“Women conductors appear to be somewhat ‘in vogue’ with a raft of recent and high-profile appointments,” writes Australian conductor Carolyn Watson in Wednesday’s (11/1) Limelight magazine (Australia). Watson, one of six participants in this month’s Linda and Mitch Hart Institute for Women Conductors at the Dallas Opera, cites “Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla as Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Xian Zhang as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, Susanna Mälkki as Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic … alongside increased media coverage, awareness and debate…. The statistics on the number of women conductors … paint an indisputable picture. In 2016 the League of American Orchestras reported the gender distribution of music directors was 91% male and 9% female. Female conductors are not a new phenomenon…. Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) … was the first woman to conduct a number of ensembles, among them the BBC Symphony, Boston Symphony, Hallé Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra…. While the Dallas program is still in its infancy, the signals are certainly encouraging, with the numbers of applicants increasing with each successive class [and] funding secured to host the Institute for the next 20 years.”
Posted November 3, 2017
