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What I've Learnt - Rita Reichman · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Australian-born pianist Rita Reichmann began her performance career as a three-year-old child prodigy.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, she was playing Beethoven at three.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then at age nine was invited to study at the Interlochin Centre for the Arts in Michigan.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Two years later, she was accepted to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia as one of their youngest students, obtaining a bachelor's degree at 17.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: She continues her international performance career as a soloist, recording artist, chamber musician, and is in much demand to give masterclasses.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Rita was head of piano at the Australian National Academy of Music for 10 years and is much sought after as an adjudicator of international piano competitions and pedagogue, with many of her students going on to have international careers of their own.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: She's performed across the globe, South Africa to Europe, North and South America, Canada, Russia, and of course all over Australia.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: She's also performed in the White House for the Presidents of the United States and Brazil and was invited to perform for the then Prince Charles and Princess Diana when they were on their Australian tour.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Her story is really captivating, and as a first generation of a Holocaust survivor single mother who raised her with the grip, determination, and dedication that is exemplified in her extraordinary career, I think you're gonna love this one.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're so thrilled to have Rita join us on the What I've Learned podcast.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Very excited.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I've actually known Rita for quite a while, and I've always been in awe of her energy, her spirit, and her sense of creativity.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um so maybe we can talk about, let's let's talk about where it all started for you, Rita.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how did you first embark on this?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you were very young when you started playing piano, extraordinarily young.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did that come to be?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're a prodigy, clearly.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: I was a prodigy.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: I've sort of grown out of being a prodigy, thank God.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I thought it was normal.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up in a family which was all musical.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: My brother was a violinist and uh became violinist and conductor, my sister was a pianist and cellist, and everyone in the household played an instrument, and I just thought that's what happens in every family.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just learned by ear what my sister was playing initially, and and I thought that's what you do.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: And very early on, uh, my mother was told by my sister's teachers and others that I needed to have lessons.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: So by the time I was three, I was having formal lessons.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: And that's extraordinary.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, three, like you can barely get your three fingers on the piano.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was lucky, I had big hands.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: So by the time I was five, I reached an octave.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: But uh yeah, I was playing everything.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's incredible.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: I was playing like Beth and a movement of a Bedouin sonata by uh by ear by at the age of three.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: And uh music was just normal.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: It felt normal to me.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't anything unusual.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, from your perspective, do you think uh, you know, we talk about the word prodigy and I saw you flinch somewhat.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think what goes with that?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: The the pressure, and do you believe it it is it is a biological predisposition to be, I mean, to play, you know, Beethoven at five would have to have a biological component, surely?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: What's your perspective on that?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: I I think it's a combination of nature and nurture.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: I I think you do have some genetic predisposition to uh an affinity for music and uh uh having it in available in the house certainly makes it easier.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think having a parent uh that uh gives you the opportunity, first of all, and having it available to you helps.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I think growing up in a musical home where it's normal for me, that was that was a a plus.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my siblings are were all quite a bit older than me, eight and twelve years older.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I wanted to mimic them.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um and they were performing.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: My, you know, they used to play on the what was it, Happy Hammond show and all these talent shows on on TV when I was very, very little.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: And um uh that's what I saw.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I wanted to be part of that, or they used to do competitions, Dandenong Festival and all these competitions, and I wanted to be a part of that.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um what it it I did flinch because being a child prodigy, yes, it has burdens.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: And in our household, um, it had extra burdens because my mother was a Holocaust survivor.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: She had a sister who was a child prodigy in Europe who was performing quite uh a lot in Europe before the war and was killed by the Nazis.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: And my mother was very uh she came out of this out of it surviving with this will to reproduce or or re sort of resurrect what was destroyed during the war.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that was not just having uh survival as a of a family, a survival of a Jewish family, but also survival of a of the music and the culture that was destroyed.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that sort of responsibility, we saw it as responsibility, but also it was a burden and it was placed upon us.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: We were taught we had to sort of um we had the opportunity to recreate what was lost.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, that was very much part of how I was raised.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I was very lucky that we were capable and that very lucky that I enjoyed it and I loved it, and I wouldn't change any of it.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: That was just luck, though.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think um uh uh I really love music, and I every time I hear the sound of a piano, I get excited still.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I love playing more than anything, and and so I'm very lucky with that.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: But yes, that that was part of how I was raised.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting because you, you know, there you were in the shadow of history, in a sense, carrying your mother's burden and carrying her, in a sense, her trauma.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was, and obviously all of you kids, but you know, because you expressed it so specifically, that that there's sort of a two-pronged element to your burden.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: One is the burden of history, as you outlined, but also the burden of expectation with being a prodigy and somebody and expectation.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, so on the first, as you just mentioned, um, did you ever reconcile that with her?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And also did it make it hard to push back on it because the power of that is just, you know, you're carrying something so enormous monumental.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: How can you ever, ever say, actually, no, that doesn't work for me?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because or any any objection whatsoever?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: It never, it never happened.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: I never pushed back on it, partly because I had success very young, and it was very easy to continue.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's very easy to to continue with something and enjoy something that you're good at, and something where you get praised, uh praised for, and that you continue.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the trajectory is you know quite forward and easy.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's very hard to push back.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: I I never wanted to push back, so I never I never had that issue.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: The burden of it and the responsibility was uh in the household, and it was there between me and my mother and my siblings, that was there, and uh we felt it.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: And look that was, I think, felt by any child of survivors, um, that there was a responsibility to we we became not just the children of survivors, but the parent of these survivors, the replacement family of these survivors, and that was very much part of how I was raised.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: And funnily enough, a lot of my teachers, certainly in America, um almost all my teachers uh at the institutions I went were Jewish.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: They were in Europe or they were expelled from Europe and uh sent here to Australia.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yash Spibakovsky, the teacher I had here, he was here because he was a Jew and had to leave uh Europe and the and the Nazis, and all of my teachers in Europe had the same experience.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: So they understood.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: And um they I never had to explain that part of who I was.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: In addition to all of that, is this uh uh this situation of being a child prodigy is not usually a happy one because child prodigies rarely survive, they usually die out by the time they're late teens, they usually don't go on to having adult careers, they usually are very crazy um mixed-up people and um have a lot of psychological damage.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: And my mother was extremely clever and very uh careful to raise me as first a human being and um second a talent.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: That was not the primary focus very important distinction.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: She was very, very careful.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: She looked at many other cases, like Yehudi Menuin, who was this prodigy who wasn't even allowed to cross the road alone at 17.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: He was so so molypuddled and over nurtured that he had no normal life.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: And there were other cases where of severe child abuse of uh of children who were tied to the piano bench.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they're horror stories, you know.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I didn't have that.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: I had a completely normal childhood, apart from the fact that I had piano lessons every day and had to practice.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, if I wanted to give concerts, which I enjoyed, I had to had to play.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: And that was it.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: That was the only pipe that was abnormal.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then when we got this opportunity to go to America, um that changed things a little bit because then I was in an institution where there were other people who were uh very, very talented as well, and they were much older than I was, and so I was all I was uh in a sort of tertiary institution.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: There were people 18 and older, and I was uh I was accepted when I was 10 to the to the second institution in America, and musically I was I felt like the dumb kid in the school, so I wasn't because you were surrounded by it's certainly certainly not putting you in place because you were like, I mean the so just to talk to that for our listeners, can you give us some indication of I mean to be 10 and accepted?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Could you talk about the institution, what it was and how it came to be and where you were coming from?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, first of all, we were invited to this place called Interlock and Arts Academy in northern Michigan, which is a high school.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: And uh that was uh that came about because I uh there was a philanthropist from Chicago who um had read about me when I performed for Arthur Rubenstein.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: I was five years old, and he came to Australia actually at the same time that the Beatles arrived, and it was a lot of publicity about the Beatles, and I was excited about Arthur Rubenstein because my teacher had his picture on the on the piano, and I thought he was just the the greatest thing.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: He was my rock star.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: He was my rock star exactly, he was my rock star, and I wanted to meet him, and I wrote a composition to meet him, and I did meet him, and he wanted to hear me play, and so I played for him, and he said he wanted to take me to go and study at Juilliard when I was five, and my mother said, No way, because she had already lost her family, she wasn't going to lose me to at that age again to lose her family, so that didn't happen, but there was a lot of publicity around at that time, and one of the papers that picked it up was in America, was um of all the papers was a Christian science monitor, and there was this philanthropist in America who read about this Holocaust survivor with three talented kids and how she was a single parent, and um she had struggled, but she was keeping all the lessons going and raising these three kids, and uh uh he was interested in offering this opportunity to go to this very special school in America called called Interlock, where he was uh one of the major funders, and um uh he studied uh about us for about a year with all the teacher with all of our teachers behind our backs.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't know this was happening, and then uh would uh sort of ask the teachers and uh see if we were the real deal and what was going on with us and the schools and so on.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then one day knocked on our door and said, I'd like to take your daughter to uh America.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Again, the same story.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: My mother said no.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: What were you then?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not losing.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: By this time I was seven, and um he said, Okay, he they came back and they said, Well, we'll take the whole family.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: That is an extraordinary story.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: It was an amazing story, and this time was an offer she couldn't refuse.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: So um it took a year, a year and a half for us to get the visas to get a green card, and uh then we moved to America to the school.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I was there, we were there for just under two years, and then um it was an outstanding school.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: My brother was a student there, and my sister by this time had um left high school, she was studying in university.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: She was at that before we left, she was on a TV show called Commotion.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: You wouldn't know this TV show that was like a rock show in Australia.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: So she had her own life, like countdown.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly, like countdown.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: So she had her own life here before we left.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: So she was uh reluctant to go, but she came for a little while and then returned back to Australia.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: But my brother came with us and uh uh stayed with us, and then I was uh invited to go and study at this school in Philadelphia, Paul Curtis.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Now, Curtis is a school that only takes 150 students, it's where Leonard Bernstein studied, it's where uh some of the greatest musicians in history have studied.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's only they only take students for free.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: You can't pay to go there.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it's philanthropically subsidized, yeah?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: Is it subsidized?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: It was subsidized by one family, initially the Curtis publishing uh company, the Curtis family, and they have put their endowment, and it's been subsidized by this endowment ever since.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's about 75 or 80 years old now, and all tuition is free.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: And um, they give a pianist, uh a piano, they give instruments to violinists or whatever they need.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: And um they will only take people they feel are worthy of being there.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: However, you are on probation the whole time you're there.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: You are very assessed and you're being you have to meet certain standards.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: You're being assessed every day.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: If you are if you don't meet those standards at any time, you can be thrown out.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: It could be a week before graduation.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: They won't keep you if you if you don't keep the standards.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: So that that was a you know very, very, very tough school to be in.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's interesting because yeah, so you've literally been so for most of your life, you've not only have you had high expectations of yourself, but also from those around you, but you've also all the time had a constant pressure to deliver, and we all know what that's like.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because there was no this is a this is another level.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is like you're in the 1% of the one percent of the one percent, and you're having to deliver, and yet that can also be on one level very d very addictive, but also very debilitating, I'm sure.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk to me a bit about it?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: It destroys, it destroys a lot of people, it does, and and unless you're psychologically really really robust, it does destroy.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: There's no room for ego, yet, in order to be able to perform, you have to have some ego.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: There's no there's no real, you can't walk on stage unless you feel you belong there.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's a very difficult balance.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: But um, I was lucky in that I was taught from a very early age that it's not about me, that it's about the music.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's this is about how lucky we are as musicians to be inside the music, to be able to play it, to have the the privilege of being able to perform this music.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and um it's never been about my ego.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: That freed me up, I think, from being crazy.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think if it was always about me, if I walked out there, I think I would be so self-conscious and so uh concerned about it that I think that's where a lot of prodigies get crazy.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's exactly the point.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: That makes a lot of sense.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And really, if you see yourself as a conduit, rather if you're a conduit of the music, then you become a vessel and it's not so you you don't have to personify.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have to be the genius, I have the privilege of of uh allowing the genius to be heard.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: The genius is better than a yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: The genius is better than a Mozart and Chopin, the genius is, and I'm so I feel genuinely lucky to to be able to perform it and to be able to understand it.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: And do you think that's my life?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's the do you think that's like I don't know if you've seen Tar, the recent um film with Kate Blanchard.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's about an orchestra, she's just won the Golden Award for best actress.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so that there is this oh, you've got to see this because this is a film about the very thing you're talking about, which is about the conductor and her ego and how she has to navigate the two.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you will, it's very much on point, I think, and I'll be interested in once you've seen it to see your feedback because it really is about.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure, as you say, you need enough ego to be present and deliver and excited and engaging, but then you need to to be worthy to be on stage, yeah.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then you need to have to feel it.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a really interesting thing.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: One of the factors that I I really this yeah, there's one other factor in there is that I'm very strange in in my world, in that I also was determined to have a family and to have children.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: And uh when you're a parent, you also have to relegate all of self to these children at at in the beginning, especially, in order for them to flourish.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: You you can't it can't be about you, it has to be about them in order for them to survive and then thrive.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: At some point, you can come back to yourself.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'm hopefully getting back to that.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely no, no, I totally and utterly agree with you.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And as a parent, and you and I both know, because we we are both very dedicated parents, and it's absolutely true.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is absolutely true, and so what you're saying, it fuel it facilitated you to be and do that and an understanding.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, are you saying each helped the other?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Each helped the other, and my colleagues didn't didn't have children, they were they were unable to have families, they couldn't reconcile having both.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: So rarely did they marry.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: If they did, they didn't have children, they just had the I guess enough energy to be just the musician, uh, or just enough, just energy or enough or psychological wherewithal to just be able to do that and couldn't imagine doing both.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: I couldn't imagine not doing both.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I was determined to to do both.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And both fill your cup in different ways.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, yeah, you know, um, but I'm sure they feed each other.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: They do, and but I'm sure the juggle and struggle was real at many times because I'm sure if you were traveling a lot, which I know you did for your work, which you had to, which is a part of your job, but then you also have to be at the and you're always at the school concerts, you're always present, and yeah, because you know usually sitting there.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, you know, so at the end of the day, I think it's a really interesting thing how we navigate that.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, it's a female, it tends to be a female conundrum.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and one, you know, but now coming to your, I mean, your mum was a single mother, was that yes from the from when you were little?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know the context of that.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: From when I was about uh probably about three.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: My parents were a marriage, it was a marriage of survival during war.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: That was a marriage.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: My father was 50 when I was born, my mother was much younger than he.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: They they survived, they met in Uzbekistan and you know, and lived in in displaced persons' camps, and you know, just survived during the war.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: And um, they had music in common, they had their religion in common, and not much else.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I think uh they just that was it.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: So there was love.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I knew my father, I um uh I loved him.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: He he died when I was 22, I think.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I I knew him, but I had already lived in America since I was nine, so I didn't know him very well.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, I was raised by my mom.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: So really she was a great role model of somebody having to to juggle, but also be she has obviously has a great sense of dedication and commitment and discipline.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what have you learned from her?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh she she wrote a book.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Called Spared for a Purpose.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: This was the purpose that she had been.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: She just was determined to not allow Hitler to kill everything, to allow to resurrect what was important and valuable in her upbringing.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: That was, she grew up in a very cultured family where uh music and art and literature and uh you know poetry and and and so on was very important to her.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: They were raised with that, and she wanted to make sure that that was survived.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: European culture is that culture that that was so rich in Eastern Europe isn't there in the same way anymore.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's different.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: And uh she wanted to to have some of that left.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so music was the the most important part for her.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I just think it's incredible, and the way that she she just her strength.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I mean, I think I've met your mother, obviously.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it was very um clear to me that she's a very strong creative soul herself.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: She was.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: She she was damaged.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: She was a damaged person.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: She and that damage, you know, you know, they say that the damage is passed on into the DNA.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: It goes through the children, it even goes through the second generation.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I look at my kids, I and I hope that you know they have some of those qualities of determination, of of uh perseverance of things.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: They they have some of those qualities in them, even.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not just from what we've taught them.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think they it's in their DNA.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh that's just how it is.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's what you do with that.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: It can be your fuel, yeah.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in a way, maybe that's what you've done creatively.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: You've you've managed to, like biosmosis in some ways, maybe that's become a fuel that you know drives.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Made it positive, yeah, made it made it a creative thing rather than a debilitating thing.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And and just um and on on that note, I know that you have worked for a long time.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: How how do you hold up physically playing these extraordinary concerts non-stop?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: How and have you been impacted in any way?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Physically, yeah.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um physically, pretty well.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: I I had had a lot of things.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: This last year has been a bad year.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think due during COVID, I've had uh issues with my back.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I've had surgeries with my back.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I've yeah, I had two, two in the last six years I've had both shoulders reconstructed.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: I've had uh four back surgeries in the last year and a half, but and only some of that is from piano playing.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it's a very physical thing.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: People think it's you're just sitting there and you're playing mostly.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's very physical.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I was very tremendous power to play uh an instrument that has to be bigger than an entire orchestra in volume uh when you're playing a concerto or to fill a hall that's two and a half thousand you know, people, it takes a lot of power and you have to be strong and you have to train and you have to lift weights and things like that.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you do have to prepare for it.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, Rita, where we were was talking about, you know, the the combination of parenting and being a professional pianist and how, in a way, both require the subjugation of ego in a sense, in order to be effective while still trying to hold on to oneself, which is very difficult.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure women in every profession find that very difficult.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I found it initially very hard to be in a ball gown and on stage and uh you know giving bows and collecting roses and whatever at the end of a concert and coming home to change a nappy.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Or I had I remember once um coming off stage and uh you know Julian was uh an infant and crying and was you know, and I just had let down and had to throw my downs.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, such a great, like I mean, it really happens, yeah.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like none of this, yeah.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: That is brilliant.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you know that glamour is of but you know, you reality.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Back to earth, but you said it was really important to you to be a parent, and to and that many of your colleagues really didn't.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: When you say they couldn't, was it because the jugger was just too challenging?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you mean when you say that many didn't?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or quite that's what I mean.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: They couldn't, they they couldn't fathom how they could give the energy to both.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: I was told when I was 21, don't even consider it by uh one of the great women pianists.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: Don't even consider having children, you can't do both.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I was depressed for quite a long time after that.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: I was really worried about it, and I was just determined.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: I knew that I wanted to have children, and we actually struggled it.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: We had nine years of IVF to have children, we had six years for the first child and uh 22 cycles altogether to have the two children, and I was very determined.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: Neither of them ended up being IVF kids, they ended up being IVF failures in between a cycle.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: And is that right?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that wasn't how you can so in the is that complex in the end they were naturally conceived.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: One was uh after a Shostakovich trio concert that went very well, and one was in Libali.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, really.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's a brilliant story that you go through 22 cycles, which is no mean feat, let's be honest.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're gonna be able to do that.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think the doctor thought I was in Munchausen or something.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Well, how do you continue?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: How do you I said, You don't understand my training, is you just persevere.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: You don't stop if you want something, you you keep your mind focused and you continue doing it.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't matter that it's discomfort, it doesn't matter that it's terribly hard.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: You continue if you can until you you get it as long as you can, unless it's impossible.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I had a sort of date of my mind of 40.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: I I was 35 at that age, and I at that stage, and I thought, well, I'll keep trying at least until I'm 40.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: So um I kept going.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: He thought I was mad, but I was determined.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: So 35 is 38.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Incredible.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: 35 and 38.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, not dissimilar.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: My last two are around that age too.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: But it's interesting that you your once again, your music and your discipline that you learnt so young um really fueled and facilitated something really important in your life that you may not have otherwise achieved.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that's it.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's my music has made more of a contribution to my mental health than I ever thought it was.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I had a lot of trouble dealing um with my mother's dementia in her last few years, it was extremely difficult to handle and deal with.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so I sought some help with a psychologist and she kept saying to me, How is it you're so normal?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: How the hell, through your child prodigy life and all the weird upbringing and all that stuff, how is it you're so normal?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: And and the she came to the conclusion that it is the music that saved me, that it's the music that gave me the uh the grounding, that gave me the the sort of the tools, the hope.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: The tools and the hope.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: And music is so it's so full of what man is capable of of the best of man and the and the of what we are really able to achieve that I I get I get a lot of strength from that.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: I really I never realized it to that sort of intimate degree.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: I just went through it.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: But when I really think about it, it is the music that has uh pulled me through all kinds of difficulties uh in my life, and and I hope will all and it's always stood me in good stead.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really it's become a you know a means of catharsis uh in terms of your history and in terms of your mother's history, but it's also given you a future.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like a really it's very powerful, isn't it?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so are you a person of faith?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that there's something godly about do you think it's godly music?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what I'm saying is it's yeah, yeah, I think so too.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think so.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: Music.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I also think it's also man.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think man, it's the best of man as well.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's or woman, woman, as we should say is the best of man and woman.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean of human.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: It is the best of what we're capable of, the arts.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um it it is the ultimate.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we it that's why I revere it so much.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh yeah, I do believe uh like my mother had great faith in God.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: We weren't raised religious.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_02: We it's funny, she didn't we didn't have a kosher home, we didn't have any of that.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: We were raised to to have tradition, we were raised to be very uh to to value the fact that we were Jewish and that that her family were killed for that only reason that they were Jewish and not to take that for granted.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so we valued that, we keep that, but we're not we're not uh uh ultra-religious family in anywhere.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: I had concerts, and you know, there's no way a musician can really be a religious person and hold it, hold it uh every Saturday or anything like that.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: We can't, but um to hold the music is very in the ritual sense, but to hold to hold music as holy in a way, to be a musician is to have is a is a religion in a way, to be a musician.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh that makes a lot of sense, and particularly um, you talk about times that it's got you through, obviously, let alone the you know the 22 cycles of IVF and all and and also the challenge of trying to conceive full stop, but as you say, thank you, Shostakovich, as I recall.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: To go on tour and Lionel would fly, you know, to Stockholm, I'd be on on stage and he he'd be there for the weekend because it was the right weekend, and he'd be backstage and we I'd go off stage with whatever, and then he'd have to fly home, and it was it was nightmares.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: That is brilliant.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: That that's that's and just speaking of Lionel, what a what an incredible relationship and what an incredible, you know, because it's required a lot of, you know, like that's a particularly extraordinary little vignette that you've just used.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: But he's special, he's very I could not have done any of this alone, this for sure.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: He's a very special um partner in my life and and husband and father of my children.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, we we did this together.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: We're together uh, I think it's 39 and a half years from our first date.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: He counts it from the first date.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and we've been ups and downs, and he says, and that I tell him it's one day at a time, so he's on notice.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: How long every day is good?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: None of this takes it's not a Curtis training.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: Every day you're on probation.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: You don't take anything for granted.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh see no s it's also giving you marriage tips as well.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't take anything for granted.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: I I make sure it's uh you check it and you work at it.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I think that's the key to everything that you're you do and you're doing, and we all do, but that is a really particularly stressful because you have had to travel a lot, you've had to really, you know, I mean, your schedule at at one point must have been completely, I mean, certainly, I don't know if you're working to this the same level right now, and that that, but that was, you know, and do you think that played a part in, you know, the strenuous schedule and and I suppose, as you say, the physicality, did that play a part in, for example, your, you know, you talk about the shoulder reconstructions and the various things?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And also, don't you think sometimes the body puts, you know, maybe your body was put on hold until it was ready and then it delivered?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we we were living um apart for about half the year for the first 12 years of our marriage.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: About half the year I was traveling.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, talk to me.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'll just talk me through that.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: How does that how do you work that?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: And is that just a sheer community?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: I would go on tour.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: I would go on tour.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: We tried to not be apart for for say two to three weeks.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: He would come visit me, or I would go visit him because he was he's traveled a great deal in his career as well.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: He's um he gives lectures all over the world as well.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so we would try and meet.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: We would meet in a hotel room somewhere or at neighboring gates at an airport or something, you know.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we tried not to be apart for more than two or three weeks and try to work it that way.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it was very difficult in the beginning, and it and I used to say it was very hard because I had to relearn how to be a complete person away from him, and then when we would be together, I had to make room for him again.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: I had to create that space within myself for him and for us, and then I go away and I I didn't know, you know, how could I be away from him anymore and how did I function on my own, which I had done for years on my own anyway, and uh had to then fill that space up with my with me and be able to uh survive in a hotel and restaurant, which is ridiculous, because of course I could do that, but yeah, but it's you feel like you're incapable alone.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a shift, and I had to make that space and and and then release that space and do that constantly, and uh that was difficult at times, and um, but you learn, you just adapt, you you you make things happen if you want them to happen, I guess.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um we got through it, yeah.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: 39 years, but I I actually wonder if you can be somebody, I think to be extraordinary at what you do, not just you, but anyone, but particularly when you're trying to do something so uh, I suppose, you know, high-powered and in some ways very demanding what you do, um you have do you think that's doable?
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm sure many marriages don't survive that pressure.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: So do you think the space in between is the absolute cornerstone of how that that that does come thrives?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'll never know that.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'll never know if the space was helpful or or not.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I don't know because we we've only ever had that.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh when when we met, I was living in New York with no intention of ever returning to Australia.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I've I've never known anything else.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: But um no, I think it was it was difficult.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: I I'd say it was more more difficult than a helpful thing to be a part.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um when we are together, we're happier.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which makes sense, you know.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it is a very interesting.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so you guys met in New York, I'm I'm I'm understanding.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: No, we met here.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: When we met here, yeah.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I came for an Australian tour and we met here, and um lots of things happened.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: I I I wasn't meant to be here for more than two weeks, and I put my hand through a window and cut up my wrist and had surgery, and then I got it was after having auditioned for this Italian conductor who wanted to record with me, and so I had to stay to do this recording.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: In the meantime, I I had done this damage, and then I did the recording with uh bandages on my wrist, and the recording went really well, but then I had they found glass after the recording.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was a long story, but because of that, we had this courtship.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: I was in Australia for nine months instead of two weeks, and because of that damage, uh we had a courtship.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: So that is brilliant.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you wouldn't have been here otherwise.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: I would not have been here and we wouldn't have been yeah, it was serendipity without a doubt.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so I had done two recordings during that period and had all these operations on my hand, and they didn't do any permanent damage.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: So that that was lucky.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that was very lucky because as a penis, that's pretty serious.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: Terribly serious.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: Terrible the the surgeon and Lionel were in tears because it looked like my tendons were cut permanently and that would have been it.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't understand that, and I didn't accept that.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't that was not in my realm of possibility.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that was not gonna happen.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And once again, your diligence and your determination comes to light, and you are forced to find a way to, I'm assuming, the nine months was rehabilitation and making sure.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, no, there were two recordings in the middle of the nine months, but yes, uh, two recordings and two surgeries.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: And and there were other things.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've had life always deals you things that you don't expect.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: I was uh when Lexi was little, she contracted from uh from crash uh slap cheek, which is a uh a children's disease.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: And when she gave it to a virus, and I contracted it from her, and it turned into rheumatoid arthritis in me.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so I had to go on lots of medications.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: And with me, it meant that I was then unable to pick up a pencil, I was unable to turn a key, I was unable to pick up a ground.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh rheumatologist in Melbourne who put me on very high doses of very new drugs, uh, prevented any permanent damage to my joints, and uh saved my career.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: And had those drugs not been around at that time, and he's been progressively giving me the newest of the newest as they as they came out, uh has saved my hands and has saved my career.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so I've had to constantly um fight to continue, and just you just I got used to another battle to to fight, another uh difficulty to overcome.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not scared, I'm not scared by very much anymore.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: It takes a lot to you know, okay.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'll get through this one, I'll get through another battle.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so you're very resourceful.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think you learned that from your from your mother?
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm sure you make whatever you've got, you turn it into whatever you need.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it?
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what's the alternative?
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose that's that's the reality.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, people give up.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_02: The the alternative is you give up, and that's not in the realm of of our possibility.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to give up.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: So no.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so for you, moving forward.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's your mum.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so moving forward, and clearly also your husband's pretty, I know he's a very, very well respected doctor, and he's very capable and very, very uh well regarded.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: Very gentle, yes, very gentle, very tolerant and patient and kind.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: He's a very kind person, and he is he's got a very healthy ego.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: He will gladly, when people go up to him and say, Mr.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: Reichman, you know, yes, he'll answer that.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: He has no ego issues at all.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like you for that.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, do you go by do you go um you go by Reichmann, not Cavall, do you, don't you?
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: Reichman, yeah.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: I go by Reichmann Cavall when it's no, I on stage it's Rita Reichman because I've had my career since three, but uh when it's to deal with the family, I go by Reichman Caval, yeah.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I get that.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also a hyphenation.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think hyphenation is quite good for us girls.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like it connects us with our children.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: Without that, we wouldn't exactly, exactly.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Rita, it's been so lovely to chat to you, and there's so much more I'd love to discuss with you.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope you come back on the podcast because you really are quite an inspiration.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um, can you just tell us what you have coming up next?
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: Are you touring?
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: Are you are you having you know a break?
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: What's your so I have a recording with the St.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: Petersburg Philharmonic that has not been released because of what's happened with uh Ukraine and Russia?
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: So that will have to be released hopefully when this war will be over and there's no issues with Russia, because for me it's about music, not the politics, but I understand that I wouldn't want to do anything because my my family is from that area as well or Ukraine and and the borders are very fluid.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: Just to clarify that, you've done that recording.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and who's putting a hold on that release?
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: I have done that recording.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I've put a hold on that release.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: You have that's the uh two concertos.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: I have done that.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's a a French French concerto, the Ravel and Saint Saint's uh concertos with this St.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_02: Petersburg Philharmonic.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's a recording that I'm going to be doing now, as soon as I can uh I get over all these back surgeries.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be doing of uh um another recording, a solo recording in Melbourne, and then I will tour with that.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: And um the program is still to be decided of what I'll be recording.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: It might be the all of the Chopin Nocturns is one project, and then there might be Schubert and Prompt juice, and so I'm not sure quite yet.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'll be touring, and hopefully, I'll be performing by the second half of this year.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so the back surgeries, you've had them or you've got to have more?
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: No, I've had them.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: Oh god, I hope I've done with all of that.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty stressful.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I really look very well, so obviously you're healing and you're on your journey, ready to perform, hopefully later in the year, because you know, everybody will be waiting with bated breath.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's great that the the recordings I respect that you've put a hold on the the recordings out of Russia because it is challenging, isn't it, to to separate music and art, uh music and politics, because let's be honest, we know Hitler and music, and we know all the all the the the way that a lot of politicians have used music.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, don't we?
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like they've used music as a way to do that.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I really use music and sport and anything else they can use.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: So no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that, even though this was done before any of this happened.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I couldn't release it now.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, in the meantime, I'm teaching uh and that's and just practicing and getting healthier, and then I will do things later in the year.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Rita, it's been so lovely to chat to you, and we look forward to seeing and hearing you later in the year when you're back on deck.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you for sharing your wonderful story.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: It really is inspirational.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's lovely to speak with you.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: The What I've Learned podcast will now be coming to you weekly with new episodes released every Tuesday.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind and curious.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: Love Death.