Rachael Worby

Rachael Worby
Born	1950 (age 73–74) Nyack, New York
Nationality	American
Occupation	Artistic Director of MUSE/IQUE
Known for	Conductor - one of the first women

Rachael Worby is an American conductor who currently serves as the Artistic Director, Conductor and Founder of MUSE/IQUE.

Worby is one of the first highly successful female conductors of national and international renown, a preeminent figure in American arts education, and an innovative force in reimagining traditional performance formats. A dedicated orchestra builder, she is credited with the remarkable growth of organizations under her leadership.

Worby rose to fame during her 17-year tenure as Music Director and Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra in Wheeling, West Virginia, which concluded in 2003. Her previous posts also include that of Music Director and Conductor of the Young People’s Concerts at Carnegie Hall and Music Director and Conductor for the Pasadena POPS. She received a presidential appointment to the National Council of the Arts, on which she served for four years.

Distinguished as a visionary in the orchestral world, she is celebrated internationally for her extraordinary talents and exuberant style, as well as her versatile command of all musical genres. She is in demand as a guest conductor and has led orchestras throughout Europe, South America, Australia and Asia.

Life and Career

Early Life and Education

From an early age, Rachael Worby saw herself as an "agent of change," someone destined to make a difference.

"I was popular, smart, focused, politically astute, a leader, a voracious reader and a social activist," an amiable Worby recalls of her high school years. In a tone more direct than arrogant, she adds: "I was very full of self-worth."

Susan Beth Worby wanted to be Bernstein, when growing up in suburban Nyack, N.Y. She started piano lessons at the age of 5 and began attending the legendary conductor's Carnegie Hall Young People's Concerts three years later. In setting her sights on directing an orchestra, she--like her idol--was flouting convention.

"Bernstein was young, articulate, funny and brilliant--someone who'd teach me about 'Peter and the Wolf' at Carnegie during the day and 'Beethoven's Fifth' on 'Omnibus' at night," she recalls. "Then I saw 'West Side Story' and got involved in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam struggles--and, again, there he was. The older I got, the more of an octopus he became."

Worby credits her discipline to her mother, Diana, now an English professor at Empire State College who made her practice piano daily. Salesmanship skills were passed down by her father, Louis, who owned a hardware-houseware manufacturing firm. When it came to dreams, however, the youngster was on her own. Given their Depression mentality and the climate of the times, her parents advised her to go into teaching.

In the early 1970s, Susan Beth started calling herself Rachael. ("It was a name I'd always loved," she says, "and I decided to make it my own.") She received a bachelor of arts degree in piano performance from the Crane School of Music at the State University of New York at Potsdam before embarking on graduate work in musicology, at Indiana University and Brandeis University.

Unfulfilled by academia, Worby planted herself on the doorstep of conducting teacher Jacques-Louis Monod. Though he didn't subscribe to her feminist aspirations, Monod took her on as a student from 1976 to 1981. Once a week, she made the trek to New York from Boston, where she was teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music and M.I.T. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Manhattan, where she furthered her studies under Max Rudolf and Otto Werner-Mueller.

Career

A hallmark of Rachael Worby's career has been her activist belief that education and community engagement work of American symphony orchestras is inseparable from and essential to main season offerings. In addition to the grand concert halls, Ms. Worby has led the world's best musicians in performances everywhere from the coal fields of West Virginia to community centers in Harlem and South Central Los Angeles. If some classical music aficionados view "Pops" as lowbrow entertainment, Worby rebuts that notion. All great music is created equal, she maintains. Her taste has always ranged from Shostakovich and Mahler to Miriam Makeba, Finian's Rainbow and Thelonious Monk.

In 1982, after brief stints as music director of two small New England orchestras, Worby landed in Spokane, Washington, as a Conducting Assistant of the city's symphony. Two years later, she served as Assistant Conductor for Youth Concerts at the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1984 to 1987, and- to her amazement - also began a 12-year run in Bernstein's former post as Music Director of Carnegie Hall's Young People's Concerts.

"Rachael had a knack for communicating but was very raw, in need of conducting experience," said Ernest Fleischmann, former executive director and general manager of the LA Philharmonic. "In the last 15 years, she's grown tremendously, demonstrating to the world that she's a musician, first and foremost."

Maneuvering in an arena wedded to testosterone and tradition contributed to the challenge. For a long time, Worby was pegged as a "children's concert" conductor. And, early in her career, the trumpet section of an orchestra she refuses to identify walked out when she stepped to the podium.

"My father called me the Jackie Robinson of women conductors," Worby says.

In 1986, Worby married then-screenwriter-producer David Obst (whom she divorced in 1990) and landed the Wheeling slot (Music Director and Conductor of the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra) that put her - and the orchestra - on the map. During her tenure, subscriptions to the Wheeling orchestra rose from 500 to 1,200 and the budget went from $250,000 to $1.5 million. Annual concerts, including touring, increased from six to 40. Worby also launched a Pops series that regularly sold out and put together the orchestra's first CD.

"Rachael turned us into a professional institution," said Susan Hogan, former executive director of the Wheeling Symphony. "She's able to shift from one side of the brain to another and can tell you how much each company has contributed for the past 10 years. Of course, she had to fight, being a female conductor--and a Jewish urban woman--in a town with a heavy union atmosphere and old money. But art and harmony through conflict . . . that's life."

In May 1990, Worby became the wife of Gov. Gaston Caperton and First Lady of West Virginia. While maintaining full-time conducting duties, Worby created and hosted the nationally-acclaimed Arts and Letters Series, an admission-free, live series, broadcast on public television which presented Carl Sagan, Tom Wicker, Jesse Jackson, Andrew Young, Bob Woodward, Taylor Branch, Harry Belafonte, The American Boy Choir and dozens of other luminaries. She also led a ground breaking state wide campaign, "Thanks A Million", to raise one million dollars to eradicate illiteracy and is responsible for the creation, in perpetuity, of The Governor's School for the Arts. Worby and Caperton divorced in 1998.

During her tenure as Music Director of the Pasadena Pops from 2000-2010, Rachael Worby increased the number of yearly concerts played, and audience attendance, and instituted free-to-the-public concerts on the steps of Pasadena City Hall. She expanded outreach programs to underserved communities, securing significant ongoing funding for programs in South Central Los Angeles and in Pasadena.

She enjoys a musical relationship and personal friendship with American soprano Jessye Norman. They appear together at music festivals and concert halls throughout the world. In 2006, Norman invited Worby to conduct both the China Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra accompanying Norman in her first appearances in mainland China. In 2009, again at the request of Jessye Norman, the Festival’s curator, Worby served on the Honorary Committee of Carnegie Hall’s HONOR! Festival for which she served as Artistic Advisor and guest panelist for numerous events.

MUSE/IQUE

Founding

In 2011, with the help of community leaders in Pasadena, Rachael Worby founded MUSE/IQUE in order to bring a fresh perspective to live music and multidisciplinary arts.

MUSE/IQUE is a dynamic, nonprofit organization that creates exhilarating live music adventures.  Using the whole city as a venue, MUSE/IQUE goes way beyond the concert hall with spectacularly intimate performances which combine music, movement and ideas from a diverse range of genres.  Under the leadership of renowned Artistic Director Rachael Worby, MUSE/IQUE’s artistic collective consists of an acclaimed orchestra and top musicians from the worlds of jazz, rock, blues, gospel, and more, along with today’s best singers, dancers, and thinkers.  Together with an enthusiastic and growing audience base, these artists reimagine the possibilities for the live music experience.  Founded in 2011, MUSE/IQUE is a membership driven organization presenting nine major public events each year as well as a wide range of education and community engagement programs.

"MUSE/IQUE and its Artistic Director Rachael Worby will speak to the creative heart of our city," said former Mayor Bill Bogaard in the organization's first press release, "by teaching our students, developing new talent, inspiring audiences and bringing the best performing artists in the world to our neighborhood.  It is a welcome addition to the cultural landscape." While their musical taste is eclectic, Rachael Worby and MUSE/IQUE have a clear point of view. A concert is an immersive, communal experience and music itself, even the most beloved old standard or familiar score, is constantly alive with possibilities to be discovered through new contexts, surprising juxtapositions, and illuminating interpretations. The ambiance for the musical evenings offered by MUSE/IQUE will be sophisticated yet playful, stylish yet welcoming. Think friends mixing at a salon under the stars rather than passive strangers at a stuffy concert. Think nothing less than the transformation of the community experience of orchestral music."

"Rachael's musical endeavors have always had the hallmark of being full of creative spontaneity. Watching her work with the performing artists, collaborate with other disciplines, and inspire audiences of all ages and backgrounds is a treat to behold. Excitement about her new orchestra, MUSE/IQUE, is tremendous and a new star has been added to Pasadena's artistic constellation," said United States Congressman Adam Schiff.

Present Day

Since 2011, MUSE/IQUE has become a major cultural presence in Pasadena that reaches a broad and diverse audience. Notable MUSE/IQUE guest artists have included Jessye Norman, Angela Bassett, Rickie Lee Jones, Arturo Sandoval, Flea, Savion Glover, Charlie Haden, Steven Page, Patti Austin, Mary Wilson, Kevin McHale, The Doric Quartet, Nnenna Freelon, and Colin Hay.

Furthermore, instead of hosting concerts in the typical concert hall, MUSE/IQUE brings the music closer to the community by turning unconventional spaces into musical venues. “We’re always performing in new and unexplored places, whether it’s locker rooms, libraries, factory floors, or ice-skating rinks,” says Rachael Worby. “Places that the community knows about because it’s a space that’s a part of where they live, but not necessarily a space to which they gravitate naturally… It’s wonderful to bring people to a place and have them feel slightly out of their comfort zone, because it, right away, causes them to sit up and look around in a new way.”

One example of uniting art with unusual community spaces is “GIRL/BAND,” a 2013 program centered on female jazz musicians. The program included a screening of “The Girls in the Band,” a documentary film about the trials women faced in the jazz industry from the 1930s to present day, and performances by contemporary female jazz players; all of this was held beside the lipstick-laden conveyer belts of the Avon Distribution Center in East Pasadena, Calif. The Avon factory workers, who attended and also volunteered at the event, were also honored during the program. “Sometimes we look for a community that is resonant, literally, with the idea,” says Worby. “[Avon] is a cosmetics company, but its slogan is ‘The Company for Women.’” By bringing together two seemingly disparate things, MUSE/IQUE makes people think more deeply about the music they are hearing and overturn preconceptions, whether about the music itself or the environment around them.

“The world is a brand-new place,” continues Worby. “It’s so important for all of us to encounter one another, in situations where we all feel safe and relaxed and happy. We wanted to create artistic events which spoke more to what we know the world to be today, than what the world has been. We were inspired by the idea that art can help people redefine community,” she says.

MUSE/IQUE’s purpose boils down to deepening people’s connections within a community, to prevent people from becoming complacent in their routines, whether that involves attending a musical event or person-to-person interactions. What MUSE/IQUE does is encourage people to engage more with each other and develop more meaningful understandings of one another. Talk to anyone who has attended a MUSE/IQUE event and they are likely to say the same thing: what makes MUSE/IQUE events so special is the energy and sense of fellowship—and Worby’s spirited conducting style. “I’m not sure if you’ve seen her conducting—she’s like a ball of fire,” says Dr. Charles Elachi. “People come out so inspired from one of her events.”

At its heart, MUSE/IQUE aims to bring live music to every nook-and-cranny of the community. “We imagined, to the best of our ability, what community meant person-by-person,” says Worby. “For our definition, it was going to mean everybody. Live music is a basic human right. Whether or not you’re a homeless person or a battered person, or you’re a person of great wealth or a person of struggling means, you deserve to have great live music in your life.”

Accolades and Television Credits

Rachael Worby received a presidential appointment to the National Council of the Arts, on which she served for four years. In 1990, she was nominated for an ACE Award for two young peoples’ orchestra programs she created, narrated and conducted for the Disney Channel.

She has also been honored with many awards, including the Spirit of Achievement from Albert Einstein College, the Women of Excellence award from the YWCA, the degree Doctor of Humanities honoris causa from Marshall University, the degree of Doctor of Letters honoris causa and the Presidential Medal of Honor for her consummate lifetime achievements both from Claremont University.

Worby's television credits include:

• National Coverage: 2001/2002/2005 Tournament of Roses Parade, Bayer Advanced Garden - “Cocktail Garden Party” Float
• National Coverage: 2004 Tournament of Roses Parade, Odd Fellows and Rebekahs -“Songs of Spring” Float
• National Coverage: Interview with Tom Brokaw, NBC News, “Is the California Dream Still Alive?”
• PBS, The Charlie Rose Show
• ABC, Day One
• PBS, Carnegie Hall at 100: A Place of Dreams
• Disney Channel, Disney’s Young Person’s Guide to Music: A Toon for a Toon; The Best Band in the Land

External links

• Rachael Worby - Home Page
• MUSE/IQUE - Home Page
• Rachael Worby - BLOG