Female conductors

Ever since I've been regularly going to classical concerts (so for about 6/7 years now), I've counted the amount of female musicians in orchestras. I started doing this because I was kind of astonished by the lack of female musicians. Thankfully even in these past couple of years their numbers have been increasing and there seem to be more and more equality within orchestras (though still a definite lack of female concertmasters, even though the majority of violinists often is female.. weird, huh?). Of course there's still some exceptions (like the Vienna Philharmonic) but you'll always have some rotten apples somewhere, right? (What has pissed me off rather a lot though is that next season's Meesterpianisten (Masterpianists) series in the Concertgebouw includes 12 pianists and not a single one of them is female. One would think that this means there are no female masterpianists which is just simply not true and I find the programming rather offensive and very chauvinistic). One of the things that it's been difficult not to notice, however, is that there are hardly any female conductors at all.

This website has shown that there definitely are female conductors around, but for some reason I hadn't seen any until last friday when I was lucky enough to see Xian Zhang (the first woman EVER to be named musical director at an Italian symphony orchestra... seriously, first woman ever, in 2009) conduct the Residentieorkest in a program of Tchaikovksy and Rachmaninov. She was excellent. Really, really excellent, energetic, in control, enthusiastic, everything I want a conductor to be. She obviously had a great connection with the orchestra and seemed to really enjoy it. Like most other conductors I've seen and liked.

I can't help but think that because being a conductor is about being in control and being the boss, that a lot of people (male and female alike) will still find this job rather unsuitable for women and I wouldn't be surprised at all if female students get discouraged by this. This is of course just my own theory and I haven't studied the classical music world that well, but it's a well-known fact that even 10 years ago there was still a lot of blatent sexism going around. And besides, how many female conductors or even composers do you know? Yeah, exactly. And don't tell me that they're probably not "good enough", we all know that's rubbish. You can read an interesting article on female conductors here, even though it's from 2008, it still rings true.

Anyway, this post isn't just to complain, instead, I want to celebrate female composers. Therefore let me present you with a bunch of badass women conducting music.

Musicians in Camera

And now for something completely different. A little while ago I bought an awesome book called "Musicians in Camera", with photographs by Laelia Goehr, text by John Amis and a foreword by Yehudi Menuhin. It has lots of beautiful dark black and white photos of famous classical musicians (the book's from 1987, so it's not the current generation of musicians). But these aren't just any ol' pictures, some are absolutely hilarious and some are really moving, I love that the musicians look so human. A selection of my favourites (sorry about the crappy quality, I had to take pictures of them with my phone):

Igor Stravinsky

Sir Colin Davis

Claudio Abbado

David Oistrakh

Sir Michael Tippett

Musicians: Sergey Khachatryan

Sometimes musicians make a lot of noise while playing music. You have quite a few conductors that sort of grunt (like Jaap van Zweden and Semyon Bychkov) and musicians that seem to involuntarily make some sort of noise (Pieter Wispelwey is the first that comes to mind). Last night I went to De Doelen in Rotterdam to see the always amazing Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra play works by Stravinsky (Petrushka), Shostakovich (First Violin Concerto) and R. Strauss (Till Eulenspiegel). The Shostakovich work was played by Sergey Khachatryan. And Khachatryan sniffed quite a lot, rather loudly. You would think that these kind of sounds are irritating, and sometimes they are, but this time it seemed so incredibly unimportant after a few minutes. Because I have never seen or heard anyone play as beautifully as Khachatryan, even though he's only 25 years old.

Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto is already an intense and moving piece, after Bartók's Second Violin Concerto it's probably my favourite in the genre, it has everything, from rhythmical, catchy bits, to sounds that make you want to cry your eyes out. The DSCH motif also makes it's appearance in the second movement, which always makes me happy. The problem for me is that when I love a work, like this violin concerto, I will listen to it over and over again and know every single note. So when you go see a live performance, there's a definite possibility of being dissapointed, because I have a certain version in my head. Fortunately, I've not often been dissapointed, and sometimes I've even been completely blown away because a performer or orchestra plays the work even better than what I thought it should be like. And this was certainly the case yesterday.

Sergey Khachatryan (b. 1985) is an Armenian violinist and when he was 15 he actually won first prize at the International Sibelius Violin Competition, being the youngest prize winner ever. There's always a lot of young violinists about that can play everything perfectly, but I think it's quite rare for someone so young to be able to put so much emotion and idiosyncracy into playing. Not only can he play the loud and fast bits with conviction, there is also such nuance and beauty when he plays slower movements. Fortunately for me and you, there are two videos on youtube of him playing Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto. Enjoy:

Conductors: Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Ever since I've been regularely going to classical concerts I've wanted to play in an orchestra. Preferably something loud, like the timpani or double bass but most of all, I quite fancy being a conductor. Unfortunately the only musical talent I have is that of listening, so this is obviously not going to happen, but a girl can dream, right? When I was younger I never really understood what conductors did apart from standing in front of the orchestra with a stick and that they sometimes jumped (I saw quite a bit of Chailly and I remember his jumping so well because his hair was funny and floppy). But now I'm obviously aware of the fact that conductors do a lot more. And I figured that their role is important enough to dedicate a post to a conductor every once in a while. This first one is going to be about one of my two favourite conductors in the world: Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

I first saw Yannick a few years ago in Rotterdam, and even though I don't remember what music he conducted (probably something Russian), I do remember how much I loved him. Because the energy that he has in his body when conducting corresponds precisely to the energy I feel when listening to the pieces. He moves somewhat like a ballet dancer on acid but it's never over-the-top or innapropriate. You can see how much emotion he feels and how much emotion he can get out of the orchestra, and most importantly, you can hear it. I think this is probably the most important reason why I love him so much, there is something incredibly emotional about his conducting. There's a video on youtube of him conducting the ending of Mahler's 9th and he's actually crying. But it's not just the sad moments you can tell he feels so poignantly, when music gets spastic or catchy or happy he's dancing and jumping and smiling (his facial expressions are so hilarious sometimes). And like I said, it seems to me that the emotions aroused in him by the music are ones I can always relate to (and this is confirmed by what he says about music in interviews, I can really relate to how he understands and feels music).

Now, the fact that he's adorably hobbit-like and seems really lovely in all the interviews I've seen of him kind of helps, because at least he doesn't look like Gergiev when conducting (seriously think Gergiev wants to kill the orchestra every single time, he's menacing!). For me personally it also helps that he's a young conductor (he's 35), similarly to how I enjoy watching young people in the orchestra, I just already feel so alienated by the average age of the audience that it makes me feel all the more comfortable when someone on stage is under 40.

Some of these reasons may appear to be shallow to some, but I don't really mind that. I guess this kind of reflects how I'm not the most serious person (maybe it's an age-thing). Like I said in my first post here, I find a lot of writings about classical music too serious, I find the way some people talk about classical music too serious. It's not that I don't love the music in the most serious way imaginable, I do (ask anyone who knows me), but when I go to a concert I also just want to enjoy myself. I like being able to giggle at the grunts of a conductor (like Jaap van Zweden, he grunts like an ork!) and smiling when you see a soloist really get into a piece. In a certain way, seeing classical music live is also seeing a performance, not just hearing the music. And for me, Yannick is an exceptional performer as well as an exceptional musician. He makes going to a concert more fullfilling both because it's more fun and because the music is even more beautiful. And I am apparently not the only one who thinks this, as is evidenced by his job titles, Principal Conductor with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Orchestre Métropolitain in Montréal, and of course that's not all because he travels all over the place, conducting Mahler and operas and lots of other pieces. One of my biggest dreams is to one day see him conduct Shostakovich's The Execution of Stepan Razin even though it'll probably never happen.

Now of course it is time for some videos.


In 2007, conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.


Yannick conducting Tchaikovksy's Nutcracker, recorded on december 23rd 2010.


Here he is walking around Rotterdam, talking about the city and sounds.

If you're more interested in him, there's also a really inspiring interview that you can view here (the website is in dutch, but if you just click on the large(r) video on the left the interview starts, and it's in English). And of course, go see him conduct when you have the chance!