“For 75 years the Tanglewood Music Center (TMC) in Lenox has been hosting an intense, summer-long academy for about 150 rising, young instrumentalists, composers and conductors,” writes Andrea Shea on Friday (8/14) at Boston radio station WBUR. “This year marks another milestone for the school: For the first time in the TMC’s history, its two conducting fellows aren’t fellows…. The two maestros who’ve been studying, rehearsing and performing on the lush campus for the past eight weeks are Marzena Diakun and Ruth Reinhardt. ‘To me, personally, as a father of two daughters, I’m absolutely delighted,’ [Boston Symphony Orchestra Managing Director Mark] Volpe gushed.… Stephan Asbury … coordinates the TMC’s conducting program and helped select this year’s two fellows from a pool of 142 applicants…. ‘They had skills, they had authority, they had conviction about their music making, they had ability, they were convincing as conductors.’ … According to TMC director Ellen Highstein, ‘It’s not a political statement, it’s a musical statement,’ she said…. Highstein also says there are more young female conductors than ever before in the classical world, and she likes to think Tanglewood is doing its part to support them…. ‘It’s happening slowly, but it’s happening.’ ”
Posted August 18, 2015
