Beverly Taylor, AS '73, has performed concerts in Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center, at the Boston Pops outdoor Fourth of July celebration, with the Air Force Band on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Germany, where Bach is buried. And, every time she's had her back to the audience.

"I think we conductors are the only performers who don't face our audience, but it usually feels natural, because you turn from the audience to face your allies, the members of the choir or the orchestra," she says. "Those are the people you've worked with and are in a relationship with, however temporary. You can feel and hear the audience, though. It's surprising how electricity can carry through a crowd."

Since graduating from UD with bachelor's degrees in music and English--and unsure at first which field to pursue as a career--Taylor has made conducting her life's work.

She earned her master's degree at Boston University, studying with former UD Prof. Joseph Huszti, and worked for 17 years as associate director of choral activities at Harvard University. In 1995, she joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she is associate professor, director of choral activities and director of the school's graduate conducting program. She also is assistant conductor of the Madison Symphony and director of the Symphony Chorus.

Taylor says it's a career she never expected, despite her lifelong love of music. "I always thought music would be a minor, or an avocation," she says.

Raised in Narberth, Pa., Taylor came to UD in pursuit of an English degree but soon added music as a second major in order to take private voice lessons. As her involvement in the music program grew, she says, so did her enthusiasm. She recalls thinking that all the technique she had learned from piano teachers over the years suddenly made sense, as she discovered what "being musical" really meant.

"Joe Huszti was a true inspiration," she says. "Not only was he an imaginative and charismatic conductor, but he was approachable and loved to teach. I had never made music like that before. I felt like Helen Keller with her hand under the water."

By her senior year, with the music department facing an unexpected faculty vacancy, Taylor was offered the opportunity to conduct the women's chorus as a special project. She says she jumped at the chance and began to consider changing her graduate school plans from English to conducting. It was 1973, and job opportunities for liberal arts graduates were limited, she says.

In preparation for graduate school, she applied for a national Danforth Fellowship and, though she was not selected, the competitive process helped clarify her goals. As she put together her application materials with the help of English Prof. Charles Robinson, she says she realized that a career in conducting seemed to suit her perfectly.

"Everything coalesced as I put it into words," Taylor says. "Conducting has both scholarly and artistic components; it's academic but also extroverted, as you work closely with people and share your work through performances; it's cerebral, but also physical. All of that appealed to me."

Today, she says, that same attraction to her work continues. "For much of my career, it's meant bad hours, a bad social life and bad pay, but I love what I do," she says. "A good performance feels a bit like dancing. I'm drawing the music out of the choir or orchestra, but they're drawing something out of me, too–an energy cycle that can be a very heady feeling."

Taylor's career has taken her to performances--some on tours with her choirs, some as a guest conductor at national and international music festivals--throughout the United States and Europe. Her concert audiences have included a duke (in England), a princess (in Sweden) and what she calls the "interesting duo" of then-Secretary of State George Shultz and England's Prince Charles at Harvard's 350th anniversary celebration.

Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis sought her out during the intermission of a televised Fourth of July concert–where Boston Pops orchestra conductor John Williams was prominent, while Taylor, out of camera range, led the chorus–to say, "Who are you? You're good!"

She's conducted at the Welsh International Eisteddfod, where her performance was broadcast on the BBC, at the Dutch International Koorfest in Rotterdam and at the premier U.S. music festivals in Aspen, Colo., and at the Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts. She has directed a number of premieres of American music and produced two recordings on the AFKA label.

There have been less glamorous performances, as well, she says, including times when she conducted while perched on wobbly piano benches and a concert she once gave before a single audience member. The city of Boston had funded public, Christmastime entertainment that year but chose for Taylor's concert an obscure building that only one person was able to find.

During her first-ever performance of Brahms' Requiem, in Boston's Sanders Theatre, Taylor noticed a change in the lighting as her choir was in the midst of the second movement. She glanced up to see a movie screen descending slowly from the ceiling, between herself and the singers.

"I had time to think, "Oh, God, why me? This never happens at my friends' concerts,' and then I did what I call a 'Lennie'--as in Bernstein," she says. "I began conducting in a more showy manner to draw attention to me instead of the screen."

About 45 seconds later, technicians found the controls and raised the screen. Her choir, she says proudly, "never missed a note."

Although Taylor says live performances are exhilarating and produce an audience experience that can't be captured in a recording, she doesn't hesitate when asked to name the best part of her job: The rehearsals.

"They give you a continual exchange of ideas and energy," she says, "and there's endless variety because a good conductor is always adding new material. And, even if you always use the same material, the students are always different."

Boston Globe music critic Richard Dyer has recognized Taylor as having "the crucial gift of inspiring people to give their best and beyond."

Calling singing "a synthetic art form, using literature and music," Taylor points out that a conductor can't touch a singer's vocal chords, as one could the keys of a piano or other instrument, to convey to a musician what sound to create. "Instead, you have to use metaphors and imagery to get across what you want," she says. "You have to reach singers through their minds, and that's challenging and exciting."

Her current job at the University of Wisconsin includes preparing and conducting two orchestral concerts a year. In the United States, Taylor says, a position that combines choral with orchestral conducting is highly unusual, as most conductors are categorized in one specialty or the other, and she appreciates the opportunity she has to do both types of work.

"Orchestral conducting is different," she says. "I don't enjoy it more or less than choral conducting; it's just different. Choral music is more human, of course, and it spans more centuries, because there have only been orchestras since about the 1600s. But, orchestras have pitch ranges above and below the human voice, so it's like having a bigger box of crayons to work with. Of course, a good choir can have infinite variety, too."

It's not just the combination of choral and orchestral work that makes Taylor–even in the 21st century–a relative rarity as a nationally prominent conductor and director of a major university's graduate conducting program. It's also her gender.

"When I started, there were very few female conductors," she says. "Now, few people have not seen a woman conductor, but many haven't sung or played under them. It's changing, but there are still relatively few women running graduate programs and relatively few conducting orchestras in small and mid-size cities, and no woman is running a Top 10 orchestra."

Taylor, who tours regularly with her choirs, made a stop in Newark, Del., this spring as part of a nine-day, six-concert East Coast trip. Touring, she says, lets the choir share its repertoire with a wider community, connect with University of Wisconsin alumni, publicize the university's choral program and interact with music students elsewhere, as her singers did in a combined rehearsal with the University of Delaware Chorale, conducted by Paul Head, assistant professor of music. Head calls the Wisconsin music program "renowned," noting that it was built up over 25 years by Taylor's predecessor, conducting legend Robert Fountain.

The visit to Newark, Taylor says, brought back her own fond memories of the University and of a five-week European tour she took as a member of the UD Concert Choir in 1971, an experience she calls "one of the highlights of my life."

In addition to Huszti, Taylor has praise for other UD faculty, in both music and English. For example, she says, she studied ear training with Mildred Gaddis, now associate professor emerita. "I still use her melodic progressions as warm-ups with my choir," she says, "and others are picking them up, also."

In summary, she says of her undergraduate years, "It was a great time for music, and it's the reason I'm in the business today."

--Ann Manser, AS'73, CHEP'73