Closing the gap

The number of female conductors on the world's orchestral podiums might be rising, but there is still some distance to cover

- Jessica Duchen

In 2012, I wrote an article for The Independent saying that the world of classical music was sexist and misogynistic up to its back teeth. First, the response was spluttering outrage; next, a deluge of action. Or so it seemed. A decade on, I’m asking whether anything has changed. This is the first of two articles. Next time I’ll look at composers. First, in the wake of the film Tár, it is conductors.

These two fields are perhaps the areas where the gender imbalance is most visible. Sometimes my interviewees ask me why we are even talking about such things: surely everybody should be considered for their artistry, not gender, racial identity or any other extra-musical issue? Of course, that would be the ideal...

In 2023, just 11.2 per cent of conductors represented by artist managements were female. The figure had more than doubled since 2017, when it was 5.5 per cent. Yes, it’s better, but the number is still pitiful. A great deal more work is needed to make a meaningful impact.

When Marin Alsop became the first woman ever to conduct the Last Night of the Proms, she spoke of her ‘shock’ that there ‘can still be firsts for women in 2013’. It was a symbolic breakthrough. Tár – a film depicting a female conductor’s abuse of power – has done the cause few favours, but at least it assumed the likelihood that a woman could become chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. That plotline was only possible because under the podium the tectonic plates are shifting, if slowly.