Word: conductors
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...Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) announced last week that it had chosen Alsop to be the orchestra's new conductor. The changing of the guard at an orchestra, even a top-flight outfit like the Baltimore Symphony, isn't usually a matter of widespread interest--it's not as if Alsop were dating Tom Cruise or anything--but this particular appointment is remarkable because high-level orchestral conducting is one of the last of the great professional boys' clubs, and Alsop will be the first woman ever to lead a major American symphony orchestra. She also finds herself in the awkward...
...easy to become a conductor. There are formal academic programs, but you can really learn to conduct only by doing it, and to do it you need an orchestra. "You have no instrument to practice," Alsop told TIME. "You can't get any experience." In her 20s Alsop worked as a freelance violinist in New York City, but after hours she would bribe her musician friends with pizza to let her lead them through Mozart symphonies. When she couldn't get a regular conducting position, she founded her own ensemble, the Concordia Orchestra. Never let it be said that Alsop...
Finding an orchestra wasn't the only challenge she faced. For an art form devoted to exalting the human spirit, classical music is plagued by painfully unenlightened gender politics. Up until the middle of the 20th century, it was rare for orchestras to hire female instrumentalists, let alone female conductors. The Vienna Philharmonic was all male until 1997, when under the pressure of popular opinion it finally hired a female harpist. Among the top 75 symphony orchestras in the U.S., there are still only three female conductors. "The last domain of gender within the music business is the position...
...conditioning was broken. If I chose air conditioning over a seat, I knew I could expect a ride crammed in with fellow commuters. Then it would be a test to see just how many people could fit in a subway car, while the intercom crackled with the angry conductor telling people not to hold that doors because “there is a train directly behind this one!” Crammed in with fellow New Yorkers, some of whom inevitably would not believe in deodorant, I could also expect the usual panhandlers or people reading from the Bible...
...Number of people killed last week in a three-train collision near Ghotki, Pakistan, caused when a conductor allegedly failed to read a railroad-track signal correctly...