Watch Eimear Noone speak about how you have to become your own role model to push boundaries

In a recent talk during Inspirefest in Dublin, Ireland, Irish composer and conductor Eimear Noone (World of Warcraft, Overwatch, founder of Conductrix) spoke about how pushing boundaries in a specific area, leaves you without role models and how, therefore, you have to become that very role model. In this context, she also focussed on the many obstacles women composers and conductors face in the music and entertainment industry.

Eimear Noone speaks about how she got from being told she had no chance of becoming a composer and conductor (“You’ve got three things going against you: You’re young, you’re Irish, and you’re female.”) to studying music, moving to LA, conducting Nintendo’s Symphony of the Goddesses, working for Blizzard, touring the world with Video Games Live – and to finally making it to Vienna, conducting at the iconic concert hall Das Konzerthaus.

“Women are bad at being bad at things”

Eimear Noone mentions how “fewer than one percent of conductors in the world are women, fewer than two percent of composers for media are women.” In her opinion, the main reason is that “women are bad at being bad at things” and that as a conductor this makes it even more difficult since “you have to inflict your terribleness on at least 80 other people for a very long time.”

In 2011, after recording numerous video game and film scores, Eimear Noone was invited to conduct the 25th anniversary concert of The Legend of Zelda at E3. When 8,000 people cheered for the orchestra it was finally the moment where the constant feeling “of being the one percent – just exploded” as she realised how “video game music had become the soundtrack of the lives of millions of people. It wasn’t just me who loved the orchestra like this.” She then goes on mentioning how “when you sit and you listen to a score as part of a video game, it encapsulated that time of your life, it encapsulates the relationship whoever you’re playing that game with” and how video games “are a great breaker down of barriers in terms of different cultures and the inclusion of differently abled.”

“Know thyself”

Fueled by her passion for music as well as with the Greek aphorism “know thyself” constantly at the back of her mind, last year Eimear Noone’s skill and willpower then finally got her to conduct a concert in the capital of music, Vienna, at the Konzerthaus (where also Hollywood in Vienna takes place). A recording of that very concert therefore also ends her inspiring talk on how you should never lose faith in what you feel is the only right profession for you to pursue in life.

You can watch her full talk below:

Source: Silicon Republic