Q&A With Dr. Hana Cai

Q&A With Dr. Hana Cai

Get to know Dr. Hana Cai, the Associate Director of Choral Activities at Harvard. She conducts the Radcliffe Choral Society and Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum. 

When and how did you decide you wanted to pursue conducting?
I knew I wanted to pursue conducting when I was a junior in college. I had suffered some pretty significant hand injuries in high school and knew that a career in piano performance was not going to work out, but I wasn't ready to give up music. Luckily, I was getting really into musical theater conducting and took my first conducting class and loved it! The rest is history.

Could you share some of the most notable experiences you've had as a musician? This could be travel, interesting acquaintances, awkward interactions, any particularly striking moments coming out of your music career.
When I was still in school, I was doing a conducting workshop in Berlin and I got to see the Berlin Phil perform Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex conducted by John Eliot Gardiner, one of my favorite conductors. After the concert, a very kind security guard at the stage door helped me sneak backstage after I told him I wanted to be a conductor. When I went through the door, there was John Eliot Gardiner, just holding a post-concert beer. I got to talk to him briefly. I'm glad that he was very gracious and didn't throw me out. Imagine my jealousy when Andy told me that the Harvard Choirs got to work with him in 2015!

There are not a lot of well-known women conductors out there. As a woman, have you had any difficulty asserting yourself professionally? If you can answer, what strategies worked well for you when faced with discrimination, and what do you wish you had done differently?
I wouldn't say I have difficulty asserting myself professionally as much as I think there are people who have trouble accepting that I am a professional. Unfortunately, this is not a unique experience for any feminine-presenting conductor or even any feminine-presenting professional in any field. Some strategies that have worked well are setting very clear boundaries such as using my title in certain situations and not being afraid to say no to menial tasks that women get disproportionately asked to do. I also like to use humor to call attention to those kinds of situations, like "Really? You want to ask the only woman in the room to take notes/pick up coffee/etc.?" or "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to pay me extra to [use the silliest name possible for a task] for you." The humor only works with certain people, but it can be effective.

A career in music can be greatly fulfilling for a variety of reasons. However, it can also be emotionally taxing, and secure employment can be difficult to find. With these concerns in mind, what advice do you have for students considering music careers?
It takes a certain kind of person to be a musician. There's a lot of talk about hustle culture and how it negatively impacts us and certainly musicians are prone to being taken advantage of in a lot of situations. However, there are also way too many musicians for too few jobs and the musicians who eat, sleep, and breathe music tend to get the work. This field is also really small, so it's important to be kind and professional to everyone we meet because we can't really afford to burn bridges. I've seen some talented musicians unintentionally snuff out their careers way too early because they felt they were too good for a job, or because they were unprofessional, or they demanded pay far above what is comparable to other musicians in a similar position. We have to be really discerning about determining if certain jobs are "beneath us" or if someone is actually taking advantage of us vs. they just have a small budget because of their organization. Sometimes we have to take smaller jobs in order to get the bigger jobs. My first conducting work was music directing for community and high school theater. Once I gained those experiences, I started getting steady work and eventually I could be more discerning about the jobs I took. If I had decided that that work was beneath me when I was just starting out, I never would have gained the experience I needed to work in professional theater or to go to graduate school for conducting.

Many students, in the Harvard Choruses and otherwise, are very talented and passionate musicians. How can these students continue to keep music as a significant component of their lifestyle (i.e. more than "just a hobby") if they don't plan on pursuing a musical career?
Join a community choir/orchestra/theater. Learn about arts administration. Join the board of a choir or an orchestra. Sing with your religious organization (cantor, choir, etc.). Volunteer to teach lessons to young students who couldn't afford it otherwise. Get involved with school theater productions. Attend every concert you can. Continue to take music lessons. There are so many ways to stay involved in music that are not as high stress as pursuing music as a career!

Interview conducted by Anika Christensen '26