Newspaper Article

Handing over the baton? Women-only course aims to strike a note of equality: Conducting lessons aimed at challenging sexism: Classes prompted by Last Night of the Proms furore

Walker, Peter

2014

Overview

Although New York-born [Marin Alsop] won high praise for the event, beforehand the head of the Paris Conservatoire, Bruno Mantovani, pondered whether conducting was too \"physically demanding\" for most women. More eyebrow-raising still was the view of Vasily Petrenko, principal conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, who ventured that \"a cute girl on a podium means that musicians think about other things\". \"If I'd known then how little would change in 20 years I would have been surprised, and it does make me rather sad,\" [Alice Farnham] said. \"I was also surprised at myself for having been a little bit complacent about it, and thinking that's just the way it is, maybe conducting is just something not many women want to do.\" \"We thought: how can we challenge these ideas?\" said Andrea Brown, Morley's director of music. \"It's about celebrating role models and equal opportunities, but it's also about putting that initial germ of an idea into a girl's mind, that this could be for me. We wanted to give them a safe place to have a go. There's no sense they have to achieve anything in particular. It's a bit of an experiment to see how they respond, and if conducting is something they might consider.\"

• Publisher: Guardian News & Media Limited
• Subject: Alsop, Marin / Farnham, Alice