Has anybody wondered why there are few females in both composing and conducting. But plentyful in singing and instumental soloists...

Maybe any women on this forum would like to comment??.....

Wasn't part of this subject looked at fairly recently HERE.

In fact, there's been a lot of regurgitating old ground recently, eg favourite conductors etc.

The search facility here is good, and worth using. I quickly found the link above by typing in "women conductors".

It's pretty obvious why. It's a little word called sexism that most people think has been abolished (they are naive). Composers and Conductors are more in a place of power (They both control the performers), performers are not in power. Women singers are much easier than deknackering (sp?) a boy.

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It is because women weren't really able to compose back when our favorites were composing. Mozart was definitely better than his sister, regardless of her gender, so it seems only fair that we listen to his music. There probably were geniuses in Mozart's level who were female, but none had the opportunity he did. Today, most conductors seem to be male for several reasons. a) a lot of the ones we know are older, and therefore, in their time, had the gender biases at their advantage. and b) women generally, especially after 2nd wave feminism seem to be inclined to other professions, such as medicine.

A composer, and a good performer, be it singing, or playing, requires, usually, an early start. Unless someone is brought up to become a virtuoso, they will not be one. The same with conductors. The same with composers. That being said, there are some excellent female musicians, and female singers are just, if not more, popular than male ones. The problem really is that orchestras play canonical works, which were written in pre-feminist times, and therefore, are less inclusive, than modern music.

My Serenade for Strings was most recently performed with Elizabeth Askren conducting. Elizabeth is an up and coming conductor based in Paris, and will be Cover Conductor for John Nelson (Ensemble Orchestral de Paris) later this year.

I recently listened to The Best of Andreas Scholl and apart from Vivaldi's Nisi Dominus that I was after, it also contained a piece by Jocelyn Pook that I like a lot, called How Sweet the Moonlight. I especially liked the moment when the kind of melismatic singing turned into the same melody played on the strings.

Well, Simone Young became the first woman conductor to conduct the Vienna phil a few months back - probably first Australian also. We had a lecture in Perth with her once - gotta love her Mahler interpretations.

Women can interpret and conduct very well - I like Marin Alsop's interp of Brahms very much. I can't explain why women don't compose as much - maybe they don't have as much emotional strength in them! (Only kidding!)

Best conductor I've ever had/still have is female. They way she interprets the music and brings what she wants out of people. And she is actually good at keeping time. I've had a few that are terrible lol

With the exception of physical activities female are just as adept at anything as a male. Men are only 'stupider' because of hormones, but those don't really get in the way in modern society.

The only reason men are stronger is purely through evolution.

Sarah Ioannides is a wonderful conductor with the Spartanburg Philharmonic and the El paso Symphony.


http://www.spartanburgphilharmonic.o...utUs/index.htm

http://www.sarahioannides.net/

One reason might be that you don't get out enough. As has been documented in several threads of this sort on several forums, there are many composers who are also female. Some of them also conduct, their own works as well as those of others. Many, perhaps most, of them are electroacoustic composers and so the conducting business doesn't enter into it.

But there are still considerable more men...
...

There's an intriguing 'glass ceiling' effect in classical music. Many women lead orchestras, and have done so for years, with supreme competence, but few make the jump to conductor. It would make a good project for a MPhil or PHD student from a Womens' Studies Department. They'd need to survey the women themselves - why they don't make the jump, what's holding them back, what specific prejudice have they encountered (I bet there are horror stories) would they even want the job, etc - and, more importantly, those who do the appointing: the musical directors, committees of great and good, the government ministers: the people who control the cash and the interview panel.

The big appointments are highly political. National orchestras represent national patriotic pride, and the conductor embodies the whole thing. Hence the question of who exactly waves their arms about in front of a top orchestra is a highly sensitive one. S/he represents national pride as expressed through high culture. No wonder the boys want to keep control!

The Male Brain is very different to the Female Brain [FACT], I am not knocking Women, but whereas they can easily equal Men and indeed exceed Men in a lot of tasks, there are some things that either sex is just plain better at doing compared to their opposites, I feel that composition may be one of them.