CADOGAN HALL
Cellist Rachael Young joined an elite group when she became a conductor – the maestre, or female maestros. But why, asks Catherine Usher, are there so few women conducting orchestras? It’s all to do with perceptions of leadership, Young says
I
MAGINE what a typical conductor looks like. You probably pictured a bushy-haired, bespectacled, quirky yet well-dressed gent waving his arms flamboyantly at the front of an orchestra.
Even if this isn’t quite the image you had in mind, the
chances are you didn’t picture a woman. Which begs the question, why are there so few female conductors? Perhaps New Zealander Rachael Young can help answer the question. She is conducting the Russian Virtuosi of Europe at Cadogan Hall on November 23 and swapped the bow for the baton when she changed career from cellist to conductor. “I wouldn’t call it the most common route, no,” says Young, who is based in London. “It certainly happened for some people like Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the conductor John Barbirolli, and Toscanini was a cellist also. But it’s not the most common route. “Being a cellist gives you a wonderful feeling for the sound of the
orchestra and it gives you a great sense of the warmth and humanity of the string section, I think.”
So although it is unusual, a cellist-turned-conductor isn’t as rare a species as a female conductor, a subject that Young has been quizzed about before. “It’s a question of perceived qualities of leadership and if you look in the general world, in the past the evidence is in the numbers – there were far more male leaders than female leaders,” she says carefully. “Not to say there haven’t been incredible examples of female leaders, but they were in the minority. And I think the shadow of that is still with us today. “It is a job of leadership as well as artistry. I think [the perception is] changing dramatically and rather quickly. In the last ten years, the whole scene has been changing in that respect and it’s becoming normal to see a woman conductor.” As a comparative newcomer to the role, Young describes herself as at the beginning of the profession and has so far built up her experience conducting mostly in Estonia and the Ukraine. She describes the Eastern European audiences as “open” and admits the cultural attitude towards classical music is different to that of the UK and her native New Zealand.
“Eastern European countries have a really open heart when it comes to music and audiences don’t necessarily process things from an educated, knowledgeable point of view,” she explains. “They go
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