For Ruth Hertzman-Miller, the pandemic doesn't stop the music

During the ongoing pandemic, Newton resident and physician Ruth Hertzman-Miller has spent many of her work hours meeting with patients, both in-person and online, as well as visiting with them at NewBridge on the Charles, the senior living center where she’s employed.

Hertzman-Miller also composes music, and has found joy as a student at New England Conservatory’s School of Continuing Education, which offers lessons, classes, and ensembles for adult students of all levels.

Amid family demands and worries about the pandemic, Hertzman-Miller regularly carves out time to keep music in her life. “I have continued to compose and learn,” she says. “I finished last semester online and continued to enjoy my coursework, and have benefited enormously from Zoom lessons. Composing and listening to music have been intellectually and emotionally engaging, and have allowed me to not be so focused on all the negative news.”

Hertzman-Miller is even writing a piece inspired by the pandemic, a composition based on the idea of a virus spreading through an ensemble. Other projects include a prepared-piano piece and an opera based on H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, which she’s writing for North Cambridge Family Opera, a group with whom she and her children have been singing for more than a decade.

As a physician, Hertzman-Miller is keenly aware of music’s health benefits. “Music absolutely has a role in health,” she says. “Many of my patients with dementia are calmed by music, and some of them can still sing, even though they have difficulty with speech.”

Each day, Hertzman-Miller spends time on her classes, now all online. She runs, practices light weightlifting, and spends time with her kids, ages 13 and 18. “We always have a special Shabbat dinner on Friday night,” she says. “My husband and I often attend a theater performance or concert on Saturday night, online.”

Hertzman-Miller says it’s been difficult to keep up with some of her other interests—such as Israeli dance and performing in community theater—but she has managed to continue devouring literary fiction at the rate of one to two books a week.

Being confined to the house has brought some special musical and family moments. “My middle daughter was super-excited to watch the film of Hamilton, which the four of us at home did together,” she says. “We've also done a bit of singing together—Broadway songs, with me playing the piano, which is something we didn't often do before the pandemic.”

With four people constantly living in the house, some negotiations have been necessary. “We have a beautiful grand piano,” says Hertzman-Miller, “but I feel constrained about using it, since my husband, a software engineer, is working from home all day, and our kids have had various types of music and theater online camps and lessons. It was much different when I was the only one in the house for the majority of the day.”

At her own job, Hertzman-Miller’s patients have been tickled to hear about her musical pursuits. “Many of them have been fascinated by the fact that I’m studying composition,” she says. “There's a wonderful music therapist where I work who wrote a song with some of the older adults about surviving the pandemic. I’d love to do more work that integrates my medical and musical abilities, and I’ve been thinking about how to pursue that.”

For more information about New England Conservatory's School of Continuing Education, visit https://necmusic.edu/ce.