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Exclusive: Konversations with Keeme: Chatting with Sandra J. Miklave
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Oct 29, 2022
Sandra J. Miklave- Executive Director of the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra and worked with Kristin Huffman (Artistic Dir of New Paradigm Theatre) to produce last year's award winning West Side Story. Sandra joined the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra staff in April 2018. She is a leader in the Norwalk community. Sandra was vice president and co-manager of the Loan and Agency Services Group responsible for the bank's syndicated loan portfolio. She earned her B.A. in political science and economics at Manhattanville College and her Master of Organizational Leadership at Quinnipiac University. Sandra lives in Norwalk with her husband, Matt and has three sons.
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0:00
Hello, my name is Ajabola Tajuddin, but you can call me Kimi
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And today we're watching Conversations with Kimi, a show where we ask stuff and we make stuff
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This season, to go with NPTs and Newark Symphony Orchestra's South Pacific, we'll be decorating beach-themed things
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For this episode, our guest is Sandra McClave, who is the executive director of the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra
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Hello. Hi, Katie. How are you today? I'm good. And you? Good. Okay. So, who are you? Who is Sandra
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Who is Sandra? Yes. So, I live in Norwalk. I have lived here for almost 30 years
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Oh, okay. I grew up in Connecticut. I love Connecticut. I love winter. I didn't work for about 20 years when my kids were going to school
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So now this job at the Norwalk Symphony is me going back into the workplace
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And what do you do exactly at the Norwalk Symphony? So I do a little bit of everything, which is one of the things that really appealed to me about the job
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I do marketing. I do fundraising. I do production. I work with the musicians really closely, with the conductor
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So I do a little bit of everything. So I stalked you a little bit and I found out that you travel a lot
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Where did you go recently? recently well we have a house in Vermont that we own and we it Neurochemo Mountain so we ski and so we tend to spend most of our weekends that we can get away from town that are not having a symphony concert
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My husband and I just like to travel. We've been to Scotland a couple times the last few years. We're
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hoping to get there again in the near future and so, yeah. How do you balance the life of being a
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mother, a wife of 30 years, and an executive director. So it hasn't really been too much of
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a balance with this job, only because I took it after everybody was out of the house. I'm also
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on the board of directors at Stepping Stones Museum for Children here in Norwalk, and I was
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the board chair for the last eight years, so it's been an exciting time for me there as well
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We're actually going to be 20 years old this March. We'll be celebrating our 20th birthday
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The Newark Symphony is celebrating its 80th anniversary season this year. But the thing that appeals to me about both of them is that both of us use volunteers in a lot of really unique and creative ways
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And so I think that's one of the fun things that I like about both organizations. Being a woman in this industry of entertaining and being an executive director at that, being behind the scenes and in the upfront with promoting and everything, what's that like
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I don't notice that there's anything different about it. I spent a lot of time this past year working with a mentor who was a woman or who is a woman
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She was the head of a symphony for a number of years and so she gave me a lot of valuable insights but I don notice that there difference between you know being a woman or being a man or whatever in this street but everybody works together really well and that to me the important part So as we know and we have to tell them you
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were at channel 12 today to promote uh South Pacific with NPT and the North Symphony Orchestra
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which is going to be February 8th at the City Hall in Norwalk so make sure you come check it out
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I'll be there, we'll all be there. And as we know, South Pacific is about racial prejudice. And
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I just wanted to ask you, have you ever experienced prejudiceness? That's a really interesting question, Kimi. I can't say consciously that I ever feel that I have
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I grew up in a really small town in Connecticut that was not at all diverse. But the song from
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the play you've got to be carefully taught I think sort of highlights the fact that people
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aren't born prejudiced they learn it along the way and I don't think I ever learned it because
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I didn't live in a town where it had any of those issues but now I live in Norwalk and we have this
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wonderfully diverse town I just see everybody as the same I feel grateful that I don't really think
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I ever really learned that so I don't see it the way it is where we are here now and what advice
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would you give to young leaders who would like to lead in their communities
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Listen, it's all about communication. It's all about, you know, being able to have
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people be able to talk and listen and hear what the other person is saying And I think a lot of the problems that we have in the world and especially these days the things that are going on is because people talk
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at people they don't talk to people they don't talk with people and they don't listen when
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somebody's giving them a response and I think that that is a big piece of what the problems are and
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why the you know why we have the problems that we do in the world today well I guess it's time to
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show our work to the audience let's see what you did and let's see what i did there you go all right
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what does it say it says norwick symphony yay the norwick symphony orchestra and mine is basically
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just a colorful mess oh with my name in the inside thank you so much for joining us here on
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conversation with keeney i hope you guys enjoyed the episode and make sure you guys go check out
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the norwick symphony orchestra's instagram and you guys have a website correct we do www.norwicksymphony.org
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And you can also check out NPT's website, which is NPtheatre.org, which is going to be linked right here
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And also, you can check out my Instagram or NPT's Instagram and our Facebooks to find out any more information about Conversations with Kimi, NPT, and any further performances that we'll have in the future
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Thank you guys so much for watching Conversations with Kimi. I hope you guys enjoyed the episode. And remember, your voice is your power, so use it
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Kimi out
#Broadway & Musical Theater