Danielle Kuhlmann, horn.
Jewelry Design. Genghis Barbie.
When you were 18, what were your career aspirations and how much (if at all) did those change by the time you finished university/grad school?
So, I went into college pretty much with zero knowledge of the industry and no expectations. Pretty soon, I got caught up in the Juilliard atmosphere, and was expecting to get a position in a professional orchestra before I graduated (LOLLL). I had heard of a couple of people who had done that (maybe just one- Jen Montone) and I thought I was hot shit and I would obviously do the same. It became my primary goal. Instead, I fought with some crippling lock-up/stutter embouchure issues*, realized I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing, and spent most of my four years at Juilliard being uber-competitive and trying to hide my flaws. It wasn’t until I went to Rice University and studied with Bill VerMeulen that I started to get real about my playing and actually improve. I worked really, really hard that year, and was suddenly thrust into the world of auditioning. I started taking every audition that came up. At most of them, I had this strange feeling like... I wasn’t really that excited about the job. I didn’t even really want to play in an orchestra at the time. Lucky for me, I didn’t get any of those jobs, ha! At a certain point, the narrow path of getting an orchestra job became less and less appealing. I became pretty burnt out on the horn. I was practicing so many hours a day to stay up on my game and be able to be competitive, and I was starting to lose my desire to even play. Sometimes I would literally open my case and feel disgusted at the sight of my Horn. Somehow, I had the sense to know that this was not okay, and also not necessary. I knew that I loved the Horn and loved being a musician, and that informed me that I was not on the right path. I had started working a bit as a freelancer in NYC before I left for Grad school, and I was eager to be a working musician, even if that meant leaving my education. It seemed like a huge deal at the time, but I believed that it was the right thing to do, and, in the long run, I’m glad I did. My college journey took me from a naive and idealistic musician, to the brink of burnout, and then threw me out into the “real world.”
*as a side note, I fought these issues for about 4-5 exhausting years
Over the course of your entire career to this point — but prior to the pandemic — how have you pivoted or changed career paths and why? (Please tell as much of your story as you’re willing to share!)
So this is when things got interesting... I left school in the Spring of 2008. I arrived back in NYC to a fledgling freelance career. In order to bridge the gap between officially being on the job market and actually working, I got a job at the Whole Foods beer store. I was very much into beer at the time, and it was actually a pretty competitive job with a hilariously detailed interview process (“A customer comes in, she’s cooking rack of lamb with golden curry and raisins. What beer do you recommend pairing?”). At the same time, I was still essentially working as a cashier at Whole Foods, and it was a valuable experience...! It was interesting to see how people treated me, and I often wondered how the same people would have treated me were I in my concert black on stage with my instrument.... I only lasted a couple of months- because of my thorough connections, lots of luck, and being able to show up and do well when it counted, I started working pretty steadily. I was playing on Broadway, in contemporary ensembles, and a few pickup orchestras. It continued for about six months and it was great! And then.... 2009: the beginning of the Great Recession! Almost immediately all of my work dried up. There were a few gigs here and there, but mostly I was stuck at home in my apartment with a lot of time and nothing to do (sound familiar??). I really struggled financially during the next couple of years. I remember being broke so many times- like actually broke to the point where one time I didn’t have enough money for the subway and had to borrow 20 cents from the guy behind me. I was able to make it, though, because I got a few lucky calls, and had a network of people who helped and supported me. But it was incredibly stressful. I got a lucky break at one point when a friend left town and offered me her office job working at a classical music PR firm on the East Side. It was real old school, like from another era. I routinely wrote one-page memos explaining different social media platforms to the boss, and had to snail mail reviews and clippings to famous clients who didn't use email. It was really boring, but I was so thankful that I had a job!
I also started making a lot of art and jewelry. I had been making jewelry since high school, but hadn’t had a lot of time to explore it. Well, I had nothing but time now, so I got back into it. I started reworking vintage pieces I had inherited from my thrift-happy grandmother (it definitely runs in the family!) and opened my own Etsy shop called “D’Kuhl Jewels.” I hocked my wares to family and friends, and occasionally to random people who would stumble across my online shop. I also did a lot of collage art! My roommate worked in magazines, and I would dissect them, spending hours intricately cutting out designs and shapes from the pages, then mod podging them to any surface. I once decorated an entire guitar. I started using old fabric remnants and creating big, floral necklaces that I would never actually wear. But it was fun! I once sewed together a bracelet out of literally thoooousands of tiny fabric circles. It was pretty cool, but when I think about how many hours I spent making it, it kind of freaks me out! Haha.
As the months went on and on, and I played Horn less and less, I just lost my inspiration. It was really hard to get excited about playing by myself in my tiny apartment. The only bright spot between the occasional gigs was getting together with my bestie Alana Vegter and playing duets. We had so much fun playing the most rudimentary duets (think: Pottag Hovey vibes) and our sessions would usually end with us crying from laughter at how bad (or sometimes good!) we sounded. These joyful duets were unknowingly the spark that would later inspire our Horn quartet Genghis Barbie!
I found myself making more jewelry and really enjoying the creative process. This feeling of creative fulfillment started to overtake how I felt about the Horn. I just couldn't enjoy it the same way I did when I was performing with and for other people. I started focusing more on jewelry making, and landed a job as a bench jeweler for a fairly successful fashion jewelry company (Joomi Lim, if anyone wants to google it!). The designers worked out of their loft in Chelsea at the time and I would sit in the living room "studio" and meticulously put together their pieces. I absolutely loved it, and I remember the first time that a piece of jewelry I had put together was being sold on Gilt, or when Miley Cyrus wore one of their pieces and I thought... I probably made that! It was a cool feeling and I loved the physical part of putting jewelry together. I think it was really satisfying to do something with a clear finish, and very results-oriented. Unlike music, it was very clear where each piece of jewelry began, and when it was complete. I did this for a year or more and loved it! Plus, the employee discount got me some pretty stunning pieces of jewelry! Haha.
I was pretty taken by the idea of working as a jeweler, so I thought I would pursue it more professionally. I applied and was accepted to the Fashion Institute of Technology for a degree in Jewelry Design. There were two focuses: one on design, where most people gravitated, and one for bench jewelers, which is what I was interested in. Classes were mostly focused on metalsmithing, and I learned skills like wax carving and casting, chasing and repoussé, soldering, and stone setting. We also studied sculpture, or, as the piano-playing instructor called it, "eye-training." I found that most of my teachers had some connection to music. I felt like my background in music was really helping me to understand a lot of the concepts, and my extensive practice in attention-to-detail gave me a leg up in a lot of the handiwork. I was loving this new world, and felt like I would more easily be able to get a job when I graduated. The skills were tangible and measurable. I was starting to talk about quitting Horn for good.
As I drifted further away from my interest in the Horn, I started asking myself some tough questions. I kept asking myself why I had decided to go into music in the first place. I felt like I had been left with no actual life skills, and a pretty mediocre high-school education. I felt unqualified to pursue most other types of work, especially since every job market was especially competitive because of the recession. I started to feel like I had wasted a lot of my life pursuing something that wasn't going to be able to provide me financial stability. I even started questioning whether or not I even loved it- was this my passion? It was through this extended period of questioning that I found myself understanding that it wasn't necessarily the Horn, or orchestral classical music that had excited me, but the feeling of performing and connecting with other people. I started to understand and appreciate my skills as a performer, and as someone who can connect to people, and connect people with each other.
As I got more and more invested in the jewelry program, three friends and I got together to read through a couple of pop Horn quartets I had. We just thought it would be a fun thing to try. We had a couple pieces- an arrangement of Seal's Kiss From a Rose from my brother, and Queen's Somebody to Love, which was the first arrangement I had ever written. We squished into Alana's living room and played together over a six pack of beer. There was just something special about how it felt to play together. We were doing something just for us, and it was SO FUN. It was full of joy, and we also sounded really good! It was pretty undeniable to us that we had sort of stumbled on something that was going to be really special. We knew right away that we wanted to do more, and that we wanted to share this joy with other people. That was the beginning of Genghis Barbie!
Many hours of hard work and many, many photo shoots later, we really started to take off as a group. It wasn't only that the Horn was providing me some financial stability again, but there was something healing about playing in the group. I started to fall in love with the instrument again, as I got to experience it in an entirely different way. It felt so good to play a different style of music that felt free and liberated from my past training and schooling and all the stress, anxiety, and squashed expectations that came along with it. As other freelance work started to reemerge as the recession waned, I found that the joy that Genghis Barbie had brought back to my music making was extending back into the more traditional classical world. I was loving the experience of playing with, and for, other people again. I started being able to answer some of the questions that had been plaguing me throughout this whole period of questioning and struggle. All this while, I was still going to jewelry school and trying to balance my career with my newer love for jewelry making. Then there was a literal moment, I don't know why or where it came from, but I was in a Schematic Drawing class and it just kind of hit me. I literally turned to the friend sitting next to me and said, out of nowhere, "I'm going to be a musician!" She was like "....ok...?" It sounds kind of cheesy, but I really had never felt so sure about anything. I've held that feeling ever since, and I've always been so thankful for those years, as hard as they were, for bringing me to that kind of deep understanding and certainty in who I was and where I best fit into the world.
What were you doing at the start of this year, prior to the pandemic?
I've been playing full-time in an orchestral setting for six and a half years, three seasons in the San Diego Symphony as 2nd Horn, and now in my fourth season in the Seattle Symphony as 4th Horn. We were literally in the middle of a rehearsal of Tchaik 5 in mid-March when the CEO came on stage and told us that due to new restrictions just announced by the Governor, we had to immediately stop rehearsing and go home. We didn't work from March until September, and since then we've been working in a limited capacity.
How has the pandemic changed your career path or goals moving forward?
Luckily, I'm in a relatively stable work situation this time around a worldwide crisis...! I think, as for many, that the way the pandemic highlighted racial inequality in our society, as well as the high profile cases of police brutality, has had a huge impact on my life. Having some time and space away from the symphony stage has allowed me to get more involved in community organizing, and it's also been a unique opportunity to start taking an inward look at the classical music industry. We have an Equity Team at the Seattle Symphony and are just starting to dig into the hard work that will continue for years. I am actually a big fan of taking time off of one's instrument (I make a point to do this for a month or so every summer). This year has shown us unprecedented time away from our instruments (and/or our jobs), and I think it's an interesting opportunity to remind ourselves who we are away from our instrument, as human beings. This has been an incredibly challenging year for so many musicians. This might sound like a cliche, but because of the challenges, and not in spite of them, I think that the shape and spirit of live music will never be the same, and I look forward to embracing a creativity that we have yet to see...!