Thread: Should women conduct?

Repeated from another forum: Some conductors of Russian background don't think so. Vasily Petrenko recently said that orchestras "react better" to male conductors and that "a sweet girl on the podium can make one's thoughts drift towards something else."

An earlier interview with Yuri Temirkanov, who was a mentor to both Petrenko and Gergiev, includes this exchange:

Q.: In your opinion, could a woman conduct?
A.: In my view, no.
Q.: Why not?!
A.: I don't know if it's God's will, or nature's, that women give birth and men do not. That's something that no one takes offense at. But if you say that a women can't conduct, then everyone's offended. As Marx said, in response to the question "What's your favorite virtue in a woman?"-"Weakness." And this is correct. The important thing is, a woman should be beautiful, likable, attractive. Musicians will look at her and be distracted from the music!
...
Q.: Nevertheless, you maintain that these are less than women, or less than conductors.
A.: No, simply that in my opinion, it's counter to nature.

Your opinion?

The article is at http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...cal-music.html

Is this even a discussion? Is there seriously anyone on this forum that would say no?

If a guy can't keep his mind on the music while a woman conducts, that's his problem not hers.

Petrenko and Temirkanov are idiots

/thread.

I have met a couple who says that men should conduct. Women included.

Marin Alsop is a wonderful conductor.
And Sarah Caldwell was superb.

Originally Posted by KenOC

Repeated from another forum: Some conductors of Russian background don't think so. Vasily Petrenko recently said that orchestras "react better" to male conductors and that "a sweet girl on the podium can make one's thoughts drift towards something else."

An earlier interview with Yuri Temirkanov, who was a mentor to both Petrenko and Gergiev, includes this exchange:

Q.: In your opinion, could a woman conduct?
A.: In my view, no.
Q.: Why not?!
A.: I don't know if it's God's will, or nature's, that women give birth and men do not. That's something that no one takes offense at. But if you say that a women can't conduct, then everyone's offended. As Marx said, in response to the question "What's your favorite virtue in a woman?"-"Weakness." And this is correct. The important thing is, a woman should be beautiful, likable, attractive. Musicians will look at her and be distracted from the music!
...
Q.: Nevertheless, you maintain that these are less than women, or less than conductors.
A.: No, simply that in my opinion, it's counter to nature.

Your opinion?

The article is at http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...cal-music.html

By "western" standards, even the most highly educated of Slavic males are throwbacks when it comes to male chauvinism, homophobia, and "macho" self-identification.

There are other such cultures, non-christian and people with other complexions, where their women must cover their hair (or their entirety!), the men rationalizing that to see the women's hair has such a sexually strong appeal that it is maddening / distracting.

The usual western reaction to that mind-set is to think of those macho men as no better than boys who have never reached adulthood, or even more basic, like animals with no level of self-control. I suppose we don't say the same thing about their Slavic equivalents because they are "Christian" and "Caucasian?"

Any way, the Slavic throwback male, whatever else his accomplishments, is downright laughable when it comes to this area of being a throwback.

[[ADD: The sweeping generalities above, of course, do not apply to each and every to the last Slavic male.]]

Lets give Petrenko and Temirkanov a blindfold test of fifty emerging conductors and see if they can pick the genders.

On second thought lets just roll our eyes and ignore them.

Vasily Petrenko recently said that orchestras "react better" to male conductors and that "a sweet girl on the podium can make one's thoughts drift towards something else.

So, weak women can control their thoughts while being conducted by a man (not that innocent, delicate creatures like women usually have sexual thoughts to begin with), but strong men (all straight, of course) freak out at the sight of a girl and act like male freshmen on their first day of high school? Typical sexist nonsense that doesn't treat either men or women as actual adults.

Marin Alsop was just over here conducting at the Proms and she was excellent and I believe she's taken over the Bournemouth Symphony.

Beginning in the Soviet years, Russia has had one of the first prominent female conductors, Veronika Dudarova, who made quite a few, good Melodiya recordings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronika_Dudarova, working with the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra since 1947.

(Quote Wiki: "According to her son Mikhail, during a concert in Andorra in 1993, due to her intense style of conducting, Dudarova fell from the podium, but went on conducting the orchestra lying on the floor leaning on her right hand and the piece was performed to the end without an interruption.[4]")

Soviet laws were progressive as regards women´s rights, but there´s a very conservative underlying tradition in the Russian society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism_in_Russia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Russia), and current trends unfortunately seem to strengthen it - such as a church authority condemning feminism as a "mortal sin", and the trial against feminist happenings there recently, which had obvious flaws, as seen in the HBO documentary about it.

The important thing is that women, actually, conduct.

Yuri, I'm so sorry about you