Classical Music — a bastion of batons, board rooms and behaviors — blocks women from the podium

 Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images

Lidiya Yankovskaya conducting the Refugee Orchestra Project at the First Unitarian Congregational Society, Brooklyn, June 20, 2016                       

Borrowing from the works of choreographer, Mark Morris, classical music is a ‘hard nut to crack’ — the world of conductors seemingly the toughest. Some twenty years ago, as a master’s graduate of conducting,  I was advised by a San Francisco conductor to look elsewhere for opportunity. This was not a sexist attitude, but of reality — of opportunity for all —  regardless of gender. Gigs were limited. What he didn’t say, this article does say and with great clarity.

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