I met Cindy Egolf soon after I arrived in Nice, that was a while back now. At the time she had, and still very much has, a property on a high hill in Italy.

The stories of people attempting to get to her house in the early days are the stuff of legend. The house on the hill is moving on at a pace now. It is going to be quite something when it is finished and will end up a marvelous retreat for those lucky enough to be invited.

Cindy has always been involved in music. I never knew how much until she began talking about conducting an orchestra. Conducting an orchestra is like being a tour guide, you need a bus and people to guide. However, Cindy took a unique angle on this and invited people to be the orchestra, no instruments needed. Each person is as different as are the instruments in an orchestra. It proved to be a great way for people to meet, interact and was excellent fun for all. However, Cindy can and actually does conduct orchestras!

She has conducted professional orchestras in North America, Europe and Asia. Recently she recorded with an orchestra in Bulgaria with no rehearsal! The first time Cindy and the orchestra made music together was when she raised her baton and they pressed record. This is a running theme as the first opera she conducted had no rehearsal either, she just had to step on the podium and begin! That very much demonstrates her spirit and confidence in her consummate skills.

Cindy met Leonard Bernstein in Amsterdam while she was studying and he was conducting there. She ended up with other orchestra members sailing in the North Sea with Bernstein. Years later she was invited to study with him at Tanglewood Music Center for the summer. She found him to be kind, an amazing teacher with an incredible passion for conducting, a genius. He changed the trajectory of Cindy’s career.

She earned an Arts Music Doctorate (A.Mus.D.) in orchestral conducting, a double doctorate. It is a combined PhD – which is the academic doctorate with dissertation – and the DMA which is the conducting performance doctorate. Cindy was the first woman to be accepted into the program and only the third person to have completed the degree – Amazing!

Olives. Did I mention olives? Cindy has a huge number of olive trees that yield a fair old crop of great organic olive oil. This is not just any old olive oil, this is first class, virgin olive oil. Harvesting olives is not for the faint hearted; it does need a lot of willing hands to make this happen before the crop is taken to where they press the olives. To be able to be pressed they need to be of a certain quality which is always the best in Cindy’s case. It is a testament to her great nature that friends have rallied around her to help each year gather in her amazing olives.

It is difficult to put a single hat on Cindy. Cindy is unique. And, like her olive oil, in demand for her warm nature, imagination, musical skills and tenacity.