It's deceptively physically demanding, technically demanding, high pressure, and demands leadership skills, years of study in musical skills, creativity to interpret orchestral scores and to the ability to communicate your interpretation to a large group of musicians and vocalists.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Conducting is a job that, only as far back as 2013, some male conductors were insisting was "too physically demanding for women", and, sadly, it is still a bit of a rarity to see women conductors in front of an orchestra, particularly on the world stage.
Natalie Murray Beale, who grew up in Wingham, is one of those rarities.
Natalie was born at Taree Hospital in 1975, attended St Joseph's primary school in Wingham from K-6 and St Clare's High School in Taree from years seven to 12.
Natalie badgered her parents for piano lessons continuously, and at age eight, she began learning from Sister Gonzaga at St Joseph's. With no piano at home to practice on, Natalie spent her lunch times at school praticising.
"For me it was my companion. It was my personal world that was mine, and it's constantly fascinating," Natalie says.
The Taree Eisteddfod played a huge part in Natalie's musical development and she has much respect and gratitude for the institution.
"A really important part of learning music where I grew up was the Taree Eisteddfod and I made great friends, who I'm still in contact with," Natalie says.
"It was also important as an outlet for performing. It was a serious event. I'm really happy that it's flourishing still."
After graduating from St Clare's Natalie studied for five years at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, earning her bachelor degree and doing a year of post graduate studies.
"And then, because I'd started playing and being very interested in opera, there was a wonderful Italian and French coach that encouraged me to learn Italian. So I was studying to learn Italian and I went to Siena (Italy) to study Italian directly after that period."
I was thinking about auditioning for the colleges but I guess Id been kind of seduced by the Italian experience. But I ended up in London and the training was extraordinary. And looking back, exactly what I needed at the time.
- Natalie Murray Beale
While in Italy, a professor from the Guildhall School of Music in London called her out of the blue to offer her a place at the school.
"A pianist had dropped out of their post graduate repetiteur's course, which is for pianists who wanted to play opera. It's often a route which develops into conducting. I'd worked with him; he had visited Australia doing masterclasses. And he said, 'if you can be in London in three weeks it's yours',".
Natalie packed up and moved from Italy to London, where she has been based ever since. She also studied at the National Opera Studio and has done vocal training.
She made the transition to conducting at the suggestion of renowned British opera and theatre director, Katie Mitchell.
"I worked as an assistant conductor at the Paris Opera and quite a few theatres - the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, which is a beautiful, very important theatre in Paris, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
"And I assisted for a few years a very famous conductor called Esa-Pekka Salonen, so his way of conducting and method, and also viewpoint of sound, I'm really aligned with."
In addition to Britain and France, she has worked in countries all over the world, including Germany, Italy, Croatia, Canada, America and Colombia. Last year she made her conducting debut in Australia with Opera Queensland.
"Every place has its own sound and flavour and strengths, and also the way you communicate. That's been the biggest advantage," Natalie says.
"Each country, with its different language, expresses itself differently. When I started working in France I think everyone thought I was very practical," she laughs.
"In France, and I think with conducting and expressive music, there's much more space and time to talk about the philosophy of the piece, and that's really encouraged, but that's part of the culture."
While conducting an orchestra alone would be challenging enough for most people, Natalie has a particular love for conducting opera.
"I love working with singers. I love the dramaturgy. I love the collaboration with a stage director. I also like bringing together all the moving parts. Because it is complicated.
"I was guest chorus director for London Symphony Chorus for a few years, and that was brilliant. I love having a chorus as well as an orchestra and as well as soloists, and being kind of the lynchpin.
"Vocal music and text has always been a great love and interest, and opera delivers that."
So much does she love working in the opera world, her ultimate goal is to run an opera house as either musical director or creative director. She likes to curate and assemble creative teams of people.
"I like putting people together as well as delivering shows," she says.
Currently Natalie is the conductor and creative director at Independent Opera in the UK and a professor at the Royal College of Music. She lives in London with her husband and two children.
Her parents, Robert and Margaret Murray, still live in Wingham in the house Natalie grew up in, but sadly she doesn't get to fly home as often as she would like to visit them because of her work commitments.
"It's hard. I had a trip planned for Easter time and we had lockdown a week before I was about to fly out, so unfortunately I had to stack that and I'm just looking for when the next opportunity might be. Maybe it will be Christmas time, but things are changing all the time. If I can, I can't wait to get back," Natalie says.
“It’s really become much more important for me now to make those trips happen and spend what I hope will be more time in Australia, more than just a holiday period. But I do want to get back regularly and hopefully contribute in music. That would be ideal.
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented very challenging times to creative artists all over the world, and it has been no different for Natalie.
Unable to work on the podium with an orchestra, with or without an audience, Natalie has been doing remote one-on-one teaching for the Royal College of Students over Zoom.
Even though London is slowly easing restrictions, knowing when work will be "back to normal" is impossible. Social distancing for orchestras, choirs and soloists makes things difficult. Singers, in particular, are problematic, as studies have shown they are 'super spreaders' of aerosols.
I really stopped at first. I closed all my scores because it was clear that everything in terms of performing was cancelled. I was concerned, obviously, about the future.
"There's lots of studies into, in particular, singing, in terms of what the safe distance is. And that's being reviewed constantly and challenged, because at present there is a suggestion that three metres will be the distance if you sing. That makes it almost impossible for anything vocal to go ahead," Natalie explains.
"There's more concrete information emerging all the time. But choirs are deeply affected."
The pandemic is not the only challenge facing the industry in Britain - the uncertainty of Brexit and what that means for performing in Europe is not 100 pe cent certain.
Music is for everyone
While classical music, opera, and conducting might be considered by some people to be 'high brow', Natalie wants everyone to know that music is accessible to everybody, using her upbringing as an example.
Classical music was not listened to in the household she grew up in. While her father learnt violin as a child, no-one played an instrument. She grew up in a quiet country town with limited opportunities.
"In some ways I know I brought more music into my family's life, because they didn't have that currently existing," Natalie says.
Every child who hears a tune and is tempted or seduced by it can achieve great things and have music in their life.
"My deepest philosophy is that music is for everyone, and when you come from a community that isn't well connected to a big city or concert halls, it is still possible to have your personal journey with music. And it's possible for that journey to emerge and become a professional one, if you want it.
"Every child who hears a tune and is tempted or seduced by it can achieve great things and have music in their life," she says.