Word: conductor
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...conducting position as a joke, never believing she would beat out four competing males to win the spot. "I hadn't done anything like this since I'd come to Harvard, and I was very nervous," she says. In fact, James E. Ross '81, the orchestra's present conductor who knew her from her month of Bach Society membership, had to convince her to take the audition, which involved an interview with a panel of BSO members and a fifteen minute stint with the orchestra...
...didn't even have a baton," she laughs, explaining that she conducted instead with a pencil. "Maybe that endeared me to them," she says. She hastens to add that she will be receiving a real conductor's baton for her next birthday...
...self-styled army brat who lived in a different house each year of her life until settling at the age of thirteen in San Francisco, Watt first conducted during high school when the conductor of her county orchestra--the Marin County Youth Orchestra--offered to give her lessons. Soon the conductor, Hugo Renaldi, was letting her conduct the orchestra occasionally, as well as allowing her to lead Saturday-morning children's concerts...
Although she attributes the scarcity of women conductors in general to the same sexual discrimination that has afflicted women in most fields, she notes that the role of conductor is an especially authoritative one in which women are even less likely to be taken seriously...
Watt hopes, however, that her experience as an instrumentalist will help close the gap between orchestra and conductor. "It is very important for a conductor to be familiar with the musicians, and to understand what it feels like to be conducted. Only then is it possible to feel like one cohesive group, instead of like an outside dictator," she says, adding. "I hope that, knowing what I myself like in a conductor, I will be able to convey my ideas in a forceful and articulate manner that will be well received...