RAISE EVERY VOICE

Most of us must make our own way in the world. We struggle, make mistakes, and if we’re fortunate, find our way and shine. The luckiest among us find a mentor, someone who, as the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “will make us do what we can.” Count Cheryl Frazes Hill among the lucky.

Associate director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, Hill’s life in music began when she was a child, singing in choirs and school plays. As an adult, she performed for 15 years as a member of the Chicago Symphony Chorus while pursuing a master’s and doctorate at Northwestern in conducting. During this time, Hill operated in the orbit of the chorus founder and director, Margaret Hillis. A nine-time Grammy winner who earned international renown when she stepped in for an indisposed Georg Solti at Carnegie Hall in 1977, Hillis tapped Hill to join the conducting staff of the Chicago Symphony Chorus in the late 1980s. This was the start of a powerfully meaningful professional relationship, one in which Hill not only mastered her talent but came to fully appreciate the path her mentor had cut in the male-driven world of orchestral music, all of which she recounts in Margaret Hillis: Unsung Pioneer (GIA Publications). The book recently received a commendation from the Midwest Book Awards in the Nonfiction Biography category.

As Hill, a Wilmette resident, notes, making a career in classical music was not easy for a woman when Hillis was coming up in the 1940s. Trained on multiple instruments, Hillis played string bass while studying composition at Indiana University but had her sights set on conducting. “Men did not mentor women pursuing conducting in those days,” relates Hill. “Additionally, orchestras were unwelcoming of female instrumentalists, making the prospect of accepting a woman on the podium even more difficult. Her professor suggested she go through ‘the back door’ and study choral conducting with Robert Shaw, who was doing remarkable work with choruses in New York.” Hillis was crushed but took that advice and continued on to The Juilliard School in New York, studying and apprenticing with Shaw. Ultimately, notes Hill, “Margaret Hillis developed a pedagogy that was a hybrid of the orchestral rehearsal techniques she had been studying throughout her young life. Her methods of working with a chorus became the gold standard, raising the level of choral performance to the professional quality we know today. And her work with choruses eventually enabled her to conduct orchestras. In this way, she carved a path for other women on orchestral podiums.”

In her own rich career, Hill—who also serves as conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus—is especially proud of her work with Ravinia President Jeffrey Haydon and Ravinia Chief Conductor Maestro Marin Alsop in developing the Breaking Barriers Festival, which highlighted women conductors in its inaugural year and focused on women composers in 2023. “One of my greatest opportunities in working with Breaking Barriers is my collaboration with Marin Alsop and her Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship, an organization that mentors, supports, and promotes women conductors,” says Hill. “Marin Alsop reminds me very much of Margaret Hillis. She displays the bravery, artistry, and compassion that Hillis possessed. Opportunities have expanded for women on the podium, however, there are still many issues to overcome. I keep hoping that in my lifetime, it will no longer be out of the ordinary to think of conductors as we think of instrumentalists— people doing their craft, and not distinguished for their gender.”

Margaret Hillis: Unsung Pioneer is available at The Book Stall in Winnetka and on amazon.com.