In Sunday’s (9/4) New York Times Michael Cooper reports from the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, which this year is “showcasing female conductors,” with 11 women invited to conduct this summer. Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Music Director Marin Alsop led a conducting masterclass for women at the festival. “Women are more likely to be found these days leading the biggest industrialized democracies, or serving as four-star officers in the United States military, than working as the music directors of major orchestras.… But there are growing signs that the glass ceiling is finally beginning to crack.…The esteemed Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki … will begin her tenure as chief conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in September. She will also become the fourth woman to conduct at the Metropolitan Opera in December and take the title principal guest conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2017…. The fast-rising Lithuanian conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla” is music director of England’s City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and associate conductor at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Included are excerpts of interviews with Alsop, Malkki, Grazinyte-Tyla, and Barbara Hannigan, a soprano who is increasingly moving into conducting.
Posted September 6, 2016
Pictured: Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla at the 2016 Lucerne Festival in Switzerland. Photo by Peter Fischli / Lucerne Festival
