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Pioneers of the Podium
By ANITA MERCIER
Gone are the days when it was rare to see a woman lead a symphony orchestra. The maestra has arrived, and the success of women like JoAnn Falletta, Gisele Ben-Dor, Simone Young, Anne Manson, Marin Alsop, Diane Pope, Tania León, and Odaline Martinez—to name just a few—proves it. But while the ascent of women conductors in recent years is dramatic, it is not without precedent. Women conductors have a history that stretches back to the early days of the 20th century, when they were a thriving presence at the podium.
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The rise and fall—and rise again—of women conductors.
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The women's orchestras that flourished in Europe and North America early in the 20th century are an important part of the story. Despite the fact that conservatories were graduating female instrumentalists in record numbers, most professional orchestras refused to accept women in their ranks. The women's orchestras were a response to this exclusion. The first of these orchestras were formed in Berlin and Vienna in the late 19th century. The Los Angeles Woman's Orchestra, founded in 1893, was the oldest such organization in the U.S. There were roughly 30 women's orchestras in the U.S. between the 1920s and '40s, many with full complements of 80 players of more.A number of these ensembles were founded by aspiring women conductors. A particularly successful example was the Fadette Women's Orchestra of Boston, founded in 1888 by Caroline B. Nichols. Nichols, a violin student of Leopold Lichtenberg and Charles Loeffler, named the orchestra after the heroine of George Sand's novel La Petite Fadette. Nichols was an inventive and entrepreneurial programmer—the orchestra performed symphonies and overtures along with vaudeville skits—and the Fadettes enjoyed huge popularity in the U.S. and Canada under her leadership. In retirement, Nichols focused on training new orchestra members. When she died in 1939, it was said that she had trained more young women for professional, wage-earning orchestral jobs than any other individual. Other founder/conductors of all-women orchestras include Mabel Swint Ewer, Elizabeth Kuyper, Frédérique Petrides, Eva Anderson, Ruth Sandra Rothstein, Virginia Short, Fanny Arnsten-Hassler, Edith Gordon, Jeannette Scheerer, Marjorie Smith, Gwen Treasure, Margaret Horne, and Ethel Stark.
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| Women on the podium are no longer a rarity. Conductors in training today can look for inspiration to maestras like JoAnn Falletta and others on this page. (Photo by Jim Bush) |
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Opportunities for women to conduct all-male orchestras were rare, but not unheard of. One of the earliest examples is Marie Gruner, who was appointed conductor of Vienna's Ludwig Morelli Orchestra in the 1860s. Gruner is said to be the inspiration behind Joseph Strauss's polka Die Emanzipierte (Op. 282). The composer Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) conducted British orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Queens Hall Orchestra, in performances of her own music after World War I.Like Smyth, Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) began her conducting career with concerts featuring her own compositions; but she was able to take the further step of conducting the music of male composers as well. Boulanger made her conducting debut in Paris in 1912 at a concert of the Société des Matinées Musicales. In 1936 she became the first woman to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Boulanger was an early champion of Stravinsky, and she conducted the first performance of his Dumbarton Oaks Concerto in Washington in 1938. While living in the U.S. during World War II, Boulanger became the first woman to conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
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| Gisele Ben-Dor (Photo by David Bazemore) |
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Ethel Leginska (1886-1970) was a virtuosa pianist when she turned to the study of conducting in the early 1920s. After training with Eugene Goosens in London and Robert Heger in Munich, Leginska served as guest conductor for major orchestras in Munich, Paris, London, and Berlin. On January 9, 1925, Leginska became the first woman to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, in a concert with the New York Symphony at Carnegie Hall. The following year Leginska formed her own ensemble, the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, which consisted of 90 men. When the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra succumbed to financial problems after only one year, Leginska moved on to lead the Boston Women's Symphony and the Woman's Symphony of Chicago. She continued to serve as guest conductor with several all-male orchestras, including the London Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, and the Havana Philharmonic. In the late 1920s and early '30s she conducted operas in Boston and New York, and in 1932 she founded her own women's orchestra, the Women's Symphony (sometimes called National Women's Symphony) in New York. Aside from her skilled musicianship, Leginska was known for her acerbic outspokenness. She scoffed at the idea that certain activities were not "proper" for young girls. "Men have never been put off with such an unreasonable reason—they wouldn't stand for it … We will never be original, do great work, until we get some courage and daring, and trust our own way instead of the eternal beaten paths on which we are always asked to poke along."
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| Marin Alsop (Photo by Grant Leighton) |
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Leginska's slightly younger contemporary, Antonia Brico (1902-1989), followed a similar career path in the 1920s and '30s. As an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley, Brico studied with the conductor Paul Steindorf and won a scholarship to attend master classes with Sigismund Stojowski. She also took conducting classes at Bayreuth with Karl Muck. At Muck's suggestion, Brico enrolled in the Master School of Conducting at the Berlin Academy of Music, studying under Julius Prüwer. She became the first American of either sex to graduate from the Master School of Conducting. For her graduation concert in 1930, Brico conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in a program that included a Handel concerto grosso, Gluck-Mottl's Ballet Suite No. 1, two songs by Beethoven, and a Dvorak symphony. After graduation she served as guest conductor for major orchestras in San Francisco, Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and London. During the Great Depression she worked with several government-funded orchestras formed to aid unemployed musicians and founded the New York Women's Symphony in 1935. Despite regular guest appearances with major orchestras in North America and Europe, Brico never secured a permanent post with an organization equal to her abilities and training. She was a contender for the permanent conductorship of the Denver Symphony in the early 1940s, but was passed over after a divisive, hotly contested audition process. In the 1950s and '60s most of her conducting work focused on the amateur Denver Businessman's Orchestra (which, despite its name, was a mixed-gender group).After stellar beginnings, both Leginska and Brico sank into relative obscurity in the last decades of their lives. From 1940 until her death in 1970, Leginska taught piano privately in Los Angeles and only conducted when she hired temporary groups to provide her students with the experience of playing concertos with an orchestra. Brico also taught piano in Denver, in lieu of the conducting engagements that she craved. She did enjoy a bit of a renaissance when the folk singer Judy Collins, who had studied piano with her, produced a documentary about her life in 1974—but by then, it was too late to make up for lost time.
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| Anne Manson (Photo by Nick White) |
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The careers of Leginska and Brico illustrate a trend that defined the fate of virtually all women conductors of their era: opportunities that proliferated in the 1920s and '30s began to recede in the 1940s, and almost completely disappeared in the 1950s. After World War I, the future had looked promising. Although women conductors still hadn't gained full acceptance, significant inroads were being made. Audiences and musicians alike were growing accustomed to seeing women at the podium. But the World War II era turned back the clock.When male musicians were called away to war, major symphony orchestras that had refused to hire women in the past were desperate to fill the empty chairs. For decades, the women's orchestras had been training top-notch performers who knew they could hold their own alongside men, if only they had a fair opportunity to prove themselves. When the door opened, they didn't hesitate to step through it. In this way, the military draft effected a milestone in music history: the gender integration of American symphony orchestras.Ironically, this step forward for female instrumentalists proved to be a setback for women conductors. With integration, the rationale for separate women's orchestras dissipated, and they began to disband. Women conductors had been gaining respect and visibility through the segregated orchestras for decades. A few, like Smyth, Boulanger, Leginska, and Brico, had broken through to all-male and mixed-gender groups. With the radical reduction in the number of the women's orchestras, there were far fewer opportunities for women conductors than in the past.If the momentum that was established in the 1920s and '30s had continued uninterrupted, it is likely that the conducting field would have been integrated far sooner. As it happened, the momentum was shattered by World War II, and it took about 40 years for it to rebuild. It wasn't until the 1980s that women again began to make their mark with the baton in significant numbers. This constituted the second wave in the history of women on the podium.The women conductors prominent today had to make their way without the benefit of direct instruction or mentoring from older, experienced women in their field. Marin Alsop remembers meeting Antonia Brico as a youngster and being impressed with her accomplishments. Odaline Martinez has said that she is greatly inspired by Ethel Smyth, in whom she finds qualities of fearlessness, energy, and self-confidence. But in practical terms, these are rather distant idols. The women of the second wave, like those of the first, were trained exclusively by men.Conductors in training today have the advantage of a more diverse range of expertise to draw upon. Given the physicality of conducting, veteran women may have specific advice to offer female students. Co Nguyen, a conducting student at Juilliard, took a step forward at a recent workshop with Alsop. "Other teachers had told me that I need to go for a big sound. But when Marin told me to go for a big sound—and showed me with her body how to get it—I suddenly understood. Nobody explained it like that to me before. The physical difference, the fact that she is a woman like me, definitely helped."Emerging conductors like Co are the third wave. They have the opportunity to train, compete, and prove themselves, and they can look to older women in the field as role models. Today women can step up to the podium with more support, self-confidence, and prospects for success than ever before in history. But there are still far fewer women than men choosing to make a career of conducting, and it remains a male-dominated field. The fourth wave will be one that achieves full parity with the men. At that point, perhaps we will be ready to discard the term "woman conductor."Anita Mercier has been a member of the liberal arts faculty since 1995. She wrote this article in honor of Women's History Month.
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