In Sunday’s (3/6) Toronto Star, Paul Hunter writes about 29-year-old conductor Gemma New, hired in May 2015 as “the newest music director of [Ontario’s] Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. In Canada, there are only four female music directors out of 46 professional orchestras, according to Orchestras Canada…. In the U.S., there is only one woman who holds the title of music director among the 24 highest-budget orchestras, reports the League of American Orchestras. That’s Marin Alsop at the Baltimore Symphony.” Gemma New is also associate conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. In high school, New “founded her own orchestra [and at 15] was asked to conduct for the first time…. At the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore … she founded [the] nine-piece Lunar Ensemble…. New is well aware of the gender gap for conductors…. ‘It’s very complex but from my personal experience, I think people have been incredibly supportive wherever I’ve been,’ she says.… While Carol Kehoe, executive director of the Hamilton Philharmonic, says she likes that New will bring a female perspective to the stage, that’s not why she was hired. ‘She’s a great musician and a great artist who is passionate about her work,’ she says.”
Posted March 8, 2016
