The Chief Enabler

Most kids can’t wait to be done with school. But growing up, for better or worse, Ken Yanagisawa never seemed able to escape the classroom.

“I used to joke that I had a piece of chalk as a pacifier,” he told me, laughing.

Yanagisawa, currently a music director and assistant conductor for three different Boston orchestras, and a professor at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, was born in New Jersey to Japanese parents. His mother was an immigrant; his father, a first-generation Japanese American. 

Both were teachers, and together ran a from-home tutoring business to help the children of Japanese expats integrate into the U.S. while keeping up with the Japanese national curriculum. For Yanagisawa, school was home, and home was school.

As a result of growing up in this highly academic environment, Yanagisawa’s own education was always a top priority. “The classroom was a critical part of my upbringing,” he said. 

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Yanagisawa wasn’t exactly a star pupil. “I was a very problematic child,” he said. He was disruptive enough that his parents eventually moved him to a private school. “The stimulus there was exactly what I needed,” he said. “It turned out that ‘neurospicy Ken’ just happened to be such a problem because he was bored.” He stopped causing trouble, started excelling, and finally learned to like learning.

 

A Repertoire for Five-Year-Olds 

Music was always a part of his childhood—he played piano, and also a bit of oboe—but his musical education, like his academics, was a bit disjointed.

“My piano training was a little bit behind,” Yanagisawa said. “Sure, I started at age five, like every other Asian kid, but my first piano teacher wasn't great. So I learned a lot about the theory side of things, but didn't actually do a lot of practical execution. I didn’t really play.”

At one point, Yanagisawa questioned why his parents even made him take the piano. They threw up their hands, at this point, and made him quit. “They were like, ‘Well, if you're gonna question it, why are we doing it?’” he recalled.

By age 11, after a couple of years hiatus, he’d realized there was a void without music in his life. The break, if anything, gave him a newfound love for the art. “I needed it,” he said. So he returned to the piano with a new teacher, who told him she’d only take him if he started from scratch. 

“She said that she would teach me if I would commit to practicing two to three hours a day, but she also was like, ‘I'm going to give you a repertoire meant for five year olds. We're gonna start you there, and the goal is for you to catch up.’”

 

Learning How to Learn

Yanagisawa was coming from behind, but he relished the challenge. 

“Throughout middle and high school, my end-all-be-all was practicing piano, and learning how to be as efficient with my learning as possible so I could catch up,” he said. As a result, Yanagisawa became captivated not only by music but by neuroscience. He devoured books by Oliver Sachs and Malcolm Gladwell, immersing himself in the field of deep learning. “Basically, I was trying to teach myself how to get more information faster, and how to retain it better,” he said. 

When college approached, Yanagisawa was torn. He’d spent most of his childhood obsessing over how to learn faster so that he could catch up as a musician, but now he found himself captivated by the idea of learning in and of itself. His college essay, in fact, focused on the intersection of music and the neuroscience of skill acquisition.

To hedge his bets, he applied for college shotgun-style, sending out applications to a slew of both musical conservatories and traditional universities across the country. “I kind of just applied to everything,” he said. His goal was a dual degree program, where he could both pursue music and some form of science or medicine. 

He was accepted to several schools for both music and academics, but rejected from every dual-degree program. “I got into the New England Conservatory, but I didn’t get into Harvard,” he said. “I got into Columbia, but not Juilliard.” 

In the end, he simply showed up at every single college he’d been accepted to, and asked if he could take a gap year. Yale agreed, and allowed him to attend New England Conservatory (NEC), studying the oboe for a year. He loved NEC, and arrived back at Yale with one foot out the door, fully intending to bail and return to music full-time. Instead, he found it was perfect.

“I ended up loving it so much I just stayed.”

CREDIT: Ken Yanagisawa

 

A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words

During his time at Yale Yanagisawa discovered another life passion—photography. “I was always terrible at writing essays,” he admitted, laughing. “They say, ‘A picture’s worth a thousand words’ so I decided to take that literally.” 

He started taking photos in his free time but before long found himself photo editor of the Yale Daily News. “We were producing images for print and digital every night of the week,” he said. “It was intense, but it gave me a lot of experience.” 

He also managed to make a side hustle out of photography, taking fellow musicians’ portraits and shooting Greek life dances. Trying to make a living off photography, he said, was like treading water, because the equipment is prohibitively expensive.

“To create a step and repeat, I need to buy strobes. So I buy strobes, I go into debt. Then they pay me more, because they're like, ‘Oh, you have strobes, so we want to hire you.’ It’s a never-ending loop of me buying more gear, going into debt, earning it back, then buying more gear.” 

He laughed. “Today, I have the full arsenal.”

Yanagisawa also began conducting during his time at Yale. After he was diagnosed with sleep apnea, he dropped the oboe entirely. “The doctors basically told me that my soft palate was leaking, and said, ‘If you're going to pursue playing the oboe professionally, we need to consider surgery.’”

The choice was simple, he stopped playing the oboe, and switched to being a conductor. Yanagisawa went on to attend the Manhattan School of Music for grad school, then earned a doctorate from Boston University. “I've stayed in Boston ever since,” he said.

An example of Yanagisawa's photography work. Pictured here: Ghana's coast. See more at https://kiyphotography.com/.

Yanagisawa also discovered Coregami early in his career.

“I had seen some people wear these shirts, and I'm doing tours, I'm performing multiple times every day, and what Coregami offered really appealed," he said. "That pragmatic part of me was like, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if I could buy dress clothes that don’t have to be dry cleaned? That aren’t all starchy, or disgusting after one wear?”

He was sold on the functionality—full range of motion without untucking, and moisture-wicking fabric. Yanagisawa didn’t just buy one shirt; he bought five. 

They proved essential during a college humanitarian trip to Ghana. “The hotel didn’t have running water," he recalled. “We were doing concert after concert in the sweltering June heat. Every night I’d wash the shirt in a basin, hang it to dry, and have a clean shirt the next day.”

Controlled Chaos

As the son of two teachers, Yanagisawa has remained in the classroom throughout his life, first as a student, then a teacher. Today, aged 32, he’s an assistant professor at the Berklee College of Music, in Boston. “It’s a part-time gig, I do it to make ends meet, but I get a lot of pleasure out of it,” he told me.

For Yanagisawa, the subject matter is secondary to the act of teaching itself. “I derive a lot of pleasure out of seeing other people be inspired, whether it's in the classroom or otherwise,” he said. He laughed. “Maybe this makes me sound like a jester, or a golden retriever, but I really get fulfillment out of making sure other people are feeling good, that they’re comfortable in a setting or space, having a good time, and staying engaged.”

Although he typically teaches conducting in seminar settings, to Yanagisawa, it’s important to individualize his approach.  “I personalize my coaching for each kid as they come up to conduct, according to what I feel they need best.”

“I will never abide by a scripture, so to speak, of ‘You must do this’ or ‘You must do that.’ Rather, I just say, ‘Okay, what do you need help with?’”

Similarly, he doesn’t have a rigid personal schedule or habits. “I like order, but I want enough controlled chaos in my life that something new is free to approach me. That’s what brings me excitement,” he said. “For me, not having a strict routine is actually the answer.”

This “controlled chaos” is also why, although he does plenty of orchestral work, he loves conducting opera. “I like opera so much because there are those extra musical components that have to be taken into account,” he explained. “How long is the curtain going to take? How long is the costume change? Where does a singer need to be? Can the singer see me? How do we adjust for the space we’re in? Always aiming for that moving target is what I find tickles my brain just right,” he said. “I really enjoy that process.”

Despite his busy schedule, it’s important for Yanagisawa to spend time away from the podium. 

Recently, he joked, he’s spent a lot of time “vegetating” in front of the television (“very much to my girlfriend’s chagrin”), watching shows like The Blacklist, a crime thriller, and The Pitt, a medical procedural drama, and playing the Harry Potter video game Hogwarts Legacy. He’s also “extremely invested” in the long-running and critically-acclaimed Assassin’s Creed franchise. 

As a child, Yanagisawa was too focused on his studies to have much time for video games, but as an adult, he’s found it a great way to relax. 

“It’s how I disengage from the world once in a while,” he said. “Video games helped me reset myself, forget about whatever else I have to do.”

As for his tastes as a conductor and player, Yanagisawa said he’s too early in his career to be picky. “I can't afford to say no,” he joked. “My thing is, I try to find inspiration in every project that I have, whether it's a kids’ show, a professional orchestra, or whether I'm just sitting there for balances and giving the thumbs up to the guest conductor. I believe I can learn something from every interaction I have. So I take every opportunity with gratitude, and just plow forward.”

CREDIT: Diego Redel (and lead image)

 

Just a Conduit

A career in music, particularly as a conductor, can seem opaque, but Yanagisawa said the only mistake an aspiring conductor can make is thinking there is a single route. There isn't.

“Conducting is one of those weird professions where there isn't a clear cut path,” he said. “It's not like you have to go to a particular school, or study under a particular teacher or style. Europe maybe has a bit of that going on, but in the States, none of that exists. Most of us start conducting on our own or on the road. It's weirdly mysterious, and so the best way to learn conducting is by doing.”

“You know the famous college mantra, ‘pizza and beer brings crowds’?” He laughed. “Conducting is like that. Just bring a couple of friends together and experiment, see how it feels. That's how we all began, myself included. Don’t be afraid to try that.”

Like another Coregami conductor, Brett Mitchell—who fills his office shelves with books on leadership rather than music—Yanagisawa said that conducting isn’t really about what you do on stage, but what you do off it.

“The ‘counting to four’ part of conducting is the easiest part,” he joked. “It’s flashy to be on stage, but that's not the important stuff. Conducting is about learning how to connect with people, and how to draw out their maximum potential. I’m the chief enabler of the room, not the chief dictator, if that makes sense,” he added, laughing. “I’m just a conduit for everyone else.”

In fact, by the time Yanagisawa steps up to the podium, the hard work is done. “We prepare, so that when push comes to shove, when it's performance time, it’s fight or flight, we all have one brain cell functioning, the pieces are all in place,” he said. 

“We're just up there to remind people of what we've already done.”

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Owen Clarke is an American journalist primarily covering rock climbing and adventure motorcycling. In addition to his work for Coregami, he is a frequent contributor to Climbing and Outside, a contributing editor at Summit Journal, and is Africa's "Climbs & Expeditions" editor for the American Alpine Journal.