Tuesday (2/5) on the WQXR Blog, Brian Wise writes, “Among the headline events for the 2013-14 season of Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series, announced on Tuesday, is an appearance by the French conductor Emmanuelle Haïm and her period ensemble Le Concert d’Astrée. … Haïm is one of just two women conductors scheduled to appear on New York’s major concert series next season. With most of the city’s large concert halls and orchestras having announced their next seasons, only one other woman orchestra conductor is currently booked for the year: Susanna Mälkki, from Finland, who will lead a single program by Ensemble ACJW at Carnegie Hall on May 10, 2014. … The League of American Orchestras, a service organization, reports that 20 percent of its member conductors are female. The majority of them work for smaller-budget and youth orchestras, however, and that number includes assistant and substitute conductors. … Evidence suggests that slowly more young women are entering the field. Fifty-four out of the 400 applicants for this year’s Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition in Germany were women. Three out of the 20 shortlisted candidates for the London Symphony Orchestra’s Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in September were women including Gemma New, 27, who is an assistant conductor at the New Jersey Symphony. … But the ranks of women thin out the higher you go in the business.” The article includes a poll in which readers can express their opinions concerning the progress of women conductors.
Posted February 7, 2013
