Today’s episode features Michelle Hromin, who is an incredible contemporary clarinetist who played with me in the New York Youth Symphony! We start off by going through her musical timeline leading up to finding her place in the music world as a contemporary artist. I then expose myself as a brasshole who shares my beef with the clarinet, as we discuss the differences between clarinet and trumpet, and I end up submitting to clarinet’s redeeming arc. We then get into it by delving into the difficulties of being female musicians, specifically about how traditional patriarchal expectations that conflict with a performance career affect us, the gendered aspect of getting dress-coded, and how playing in a section as a woman feels like being put in a doubly submissive position. I share from my experience as a female section player on tour about how the ...