Emma Gerstein, at left, in concert with her peers at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Todd Rosenberg Photography.
In Tuesday’s (3/24) Chicago Sun-Times, Elly Fishman reports, “In a few hours, Emma Gerstein, 39, would be on a plane and headed for Carnegie Hall in New York City, where she was due for a rehearsal with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and its music director designate, Klaus Mäkelä. Gerstein, the second flutist in Chicago’s orchestra, was at the start of a weeklong tour that would take the ensemble, by plane and by bus, from Ann Arbor to New York, Bethesda and Boston. And she had her baby—her second child—in tow. Two years ago, Gerstein kept a tour diary for WBEZ while traveling through Europe with the orchestra and its longtime music director, Riccardo Muti…. Gerstein wanted to be there for [Mäkelä’s] first tour with the symphony. But she also wanted to keep breastfeeding her son. Questions about how to strike a balance between work and parenthood are ones that women—especially women in the arts like Gerstein, who perform in highly visible, prestigious roles—have often discussed privately … These conversations, however, are increasingly happening in public, too, as performers speak more openly about motherhood and work.” The article includes Gerstein’s journal of traveling with her child on the CSO’s recent tour.
