Kǎrin Hendrickson

I’m not sure you can build it. You have to earn it. And I’m not trying to dodge the question, but I think the language is really important.

When I walk into a room with an ensemble, there’s already an expectation that they will have given me a certain level of trust. That’s their job. It’s my job to deliver for them, it’s their job to give me a certain level of trust. What happens with that certain level? I either earn or I lose.

And I probably can’t specifically tell you how I earn up, how I fill up the bucket with trust, but I think it definitely starts with respect. It also starts with preparation. My best protection is to walk into rehearsal, knowing that I can solve anything for this ensemble, regardless of what they throw at me. And if they throw something at me, I’m sort of like, hmm, that’s curious. That’s not happened before. And this is all in split-second thinking. I wonder what caused that, and the music is going, and it’s also my ability to solve it. If I stop the ensemble, do I make you better?

I really think that’s it. They hand me trust. Do I earn up the rest of it? Because I am prepared. I solve immediately what needs to be solved. If I don’t solve it the first time, do I keep working to solve it? Do I find another avenue?

And also the culture that you build. I hope that every player that plays for me, when they walk out that door, they feel a couple things. They became a better musician. They learned something about the music. They found a sort of emotional release in the work that they were doing, and I respected them through all of it, even through the stuff we weren’t getting right.