expectations I have are entirely because I believe they can do it.
So if I can over time-- and you can't just say, I believe you can do it. This is countless interactions-- eye contact, non-verbal communication, running into someone in the hallway, the way you ask for what you ask for. This is like your bank account with this person. And the higher degree of pressure you put on the demand you make of them, the more you're making a withdrawal.
So you want to make sure that your bank account is always so high that you have plenty of room to make the withdrawal. And ultimately, the most successful withdrawals can still be deposits because you are reminding them of something they already know in a way that shows your respect for what they're capable of. So it's not a withdrawal at all, where if you just said the task, that's a withdrawal.
But if there is a way that you can finesse it that they all-- you already know that you need to do this thing. That's a much more sophisticated level of communication. And then ideally, almost everything becomes a deposit. And then everything is empowering the individual and empowering the organism.
That's one of the things that I always say to conductors everywhere I go. Empower the organism. The organism, the group, has an identity of its own. The way the pieces fit together encourage them to contribute who they are in their own way.
Musically, interpersonally, everyone can be a leader. Everyone needs to be a leader and contributor. How can you empower them to do more, not just make them obey? You're not Pavlov. Don't ring a bell and have them salivate. You want to engage them to contribute more.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: I feel like I could pick your brain for hours and hours about group dynamics. Because I coach youth volleyball and I'm just thinking, we're in that part of our season where it's like, are we burned out? Where are we at? We've got to push through. These last two months are going to be really tough. You kind of want to just get through it.
But this is the time where you build that. You empower them to figure it out themselves. And so I just love hearing you talk about the dynamics of how you help them and you understand that you believe in them but still push them to almost their breaking. You need to make them very uncomfortable to progress forward.
And it just seems like you're such a nurturing personality. But I can see that you want to get the best out of these people. So you have to make them uncomfortable, which is just-- it's a matter of growth, I guess. And it's hard. But it seems like you really enjoy--
MALLORY THOMPSON: Oh, I do. I love the nuance of it. And I think that when you're working with a group, it's not-- sometimes it's very clinical. It's like, do this. But more often, it's more of a visceral kind of engagement. And I always say that I will make contact with you emotionally. It can be a poke, a stroke, or a tickle.
And sometimes it'll be like a poke with a little tickle. It's rarely just like a whole poke because they know they want to do well. I'm not making them do something they don't want to do. So I know that. So at worst, it's going to be like a nagging poke or a wake-up poke, which even in the delivery of that might have a little tickle in it.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, let's get it together, guys.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Or a poke and a stroke. But I think that there's something in emotional visceral contact with the work that needs to be done.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. Yeah, no. That's great. And one of the questions I always ask is the moments of pride that you have in your career. You mentioned the work that you did in therapy and how that helped you be more authentic in your work. Are there other things that you're very proud of that you want to mention to the Northwestern Network on this podcast throughout your career?
MALLORY THOMPSON: Well, first I want to be clear that I'm proud of the therapy not because of what it did for my work. What it did for my work is secondary. I'm proud of it for what it did for me as a human being. So I didn't do it for the work. The work benefited. And I think that's important because the work was not the driver. It was the quality of my life that was the driver.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: That's a great reminder.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. Moments of pride-- oh, my goodness. I expect to have a moment of pride every single day. It's not event-driven for me, like, oh, that was a great concert. Well, of course it's a great concert. I expect every concert to be great. That's what we do.
In a way, I'm the worst kind of demanding because I'm ready for something every single day. I expect it. And I'm excited when I hear glimpses of the professionals that they're capable of being. I'm excited when I hear their courage in really being vulnerable to the music that they're making, not just some sort of-- I'm a trumpet player, not just some sort of trumpet athleticism. I'm a trumpet practitioner.
The instrument ultimately for everyone needs to be secondary. The instrument is what we use to express the music. The music is expressing something other than just itself. And that something is what we want to be universal in touching something in the people that hear us play.
I'm proud of their willingness to work and their willingness to dig in even when they're tired. I'm proud of the way they treat each other and their ready laughter. I think a healthy work environment involves spontaneity. And there is no more true measurement of spontaneity than just good, old laughter.
So if something funny happens-- and there is something kind of funny almost every day-- and that everyone is available to respond to that and not just so hyper-self-absorbed on what they are trying to do. And any time I can get them outside of themselves, I'm getting them closer to that thing that they hope to accomplish. So I'm proud of that.
I'm proud of the health of the organism and every way that that demonstrates itself, whether it's their supreme focus, their supreme listening, and support of one another and awareness of one another, their laughter, their sense of personality. They have personality. They don't just do what they're told.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: I love that. I love that and seeing their personality play out in the everyday. Another thing I wanted to make sure that we chatted about was the reunion coming up, which I know must also-- I'm sure once it is here-- will be another moment of pride for you that day or those days.
MALLORY THOMPSON: I have moments of pride just reading who's coming back and where they are, what they're doing. Most of the people coming back are involved in music still, not all of them. I'm proud of all of them. I just want everyone to be happy. I want them to be happy and have great lives and love music and feel like what they've learned here is something that they can use in whatever they're doing.
But yes, we have about 250 people coming back. Most of them will be playing. Some of them are just coming back to attend the concert and the reunion reception, coming from Japan and England and Australia and literally all over the United States. We have a number of former students who play in the San Francisco Symphony, who have a concert with their symphony Saturday night, will fly the red eye back, land at O'Hare at 9:30 Sunday morning, and come straight to Pick-Staiger for the rehearsal.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Oh my goodness. And that's because they're so excited.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Yes.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: They've got to be.
MALLORY THOMPSON: I mean, why else would they do it, for heaven's sakes? So I'm just thrilled that so many people want to be part of the event. And again, I'm happy to bring them together. And I'm happy about what this is going to do for our Northwestern students, our current students. This is just a collection of professionals unequaled in any setting that I can imagine.
So the students will be able to observe any of the rehearsals they want, come to the concert. We're going to have panel discussions on Saturday and Sunday mornings by some of the alumni. So many of them want to share their experiences with the students. They want to give back. They want to be helpful to them.
And then I'm going to have sort of a one-on-one mentorship fix up with student and professional at the end of the first day of rehearsal at 6:00 for like 30 minutes. And so for example, there's one person who's graduating this year with his master's degree in trumpet performance who is going to go on and become an attorney, he decided. Great. Well, I'm going to fix him up with a returning trumpet graduate who played principal trumpet in the Hong Kong Philharmonic who finished law school and is now a practicing attorney. I'm going to fix them up.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: That's so cool.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Then I have a senior oboist who's graduating who is moving to New York, who I'm going to fix up with two woodwind players who are freelancers in New York City. So I'm going to fix her up with them. And then because I know about these people, I can fix them up with people that will really be able to help them. Then it's up to them. If they want to share email addresses, whatever, blah, blah, blah, then they can go on and have further contact.
But this is going to be-- again, I'm a herding animal. I'm just going to sit back and watch it and explode with pride. And I hope that this is also an event where the younger alumni, who may still be in positions building their careers, will be able to connect with some of the older, more established alumni.
I'm thinking of a bassoonist who is spectacular, a recent graduate, who has built a very successful freelancing career in Chicago. I personally see him in a major professional symphony orchestra. Well, the other bassoonists who are established are going to hear him play and think, wow. This kid's terrific. We've got to remember him when we have an opening. And I think that this could just exponentially be a benefit to everybody, and not to mention just anybody that wants to come to the concert and hear great music and see people celebrating being together.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: That's so special. And one of the questions I always ask on the podcast is how the Northwestern Network has impacted your career. And it seems like you are impacting the Northwestern Network now and forever with these different connections.
MALLORY THOMPSON: I hope so. That would make me really proud. That would make me really proud to think that at some level I was a point of contact that was helpful to--
CASSIE PETOSKEY: The entire community.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Yeah. I hope so.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: The entire community of Northwestern alumni that come through the music programs. That's great. And that question I ask everyone-- how have your identities impacted your career?
MALLORY THOMPSON: I think that I am not capable of separating and identifying what those different identities would be because everything is kind of all interconnected into one thing. So whatever sense of spirituality I have-- my family, my upbringing, the belief that they had in me-- I was very fortunate because they always taught me to believe that I could do anything I wanted. All I had to do was work hard. So I had that going into what I did even though I entered such a largely male-dominated career.
I probably always had some sort of temperament as an artist. I didn't always know what it was. I think back to when I was very young, even preschool-- a sense of creativity, imagination, feeling things.
I studied ballet when I was young. And I remember feeling the music and just the way it made me move. I can't really separate it. And maybe that's age. But maybe it's age. And maybe it's something I've earned through the work that I've done that it all seems to be--
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Fit so well.
MALLORY THOMPSON: --interwoven.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: Yeah. That's great. And Mallory, it's been so fun chatting with you about your career journey and your work with students and the moments of pride and the reunion coming up. Such exciting stuff. And I'd love to know if you have any other advice that you'd like to leave the Northwestern Network with today.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Well, first I'd say be proud that you're part of this network. I'm proud of this network every single day. And I know no one was hatched. We all exist because of something that happened before us and things that were passed on to us. And I am grateful for that.
And I always tell my students that I feel like there are threads that connect us-- many, many, many threads. And the threads can be different teachers. The threads can be different experiences. The thread can be your teacher's teacher.
And especially in music, at some point, all of us are apprentices of people. My students are students of their own teachers, of their teachers' teachers, of other faculty members on other instruments because they've learned and benefited from playing with all of these people. And we have all of these threads that are woven together for each of us into such a rich and dense tapestry. I think that's something to be really proud of and to make us feel strong and confident and also to have a sense of responsibility going forward.
So we want to pass it on. Pass it on. Make a difference. Make the world better. Whatever we do, I think the world needs it. And who cares if my group plays a chord and tune? I do. But maybe in context, if we send something beautiful out when we perform, we don't know who we're touching. But we have to do it anyway with a pure heart and with the intention of trying to do something positive that makes a difference.
So take these gifts that we've been given. And make something positive even if it's for your family, your dog, your coworkers. Take a broader perspective and be grateful. Be grateful for what you have and the people that you shared it with.
CASSIE PETOSKEY: That's great, Mallory. Thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate you for spending the time with us.
MALLORY THOMPSON: Thank you. The pleasure's all mine.
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CASSIE PETOSKEY: Thank you for tuning into today's episode of Northwestern Intersections. To find more information about the podcast, please visit northwestern.edu/intersections. That is northwestern.edu/intersections. Have a great rest of your day. And go Cats.