Rebecca Carson Rogers
Love your life
I longed to play the flute, and then she appeared...a serendipitous gift in my path.
I remember first hearing her name: Rebecca Carson Rogers. No hyphen, just the three names,
with the sharpness of “Carson” dividing the two Rs and giving all those consonants a kind of musical lilt.
I first met Rebecca when I was seven years old. Michelle Debost, the legendary French flutist was coming to the Hop at Dartmouth College to play a recital. Debost had been Rebecca’s teacher when she studied in Paris, so I was very excited to go to this fancy concert! I don’t remember all the details of the performance, except that he played Debussy’s Syrinx and there were a pile of encores at the end. After the concert, we were all buzzing and hot and full of the French vibes. My mom said– and I can remember this moment very clearly:
“Oh, Christina, here is Rebecca.”
We were in the front row of the auditorium then. Rebecca had very long hair and a late-1970s/early 80s vibe that I thought was absolutely magical. Within moments, we were making plans for my first lesson a few days later. The first thing she taught me was how to articulate and where to put my fingers. I could already make a sound, and then we got down to regular lessons, with the structure and organization that I still rely on with my own students. Lessons continued for nine years in essentially the same routine: tone warm-up, usually Moyse; technique, beginning with the scale books, then Maquare, and finally Taffanel and Gaubert; etudes; and finally pieces,sometimes with duets thrown in as a bonus.
Rebecca was a demanding teacher who always pushed and inspired me. Her relentless organization and high standards gave me the confidence to begin teaching at a very early age. She encouraged me to enter competitions and always sent me to the auditions with a special letter of encouragement in my pocket to read right before.
Rebecca was much more than my flute teacher. She talked to me like an adult. She was deeply interested in understanding human emotions, making good choices, and talking things through. She was a talker—and a closetalker—which I loved. It made me feel like I was included in her world. And I loved her world…Her life seemed so ideal to me: playing concerts, a close family, an adoring husband and pets, a cute kid, an organized house. I was smitten with everything about Rebecca. I loved her modern house. I loved that she always had lots of deli cheese and Diet Coke in the refrigerator. I admired the way she lived her life with a routine of daily exercise, healthy food, structured teaching, and music at the center of it all. Anytime I had a school assignment to interview an adult or write about a teacher I admired, Rebecca was my pick.
Rebecca was part of the pack of women who surrounded my childhood. These were strong, remarkable women who lived artistic, complicated lives, balancing families and careers while fiercely pursuing their own creative paths. Rebecca and my mother formed the Ceciliana Chamber Players, a group of classical musicians dedicated to performing Baroque and contemporary music, championing the work of women composers, and traveling throughout New England with a harpsichord that they carted in our Toyota Mini Van.
These were badass women. They certainly suffered their share of back injuries, but
they pursued their concerts with determination, beauty, and a kind of business
savvy that never seemed to make them question whether any of it was possible. I
can still hear them returning late at night after a Saturday concert, moving the
harpsichord back into the house. Their laughter, giggles, and tired sighs would drift
into my bedroom. These sounds made me feel both empowered and completely safe.
Rebecca was woven into the fabric of my life for so long that it is impossible to imagine
that she isn’t here anymore. I am grateful that, when I longed to
play the flute, Rebecca appeared. She gave me far more than lessons. She gave me a model for how to live, how to teach, how to listen, how to mother, how to talk things through, and how to love the life you have built.