Women conductors - why so few?

Anna Hodgson

If you are not a despot, sexually voracious, power-obsessed, long-lived and as fit as a marathon runner, don't bother to apply. The job? Conductor of a symphony orchestra. At least that is the myth we are asked to believe and according to Norman Lebrecht in The Maestro Myth the myth that the audiences, the orchestras and the music business have created. In order to bring music to the mass market a god-like intermediary is required.

It is hardly surprising that women conductors have had little success in overcoming this last bastion of male supremacy. In an age where almost any product can be marketed and women soloists, instrumentalists and singers are being promoted with all the hype previously reserved for pop stars, there has been a singular failure to market this particular product.

It's not that there aren't any women conductors of note. In April 1998 Andrea Quinn was appointed Music Director of the Royal Ballet. Anne Manson has recently been appointed the new music director of the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra for the 1999 season, Sian Edwards reigned briefly as Music Director of the English National Opera and Jane Glover and Odaline de la Martinez both have international careers and have conducted at the Proms. But none of the large self-governing British orchestras has a woman in the top job.

According to Janna Hymes-Bianchi, the newly appointed associate conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the problem is not with the audiences or even the orchestras themselves but with the boards and committees who appoint the musical directors. 'In my experience,' she says, 'it is the upper administrations and board members who feel it is risky and possibly dangerous to hire women music directors.'

Women conductors are not a recent development. As early as the 1860s the Viennese violinist Marie Gruner was appointed conductor of Vienna's Ludwig Morelli Orchestra, a triumph that seems to have inspired Joseph Strauss to write the Polka, Die Emanzipierte (op 282). A century later, in 1960, to give but one example, Veronika Dudarova was appointed chief conductor of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. She has had a distinguished career mainly in Eastern Europe. She says she has a 'preference for large-scale works with complex philosophical content'. Western audiences will now have a welcome opportunity to hear her sensitive conducting in a new two-CD set of Tchaikovsky Overtures and Fantasies (Olympia OCD 512 A+B).

Odaline de la Martinez, the first woman to conduct at the Proms and founder of the Lontano Chamber Orchestra and the European Women's Orchestra, also believes that sexual discrimination exists at management level even though women conductors are often reluctant to admit it because to admit discrimination is perceived as failure.

What is it these boards fear? Odaline feels it is to do with an often subconscious belief that women 'look funny' on the podium and more importantly cannot exercise the necessary control. They are concerned that orchestras 'may grow wild or misbehave."When you are up against that sort of prejudice,' she says, 'what chance have you got?'

There is little justification for these fears. There is no doubt orchestras can be guilty of bolshie behaviour. It takes a mere ten minutes in the first rehearsal, it is commonly said, for an experienced orchestra to decide what they think of a new conductor. If this is the case it seems acceptance is based on personality, talent and 'chemistry.' The gender of the conductor is not going to make much difference. When Sian Edwards was appointed Musical Director of the English National Opera any difficulties she personally encountered with the orchestra were more to do with her youth and inexperience in dealing with players rather than with sexual discrimination. Where she expected to find resistance from the older male players, she often found support.

If there is a problem with orchestras it is more one of expectation. Conductors have for so long been promoted as imposing, larger than life, acceptably aggressive personalities who bend orchestras to their will and to whom musicians submit in reverence and terror. Lebrecht recounts an occasion when Toscanini was rehearsing the Palestine Symphony Orchestra for its inaugural concerts. At the first two rehearsals he praised their playing warmly. But at the third he hit the roof. The players were overjoyed. At last Toscanini was treating them like a real orchestra. Yet the spectacle of a woman ranting and raving invites only antagonism and ridicule.

There is no question that a conductor's role is one of leadership if not one of tyranny and it is here women seem to come unstuck. 'You do have to lead, it's how you go about it,' says Rachel Young, a student at Laurence Leonard's conducting class at Morley College in South London. 'Males tend to dominate. It seems that you have to become a token male or you appear to lack the leadership capacity that is expected of you. But it's stupid to imitate a male, to become a token male. Because when women behave as men, they are read differently, with more resentment.' Women conductors it seems are torn between two stools. They can't play a role and they can't be themselves.

Few people seriously believe women 'look funny' when conducting but appearance is a problem for a different reason. Women in the limelight are expected to possess glamour as well as ability. Sexiness is a selling point but too much and their seriousness of purpose and even ability will come into question. So women conductors have the choice of looking like fairies on a Christmas Tree in 'glamorous' evening gowns or donning clothes that make them look like men.

When women conductors wear jackets and trousers, the reason is usually pragmatic. Heels are unstable, cleavages and rising hems distracting and travelling with a wardrobe of dresses is impractical. 'If you had a collection of designer dresses,' says Odaline de la Martinez, 'critics would be more interested in your outfit than your performance. 'Male conductors have no such dilemma. They have to wear the traditional tails. Their glamour lies in extravagant hairstyles, expensive jewelry and five o'clock shadows.

In the music business you don't get anywhere without patronage. Because the music world has historically been dominated by men, women haven't had the same opportunities to work the system. Success often depends on patronage and contacts. Sian Edwards' operatic debut came in 1986 when Simon Rattle dropped out of conducting Scottish Opera's production of Kurt Weill's Mahagonny and recommended her to take his place. Michael Tippett and Bernard Haitink both took her under their wing.

'You have to find a patron who is convinced of your talent to be willing to promote you. But it is almost impossible for women to establish those links and patronage with experienced conductors' says Adrienne Martin, another student at Morley College.

So what can women conductors do? Many form their own chamber orchestras as Odaline de la Martinez with Lontano and the European Women's Chamber Orchestra and Wasfi Kani with Pimlico Opera have done. But this may restrict their musical activities and so further limit their opportunities of working with larger orchestras.

Association with women dominated organizations can sometimes provoke strong reactions, often in quarters least expected. When Odaline was asked by the Cardiff Music Festival to organize a festival celebrating women, which included works by both men and women, she was astonished at the public reaction.

'It was perceived as an anti-male gesture by many women. It seems that a lot of women believe that by being pro-something you are being anti-something else. You can have male organizations, male orchestras but they are never perceived as exclusive,' she says. 'But if you have an organization that celebrates women or likes to include an equal amount of women and men, it is perceived as a separatist organization.

In a recent study carried out by style guru Peter York, the most successful chief female executives in Britain were found to be a cheerful, motherly bunch of women. There was a noticeable lack of bullying types. It seems as a woman you can get to the top without being a tyrant. If this is the case, surely it is time for the image makers to begin to remould the myth. If there is a 'dearth of fresh talent' as Lebrecht claims and 'not enough good conductors to go around,' as Simon Rattle is reported saying, perhaps orchestral boards and music managers should look a little further and at least give women a chance.

Anna Hodgson is a freelance writer who covers a wide range of topics from music, theatre and psychology to brewing and crafts.

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