We’ve rounded up some links of interest from over the weekend.
Conductor JoAnn Falletta has renewed her contract with the Buffalo Philharmonic for another six years. Falletta, who was also conductor of The Women’s Philharmonic (1986-1997), currently also leads the Virginia Symphony. Read the story here.
NewMusicBox has an interview with Melinda Wagner. The interview with the Pulitzer Prize winning composer was filmed in March. Watch an excerpt of the conversation below, and visit NewMusicBox for more as well as a full transcript of the lengthy conversation.
Agata Sorotokin a (very) young and up and coming conductor spoke with The San Francisco Classical Voice about her early interest in conducting and how she came to be assistant conductor for the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra during this summer’s European tour. Sorotokin, who will be attending Yale in the fall, also addressed the “woman conductor” question with grace:
Included on Sorotokin’s list of admired conductors is Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Sorotokin hopes there will be more opportunities for women conductors. “The world in general is moving in the right direction in terms of women leaders. I hope that would be the case for women music directors.”
“The fact that she happens to be female does not really come into play,” said [San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra conductor] Donato Cabrera, “but it makes it doubly satisfying knowing that we are able to nurture women in their pursuit of what has traditionally been a male-dominated field.”
Sorotokin thinks more about merit than the gender of conductors. “Bias, whether it be gender, or other external factors, has nothing to do with merit,” she said. “People saying, ‘oh, women should not be up there conducting’…that’s not driven by music, that’s driven by society and that’s what needs to be changed.”
And in feel-good news, the last original member of the Florida Orchestra is retiring after playing with the ensemble for 50 years. Evelyn Pupello was just 17 when she began in the violin section. Read more about her here.