In 2012, I wrote an article for The Independent saying that the world of classical music was sexist and misogynistic up to its back teeth. First, the response was spluttering outrage; next, a deluge of action. Or so it seemed. A decade on, I’m asking whether anything has changed. This is the first of two articles. Next time I’ll look at composers. First, in the wake of the film Tár, it is conductors. Specifically, female conductors.
These two fields are perhaps the areas where the gender imbalance is most visible. Sometimes my interviewees ask me why we are even talking about such things: surely everybody should be considered for their artistry, not gender, racial identity or any other extra-musical issue? Of course, that would be the ideal…
What percent of conductors are female?
In 2023, just 11.2 per cent of conductors represented by artist managements were female. The figure had more than doubled since 2017, when it was 5.5 per cent. Yes, it’s better, but the number is still pitiful. A great deal more work is needed to make a meaningful impact.
When Marin Alsop became the first woman ever to conduct the Last Night of the Proms, she spoke of her ‘shock’ that there ‘can still be firsts for women in 2013’. It was a symbolic breakthrough. Tár – a film depicting a female conductor’s abuse of power – has done the cause few favours, but at least it assumed the likelihood that a woman could become chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. That plotline was only possible because under the podium the tectonic plates are shifting, if slowly.
Women are more likely to lead a G7 nation than a major American orchestra
In 2002, with financial support from Tomio Taki, Alsop started the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship (TACF) to mentor female conductors. Its website notes that fewer than ten per cent of the world’s conductors are female: ‘In 2002, it was more likely that a woman could become the leader of a G7 nation or a four-star officer in the US military than become the conductor of a major American orchestra. In 2023, these odds have not changed.’
The TACF offers two years of intensive coaching and mentoring with Alsop and others, plus financial honorariums. Among its alumnae are Karina Canellakis, Valentina Peleggi, Alondra de la Parra, Mei-Ann Chen, Lidiya Yankovskaya and Chloé van Soeterstède.
Alsop is chief conductor at the Ravinia Festival. Here, in 2022, she inaugurated Breaking Barriers, a festival within a festival, focusing on the achievements of under-represented and diverse artists and leaders in music. Female conductors were spotlighted in 2022, composers in 2023. I caught up with her to ask how much progress has been made over the past decade.
#MeToo: moving things forward
‘Things were changing glacially. The #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements were the catalyst to move things forward substantively. Without that, I don’t think we would be any further on. Orchestras could have had women on the podium and performed the music of women composers 50 years ago, but usually they chose not to. And they chose not to until they couldn’t choose not to. That said, many orchestras took this opportunity to dramatically move forward.’
Conductors depend on opportunities to practise their craft – in short, they need orchestras – and here, too, signs are encouraging. ‘Every time we have applicants for the TACF, the level jumps hugely. That gives me hope that women are getting enough time on the podium to learn their skills.’
Mei-Ann Chen, who is chief conductor of the Grosses Orchester Graz in Austria among other posts, loved her time with TACF. ‘Marin has launched around 30 young female conductors into the profession, and that has created ripple effects.’ For her, TACF was both launch pad and support system. ‘It was wonderful to have that camaraderie and share wisdom, with Marin as the matriarch who has faced so many challenges and could advise us. That’s priceless. She had to try to break the barriers by herself.’
‘Marin is the matriarch who has faced so many challenges and can advise us. That’s priceless.’
Chen suggests that now the challenges are time – and the glass ceiling. ‘Yes, we have more women in the industry, and some men say we are locking arms, trying to keep this door open. But who knows? When the #MeToo movement is forgotten, there’s a risk that things will go backwards.
‘We’re racing with time – any social movement can be short. Orchestras planning several years ahead need to keep employing women conductors, not just for the social movement now, but for the quality they bring.’
Lidiya Yankovskaya is also a TACF alumna and a fast-rising star. Until recently, she was music director of the Chicago Opera Theatre, and her UK debut in 2023, conducting Górecki’s ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’ for English National Opera, made a strong impression. She doesn’t mince her words about the challenges she has faced. ‘There’s a misconception that we’ve changed things more than we have. That’s because we started in a place that was so bad.
‘There’s a misconception that we’ve changed things more than we have. That’s because we started in a place that was so bad.’
‘After I became a professional, some major conductors came out saying women shouldn’t be conductors. This wasn’t long ago, and it was multiple individuals in my life. Most people I was assisting or studying with were older men and they were very supportive. It was often people around my own age who were telling me that women shouldn’t conduct. I got hate mail. One audience member used a fake email address and sent me a poem about how I should be in the kitchen, making children.’
But she does have children – and attitudes she has encountered in the industry towards women with families beggar belief. ‘When I got the job at the Chicago Opera Theatre, five organisations of different sizes and profiles, including major ones, had been interviewing me. COT was the only place at which my interview process did not start with: “Do you have children? Are you planning to? How will that impact your career?” It’s not even legal in the US to ask that question in an interview!
‘A decade later, no one says to me directly that women can’t or shouldn’t conduct. Maybe they don’t dare. When audience members approach me and raise the subject, it’s usually because they’re happy that there’s a woman on the podium, not because they believe that women shouldn’t be there. That’s a huge change.’
What about the glass ceiling? Mei-Ann Chen points out that ‘orchestras will engage women as conductors, but it seems much harder for them to appoint a woman as an artistic leader. In America, after Baltimore, I’m waiting to see Marin take over a Big Five orchestra. It’s time! Who is going to be that brave one?’
Last summer, Alsop was appointed artistic director and principal conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra – in a country where women’s rights were deeply damaged under the former right-wing government. ‘I like the idea of effecting change from the inside,’ she says, with a smile.
‘In the UK, we’re laggards’
Europe is doing slightly better in regard to chief conductors, with Chen in Graz, Dalia Stasevska in Lahti, Zoi Tsokanou in Thessaloniki, and Joana Mallwitz recently named general music director of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki is now chief conductor emeritus of the Helsinki Philharmonic.
In the UK, we’re laggards. Several UK major professional orchestras have female principal guest conductors – the London Philharmonic has Canellakis, the BBC Symphony Orchestra has Stasevska and the Philharmonia has… Alsop. But only one currently has a female principal conductor: the BBC Concert Orchestra, with Anna-Maria Helsing.
Change has been more rapid at training level, without which nothing can develop in the profession. The Dallas Opera launched its Hart Institute for Women Conductors in 2015, since when more than 500 conductors from 40 countries have applied to take part. At the Royal Academy of Music, head of conducting Sian Edwards and Jane Glover have initiated a programme for female conductors hoping to undertake postgraduate courses. A Paris-based competition for women conductors, La Maestra, runs its third session in March 2024 and has an associated ‘academy’.
A vital change-maker
The conductor Alice Farnham has been a vital change-maker. She created courses to introduce female music students to conducting, in collaboration with Andrea Brown and Morley College; under the auspices of the Royal Philharmonic Society, this became RPS Women Conductors. Now they have a new scheme at advanced level with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, supported by the North Music Trust.
‘It’s a chance for these conductors to work in front of an orchestra without auditioning and it’s been hugely positive for the orchestra as well,’ Farnham says. She has just brought out a book, In Good Hands: The Making of a Modern Conductor. The issue of women in the profession is restricted to one chapter, headed ‘We Need to Talk about Breasts’.
‘Some things are looking up – but there’s still a long way to go’
‘The climate has changed a lot. Ten years ago, I felt I was invisible. That’s no longer the case. And now there are loads of women coming through.’ She terms it ‘a numbers game’; just as not every male conductor can be brilliant, neither can every female conductor, so the more that are trained, the more chance there is that the best will emerge.
So what happens next? It’s evident that women in music, and conductors in particular, are still viewed as a ‘minority’ concern. But women are not a minority. They are more than half the population. The purpose of these exercises is to reach the point where special schemes, courses, competitions, discussions and reports are no longer needed, because gender equality is a given. Some things are looking up – but there’s still a long way to go.
This article first appeared in the February 2024 issue of BBC Music Magazine