At last, some sense about women in classical music
mainIn the past few weeks we’ve heard the head of London’s South Bank announce that women are suffering discrimination in orchestras, a London college founding a special programme for women conductors and various antediluvian men protesting that women can’t conduct.
So along comes Nicola Benedetti with a refreshing dose of common sense and a ticking off for the dinosaurs.
She tells Radio Times:
‘Sixty years ago the world’s top violinists were overwhelmingly male.
‘Today, we have Julia Fischer, Janine Jansen, Lisa Batiashvili, Vilde Frang, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Alina Ibragimova … in fact, I could possibly list more top female violinists than males.
It really pisses me off when people attribute their rise to the ‘sex sells classical music’ thing.’
She adds: ‘Sexism is a worldwide problem but I think that classical music can be prouder of its integrity than many industries.’
Go, Nicky!
UPDATE: Here’s a manufactured response in old media by ‘a professor of marketing’ which cites Nigel Kennedy as a sex object.
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