Elaina Spiro, Cello Student at Boston Conservatory: Everyone Has a Different Path!
Elaina Spiro.
Elaina Spiro is a young cellist studying with Professor Rhonda Rider at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. She is in her third year of her undergraduate studies. TWoA talked to Elaina about her life in music, but also about practical issues such as choosing the right conservatory, practice strategies and how to choose the right concert wear.
The Accidental Cellist
Elaina stumbled upon the cello by accident: “I started in fifth grade, which is a little older than most people. A lot of people at Boston Conservatory were handed their instrument at two years old, before they could even get out a full sentence. I did ballet when I was younger. I thought: ‘I am going to be a professional ballerina!’ I had no interest in playing an instrument. But I wanted to get out of a math class in fourth grade, and they brought all these instruments to the school. To get out of math class, I could go and look at the instruments. They had a bunch of people play each instrument so I could hear what they sounded like. Someone played ‘The Beauty and the Beast’ theme song on the cello. I loved ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and I thought: ‘That is such a beautiful instrument!’ So, I tried out the flute, the clarinet and the cello that day. I couldn’t make a sound out of the flute. I couldn’t make a sound out of the clarinet. And then I sat with the cello. The cute little lady who handed the cello to me was wearing a Christmas sweater with Santa on it even though it was April and I had this ‘aha’ moment. I can’t explain it, I don’t know why it happened, I wasn’t interested in playing an instrument, I was getting out of math class. I had this overwhelming feeling that I needed to play THIS, and the lady looks at me, and she goes: ‘It looks good on you.’ The whole ride home, I tried to convince my mom that I wanted to play the cello. And then I started, and I’ve loved every single second of it. It was always my decision that I wanted to play it and I’ve loved it ever since. A little unconventional, but that’s how I started!”
The Turning Point
Elaina grew up in a suburb of Chicago. At first, the cello was just one of the many things she loved doing: in high school, she was painting a lot, had switched from ballet to gymnastics, but was also playing in the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras. But then, Elaina got very sick: for three years, her gallbladder had been in the process of dying. She was feeling very sick until the doctors realised what was happening and removed the gallbladder: “There was a time when I wasn’t able to play as much, a couple of months in high school, because I just felt so sick. I couldn’t even stand up. And then I had this moment once I had the surgery and got better: I was principal in the second top orchestra of Chicago Youth Symphony at this time, and I got to sit in Symphony Hall where the Chicago Symphony plays, and I felt so inside of the music. The acoustics of that hall are incredible, you really feel inside the music. I just knew that that time where I wasn’t playing my cello was the saddest I had ever felt. Then I got to feel inside the music: I felt that I really couldn’t live without music, and I thought: ‘I want to feel this feeling forever.’ Being here at the conservatory, there are hard days, where it’s a struggle, because this is all I’m doing all day long, but I never regret that this is what I’m doing, because I already got to experience life without this: I know that that’s not the life I want to live.”
Check-Point Moments and a Good Support System
Throughout her journey, Elaina’s parents have been by her side. Once they realised that Elaina wanted to become a cellist, they supported her being home schooled so she could prepare for conservatory auditions. They are still supporting her today: “There are hard days, of course. I’m quite the perfectionist and I’m a very anxious person in the sense that I’m very worried that I’m making the right steps towards my future and very hard on myself when I don’t perform at the ability I want or feel like I’m not preparing enough when I couldn’t be preparing more. But there are frequent moments where I’m reminded that this is my favourite thing: a beautiful performance, getting to share my music with someone. My junior cello recital this past weekend was one of those moments, those reminders of why I do this, why it’s so special. I was just teaching a lesson two days ago, and my student was making progress and telling me how inspired he was by my recital: it’s moments like that. It really helps having really supportive parents, too. Having a good support system makes the hard days better because they keep you going, until you can get to those little check-point moments when you can keep yourself going.”
Choosing the Right Conservatory
What advice does Elaina have for high school students applying to conservatories? “I love Boston Conservatory because I love my professor, Rhonda Rider. When you are applying to conservatory or any school for the sake of studying your instrument, the teacher is the most important thing because that is the person that you are going to learn from. You need to like the way that they sound when they play because you are going to be learning to play in their school of thought. You have to have a connection with the way in which they teach: are they harsh, are they kind, what type of teacher are they. Having that personal connection where you can be open about how you are doing as a person, too, because it’s more than just a teacher, it’s a mentor, it’s someone who’s seen your daily work. You have to have that connection and that’s the most important thing. I have that with my professor. I love her so much. I don’t know what I would do without her. That’s the main thing that I love: I love her. But Boston is also a great city. The Boston Symphony is a two- minute walk from my room. I have a college card, which means I can go to concerts for free every weekend at the Boston Symphony. Living in a walkable city is really ideal because I’m always practicing and I’m always doing work. It’s very convenient to be able to walk to the grocery store and to be able to walk to your buildings. Boston itself is great. The school is great, I have so many opportunities. Having the resources that a big school like Boston Conservatory at Berklee has is great.”
Your Path is Your Path
Elaina’s path to Boston Conservatory was unconventional: she started playing the cello much later than her peers and initially played in a group cello section at her school, starting proper cello lessons only when she was twelve. Initially, it never crossed her mind that she was “behind” in the cello because the cello was just one of several beloved activities. But once she realised how much the instrument meant for her, things changed: “I used to have this narrative in my head: ‘I’m so behind, everybody is so much better than me and they’ve had so much more time. I had to work through that thought process and a lot of my other anxious thought processes in therapy. Therapy is so important. That’s just the mental side, I don’t think it really affected how I chose to practice because you are never behind. Your own path is your path. There is nothing to be behind to. I just had to practice in the way that I was going to practice and wherever I was going to be, was where it was going to be. Now I don’t feel behind anymore. I feel exactly where I need to be. Of course, I have a lot of moments where I’m like: ‘Ah, I would like to be in a different place in my playing.’ But I no longer think about the way that I didn’t have as much time as other people, because this is what I was supposed to do. I got to this point the way I got to this point. I just practiced and I just loved practicing. Practicing was never something that my parents had to force because this was never their vision for me. They never had a vision for me, it was just like: ‘What do you want to do, and we’ll help you, because we know you will do it to the best of your abilities.’ I just practiced a lot when I was home schooled. I would wake up and practice for three hours in the morning in front of a big window, and just hope for the best.”
Healing People with Music
For Elaina, music holds such a special place also because of the role music played in her own recovery from illness: “Music has healed me so much, so the goal is to offer that sort of healing to others in any way that I can offer: whether that’s music I’m playing for others that heals them in a way, whether it’s a conversation I have with someone about music, whether it’s someone that I get the opportunity to teach. Any route that music can lead me to share my love for music and humanity: that’s my goal. I did a lot of work in high school through my Greek orthodox church, and I was a child ambassador for this Romanian orphanage because I paint Byzantine iconography. Just anything that I can do where I can offer my talent to anyone who needs it. The thing is I can’t visualise exactly how that is right now. I’m looking forward to seeing how my music can touch people or help someone because that is my main goal: it helped me so much and I’m happy to be where I am because of it. My teachers, what they are doing is so powerful, they have changed my life. I don’t necessarily see myself teaching as my main thing. I want to play because that’s the main part that heals me, but I know I will be teaching in my future. And the performances I’ve gotten to hear that have just touched my soul: that’s what I want to do. It’s just a beautiful thing. Without the arts - so many people during the time of Covid were so craving seeing the arts in person and realised how healing it is to get to experience something just for the sake of experiencing it. It is essential to living to experience the arts.”
Musicians as Entrepreneurs
So how does Elaina see her future? She loves both orchestra playing and performing as a soloist. She also loves the experience of recording: one of her dreams would be to be play in a film orchestra and to perform a cello solo for a film score. But one thing is clear: the career of a musician is varied, and never limited to just one way of engaging with music: “Everyone has a different path. If you ask any musician what they do, they are all going to have completely different answers. It’s very entrepreneurial because you have to do many things as a musician, you can’t just do the one gig. Even the principal of the Boston Symphony is a professor at New England Conservatory and wrote a book and did all these things. You are not just doing the ONE thing. Most people will be playing in orchestras, they’ll be doing solo performances, they’ll be reached out to by a composer and premiere a piece, they’ll be teaching, they’ll even have their private studio. Maybe they’ll be a professor in a school, maybe they are doing some sort of philanthropy and they are teaching people with different abilities, which is one of my goals in the future as well: in high school, I was a Sunday school teacher and a Greek school teacher to this little blind boy at our church and that was a huge thing. One of my goals one day is to teach the blind how to play. So, people are just doing all these things. Musicians are creative, you have to be creative with your time, and talk to people and keep your name out there. And then you got to be really selective what you choose to dedicate your time to because you need time by yourself to develop your craft.”
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