Last week, The Guardian published an editorial complaining that very few of the conductors at the BBC Proms so far this season are women.
Nor is it just the Proms. London has five permanent symphony orchestras, all full of female players. Yet of the 20 conducting posts at these orchestras, just one is held by a woman – and the temporary post held by the London Symphony’s assistant conductor Elim Chan ends this season. It wouldn’t be acceptable in other professions. It isn’t acceptable here either.
One of the very first commenters complained that the editorial presents no solutions. If we agree that this is a problem in England, then it’s also a problem in America. Can a solution for British orchestras also work for American orchestras? Maybe.
There is some similarity to the problem of too few women judges. Before you can have women judges, you need women lawyers. Of course that’s simplistic, since with judges you also have to deal with the problem of politics.
Petula Dvorak writing for the Washington Post gives the example of Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Virginia), who chose Justice Jane Marum Roush to temporarily fill a vacancy on the state’s Supreme Court last year.
The Republicans in the House of Delegates refused to make Roush’s appointment permanent, without even feeling the need to give a half-baked excuse, like the Republicans at the federal level with President Obama’s nominee.
After considering two other judges, both men, both declining (one tacitly, the other explicitly), they settled earlier this year on Stephen R. McCullough after a 20-minute interview (the columnist makes sure to emphasize the duration).
Dvorak gets an explanation from former Tennessee State Supreme Court Justice Penny J. White, who now teaches law: it’s because judges are chosen in backroom deals, and it’s mostly men there.
If it’s also backroom deals deciding conductors of orchestras, then it’s also simplistic to say that it’s a simple matter of getting more women to play in orchestras and more women to write music for orchestra. There already are lots of women in American orchestras, and lots of women composers.
As a matter of fact, a lot of women composers seem to be married to conductors, e.g., Cindy McTee and Detroit Symphony conductor Leonard Slatkin, Elisabetta Brusa and Gilberto Serembe in Italy. I can’t picture Igor Stravinsky telling a young woman composer to go into conducting, like he advised Harold Shapero.
Well, I guess that like The Guardian, I don’t have the answer either. I do have one suggestion: vote with your wallets. Simone Young is working on an excellent cycle of Bruckner Symphonies with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg. See for example Blair Sanderson’s 5-star review of her recording of Bruckner’s Sixth:
Simone Young's recordings of the symphonies of Anton Bruckner on Oehms Classics are valued for her use of original versions, as well as for their exceptional super audio sound, so they have attracted considerable attention from collectors. ... The Sixth is one of his most enigmatic and challenging symphonies, paving the way for the late masterpieces. Young and the Hamburg Philharmonic deliver an impassioned and visionary performance that compels the listener to explore the piece in one sitting, and the experience is highly rewarding.
By the way, yesterday would have been Anton Bruckner’s 192nd birthday. This was originally posted on Daily Kos yesterday.
