I originally came to Chicago right out of college, to attend graduate school at the University of Chicago. The university, and the city, changed my life, and I have been grateful ever since to the people who pushed me into taking such a major step, and to the people who put up with me once I got there. But after a couple of years, it became clear to me that my future did not lie in earning a PhD in English. My college degree had been in vocal music, and I fell back on that-- it turned out I could actually make money singing, and enjoy what I was doing. I resumed voice lessons, after a two year hiatus; and my teacher, Elsa Charlston, urged me to work with Dick Boldrey, a repertoire coach, and to audition—everywhere, for everyone, to get a feel for auditions, to see what was out there, to find where I could fit in. One of the most consequential early auditions I sang was for Margaret Hillis, director of Chicago Symphony Chorus. She accepted me, with professional status, which solidified my commitment to a musical profession, and I was inducted into a brand new world.
Margaret Hillis and Doreen Rao at Carnegie Hall
College choir had been a refuge: a kind, supportive home, populated by idealistic, emotional adolescents like me, overseen by a loving, benevolent conductor who, though a perfectionist, controlled his singers with kindness, prayer, flattery, and polite persuasion. Professional choral singing was a very different situation, and Ms. Hillis used very different tools. Her very considerable accomplishments were based upon high expectations, rigid regulation, threat, fear of failure, and an extraordinary degree of control and preparation. From the moment one arrived for rehearsal and signed the attendance sheet, one was in her hands—sitting according to a competitive rating system, marking scores according to her specific instructions, learning notes and words according to uniform, prescribed techniques. Rules governing attendance and rehearsal behavior were rigid and unforgiving. Punishment was swift. The singers, and our union, were her enemy, but a necessary and beloved enemy. Rehearsals could be exciting; they could also be both tense and boring. But always efficient. She and her assistants kept one hundred plus singers in line, and produced a high-quality product—a massive but precise, neutral, flexible version of the choral/orchestral masterwork in question, upon which the “maestro” (either our regular conductor, Georg Solti, or any of a number of A-list guest conductors), would then put his own stamp and character.
It was an efficient system, and produced good results. Ms. Hillis had studied with Robert Shaw, and I discovered, years later, that the two shared much in common. Both subscribed to intense, demanding preparation and rigid procedures; both believed that a group performed only as well as it rehearsed. Ms. Hillis accepted no nonsense from her singers and employees, and did not indulge in displays of passion and temper; but her intensity was never in question, and her anger and disapprobation found other outlets. I feared her, far more than I feared Mr. Shaw. I found, during my time as a professional chorister in Chicago, that other conductors and ensembles adopted a good deal of her character—she trained many of the city’s conductors, in her position as Director of Choral Activities at Northwestern University. Her precision, her level of preparation and organization, her overarching “roadmap” approach to projects, provided a standard to which many of them adhered. I sang for her only one year, but I learned a great deal, and when I formed my own first choir, back at my Alma Mater, I was as influenced by her, as I was by the traditions of the college, though I didn’t realize it at the time. She was tough in a way I could understand and appreciate. She got the job done.
Margaret Hillis