She packed her flute and her baby to tour with the CSO

On a recent morning in Ann Arbor, Mich., Emma Gerstein slipped into the bathroom of her hotel room and shut the door quietly behind her.

Her 10-month-old son, Ronan, was napping in the next room. In a few hours, Gerstein, 39, would be on a plane and headed for Carnegie Hall in New York City, where she was due for a rehearsal with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and its music director, Klaus Mäkelä.

Gerstein, the second flutist in Chicago’s orchestra, was at the start of a weeklong tour that would take the ensemble, by plane and by bus, from Ann Arbor to New York, Bethesda and Boston. And she had her baby — her second child — in tow.

Two years ago, Gerstein kept a tour diary for WBEZ while traveling through Europe with the orchestra and its longtime music director, Riccardo Muti. That trip marked the former maestro’s final tour with the orchestra. The diary helped illuminate an important transitional moment for the orchestra as the Muti era came to an end and a new chapter began.

Now Mäkelä, a 30-year-old phenom in the classical music world, is ramping up events with Chicago’s orchestra as he prepares to take the podium in 2027. Gerstein wanted to be there for his first tour with the symphony. But she also wanted to keep breastfeeding her son.

Questions about how to strike a balance between work and parenthood are ones women — especially women in the arts like Gerstein, who perform in highly visible, prestigious roles — have often discussed privately: backstage, in locker rooms, over the rhythmic whir of breast pumps. Even at places like the symphony, where music directors like Georg Solti and Muti have helped make the orchestra more welcoming for families, there remains an enduring fear that motherhood can be a career killer.

These conversations, however, are increasingly happening in public, too, as performers speak more openly about motherhood and work. (The American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Isabella Boylston, for example, has shared widely on social media about performing while pregnant and her ambitions to return to the stage as a new mother.)

Touring with a symphony orchestra already requires a practiced logistical choreography: flights, buses, rehearsals and late-night performances. For Gerstein, the week also included nap times, feedings and fever checks. To assist with Ronan, she brought her sister, Jennifer Elling, along on tour to help with childcare. (The cost of bringing childcare on tour is an expense Gerstein — like any member of the orchestra — must cover herself.)

Here, in her own words, Gerstein offers a rare window into a working mother’s perennial balancing act.

Ann Arbor, Day 2 of tour

I’ve been thinking about a conversation I had on stage last night with one of my colleagues. It’s not the first conversation I’ve had with other women in the orchestra, other moms, who have noticed that I brought Ronan.

This particular colleague has been in the orchestra more than 30 years. She told me that when her second child was born — her son, who I think is about my age now — the orchestra was about to go on a tour to Australia. She didn’t feel that she could ask for the time off, and she didn’t feel like she could bring him, either, because the culture was different then. People didn’t really take their families on tour. So, she left him [at home]. He was six months old, and she was breastfeeding, but she had to wean.

Even just thinking about it right now makes me emotional. Her son is 38 years old now, and she was still visibly sad talking about it.

That’s actually one of the reasons I’m bringing Ronan with me. I’m still breastfeeding, and it’s more than feeding for me. It’s connection. It’s closeness. It’s really special [and] it’s fleeting.

New York, Day 3 of tour

We just had our rehearsal at Carnegie Hall, and now I’m back in my hotel room. Jennifer and Ronan are out walking in Central Park, which sounds really nice. I would actually like to do that too, but I’m so tired. I feel like everything is catching up with me.

Recently I was in the locker room in Chicago talking about feeling guilty leaving my children at night to come to work. [My older son] Angus sometimes gets really upset when I leave for concerts. Sometimes he runs to the front door screaming and crying that he wants me and doesn’t want me to go. Of course you feel guilty. You think, am I doing the right thing? Am I somehow ruining my children because I’m working?

I know that I’m not, but I do feel conflicted. There’s a biological desire to be with my children and to be a mother. But there’s also a need to work — and I want to work. I love to play music. Even today in rehearsal we were playing [Richard Strauss’s] “Ein Heldenleben” with Klaus, and I was reminded again that this is what I love to do.

I hope my boys see me doing something that I love and that it enhances their lives, not takes away from it.

New York, Day 4 of tour

Ronan has a fever. I just took him in the shower with me to get some steam going because our doctor said that might help with the mucus.

Now I’m checking his temperature. It’s 101.4.

We have a babysitter coming tonight, so I have to think about measuring out dosages of Tylenol or Motrin. I'm a little nervous because he hasn't taken a bottle on this tour yet, so I don't know if he's gonna take a bottle from this babysitter. I’m going to nurse him before we leave. I left some [frozen] milk in the fridge that I brought from Chicago.

This is the reality of motherhood.

Bethesda, Day 5 of tour

We got to Bethesda about an hour ago. I just had a really long hot shower.

Every time I’ve tried to get ready with Ronan in the room it’s been extremely difficult because he only wants me and he doesn’t just want to see me — he wants me to hold him.

People keep coming up to me saying he seems so good-natured, which makes me feel good. He does fuss a little on the buses sometimes, and I feel more stressed because it’s a coach bus full of my colleagues. You worry that people might be annoyed that you brought your baby.

The culture in the orchestra has definitely shifted, though. A lot of people bring their kids on tour now. There’s even another little girl on this tour whose parents are both in the orchestra. It makes the orchestra feel like a more welcoming place to work.

Boston, Day 7 of tour

Jennifer and I are at a shopping mall getting lunch in Boston. Ronan is waving at everybody who works here and charming everyone around him although he still has this nasty cough that’s worrying me.

I had been thinking about what it would be like to bring both boys on the tour next year, but I don’t think I can manage that. He’s such a sweet baby, but it’s hard having him. I can’t just sleep during the night. You can’t control when your kid gets sick, and they always do this time of year.

Playing the flute, I don’t have anyone to fill in for me. I can’t really call in sick, even at home. In almost 10 years with the orchestra, I’ve called in sick three times: once for COVID, once for the flu and once when I was having a miscarriage two hours before a concert. So it doesn’t really feel like an option.

I know [the next tour] is almost a year away, but it’s in my nature to think about these things, and I’m already feeling sad that that might have to be the end of our breastfeeding journey if Ronan doesn’t decide he’s done before then.

Chicago, home

I’m home and I have about 800 things to do. Groceries, laundry, unpacking, practicing [for the works for our next performance]. But first I’m lying down for 20 minutes while Ronan naps. Our amazing nanny left food for us in the fridge before we got home. I feel very lucky. I really have a great village. Tour is officially over, and now I’m back to regular mom life, thinking about what’s for dinner.