Woman Zone - Finding Herself - Podcast Interview - Part 1 of 4

 TRANSCRIPT OF WOMAN ZONE INTERVIEW WITH TRUDY RUSHIN, PART OF ‘FINDING HERSELF’ PODCAST SERIES (DEC. 2020)

INTERVIEWER: THERESA SMITH

GENERAL INTRODUCTION BY NANCY RICHARDS:

Finding Herself- sharing the journey. With music by Trudy Rushin and technical support by Wayne Van de Bergh.  This episode has been kindly sponsored by Cape Midwife Natural Birth – believe in yourself.

INTRODUCTION OF GUEST, BY THERESA SMITH

That lovely voice you just heard, that provides the introduction to this Woman Zone Finding Herself series, is that of Trudy Rushin – singer, songwriter, philanthropist, teacher, feminist.  The daughter of Eoan Group opera singer, May Abrahamse, never set out to follow in her mother’s footsteps, but as relationships, children and basically life happened, she learnt to love the process and became more confident in her own musical abilities.

·         I am Theresa Smith of Woman Zone and I asked Trudy what is the difference between how she defines who she is and what she does.

TRUDY: There’s definitely a difference, because I think who you are is always true – is true for all time – but what you do is … circumstantial? Or it can be related to a job you have at a particular time.  So, how I define who I am – I would say I’m a South African woman, a feminist, a mother, a musician, a writer, an educator and a communicator. And if I were to place myself anywhere politically, I would say I’m a socialist.

What I do, as I said that … that’s often linked to one’s job. Ja, so that changes. So who I am is sort of like the foundation of everything that I do, you know?

 ·         What did you hope or plan to be when people first started asking you that question? You know - like, “What you gonna be when you grow up?”

TRUDY: My mother says that when I was a little child and they asked me that, I would say I wanted to be a mother – or a “mommy”- and a teacher. And I suppose you could say I have achieved my goal (giggles) – goals.

You know, I actually, I’ve been looking through … you, know, thinking about these things, and so on – I don’t think I’m ambitious, in the normal use of the word. It’s partly my personality – mainly my personality – and partly circumstantial. Having said as much, I definitely am a goal setter: I set goals, but I think I’m one of those people who love the process as much as I love achieving the goal, so … but I’m not ambitious in a way where I can say, “I plotted my career.” It was more like, I was open to what life sent my way.   

 ·         But you … you had this idea of becoming a teacher, which I know you did end up doing, but you never ever set the goal for yourself: I’m going to be a musician, like my mother. And yet you are a musician now.

TRUDY: Ja ….. that is one of the ways in which that like being open to what life sent my way manifested. When I look back now, music has been my parallel career, no matter what I’ve done. You know it… the music has always been there. And I’ve tended to not see myself as a musician, because people define you according to your day job, but that’s been the constant, you know.

 ·         How did that journey - that musical journey – how did that actually start?

TRUDY: Well when I was six years old, apparently I loved singing then already, because my teacher made me stand on a table and sing for the School Inspectress.  I was at Laerskool Heideveld, for the first six months of my primary school life, and the song was “Ek Doen Dit Als Vir Jesus”. Singing, at age six, standing on the table, for this teacher who wanted to show you off to the Inspectress, and then singing in Afrikaans, which was not my mother tongue – it must’ve been cute, but I think I was terrified.

You know, as children, we took piano lessons, like most people - you know … from our community -  did, but in my teens I started playing the guitar and that started the real journey for me. Ja, the guitar is my instrument of choice and that’s been my… like my baby, all these years. 

 

Nassau Hall, Newlands, Cape Town

Photo: Gregory Franz