The musical world includes many different facets: one of those being conducting. It is a fairly new example of the conducting world, as it came into existence in the early twentieth century with the famous composer-conductor that started with Wagner. Leaders of ensembles existed before this, but the idea of someone with a baton leading the group silently through the music started with Berlioz, who started what became the modern tradition of the conductor. People like Bernstein drew this idea of a conductor who is flamboyant and handsome.[i] All of these ideas of who a conductor should be describe men and not women. Beliefs exist that women are not independent enough to lead a full ensemble.[ii]
Women have been struggling to break into the music world since before the Renaissance. Recently women have been accepted as performers in many facets: including but not exclusive to operas, orchestras, and choirs. Conducting is the last area of the music world women are still struggling to break into. They are making some headway in choral conducting, but orchestral conducting is still hard for women to be taken seriously. Margaret Hillis, a famous woman conductor, started off getting a degree in composition at Indiana University. She wanted to get a degree in conducting, but her professor told her a woman has no place in conducting. After seeing her conduct a choral concert, he said “You are a conductor, but there is no place for a woman in orchestral conducting.”[iii]
Women were already thought of as being inferior to men, and trying to lead a group of men was unbecoming of a woman. The social status of women created this ideal in men and women alike. A famous pianist Amy Fay wrote about a concert she saw in Germany in which a female, Alicia Hund, conducted a symphony she composed. “All the men were highly disgusted because she was allowed to conduct the orchestra herself. I didn’t think myself that it was a very becoming position, though I had no prejudice against it. Somehow, a woman doesn’t look well with a baton in her hand directing a body of men.”[iv] This happened in the last nineteenth century, and women still struggle with this image. Margaret Harris blames this on the “daddy’s little girl” syndrome. People see women as daddy’s little girl which portrays a lack of strength and independence, two very important qualities in a conductor.[v] Mary Brown Hinely has defined the image people need to have if they want to be conductors. “A conductor needs to be a commanding personality as well as impeccable musicianship to hold the attention and respect of an orchestra.”[vi] The traditional idea of “feminine” is not aggressive or assertive, soft, and non-threatening. This is the exact opposite of the idea of someone who needs the authority of a large symphonic orchestra, which most of the women talked about have dreamed to be someday, and have succeeded.
Women find a way around this by creating their own ensembles. JoAnn Falletta is one woman who has made this option possible for women. Falletta has directed the Bay Area Women’s Philharmonic in San Francisco since 1986. This is a group created by two women devoted to playing music written by women.[vii] It is groups like this that help women create names for themselves in the musical world in all capacities: performers, instrumentalists, composers, and conductors. Women can either create their own ensembles or go abroad where positions as conductors are more readily available. Ethel Leginska, the first woman to conduct in Carnegie Hall, has conducted the Paris Conservatory Orchestra, the London Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Munich Konzertverein. Antonia Brico, another famous woman composer has conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, as well as other orchestras in Germany, Poland, and other Eurpoean countries.[viii]
As time goes on, women continue to break barriers and create careers for themselves in conducting. Beatrice Brown is the first woman to sign a contract with an orchestra. All of these women discussed in this essay have created an environment where women are becoming more and more accepted as conductors. Marin Alsop has recently accepted the role as the conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony in England. Prejudices still exist in some cases, but are becoming fewer and fewer as time goes on, and more and more women take on conducting roles. Margaret Hillis, mentioned earlier in this essay, has definitely noticed a difference in the acceptance of women since her professor told her she had no business in the conducting world in the 1940s. JoAnn Falletta, also mentioned earlier in this essay, hopes that the role of gender will one day dissipate completely from societal roles of conducting. Shelley M. Jagow says it perfectly when she says, “conducting is an extremely competitive and difficult field for either gender to cussed in, and it is imperative that society begin to recognize, value, and support talented women conductors in a profession still harboring discrimination and the burden of tradition.”[ix] People need to stop looking at women as inferior to men and start equating the talent women bring to conducting to that of men. We as a society need to realize how different women and men are, and value the differences women bring to the table in every facet of music, including the world of conducting.
[iv] Shelley M. Jagow, "Women Orchestral Conductors in America: The struggle
for Acceptance--An Historical View from the nineteenth Century to the Present,"
College Music Symposium: Journal of the College Music Society 38 (1998): 131.
[v] Kay D. Lawson, "A Woman's Place Is at the Podium," Music Educators
Journal 70, no. 9 (May 1984): 47, accessed January 3, 2011,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3400741.
[vi] Maty Brown Hinely, "The Uphill Climb of Women in American Music:
Conductors and Composers," Music Educators Journal 70, no. 9 (May 1984): 43, accessed January 3, 2011, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3400740.
[vii] Kay Lawson, "Women Conductors: Credibility in a Male-Dominated
Profession," in The Musical Woman: An International Perspective, ed. Judith Lang
Zaimont (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1991), 3:204.
[viii] Shelley M. Jagow, "Women Orchestral Conductors in America: The struggle
for Acceptance--An Historical View from the nineteenth Century to the Present,"
College Music Symposium: Journal of the College Music Society 38 (1998): 133.
[ix] Shelley M. Jagow, "Women Orchestral Conductors in America: The struggle
for Acceptance--An Historical View from the nineteenth Century to the Present,"
College Music Symposium: Journal of the College Music Society 38 (1998): 140.
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