Maestra move; Alsop protégée gets London agent
mainThe young Italian conductor Valentina Peleggi has signed with Marin Alsop’s agency, Intermusica.
Peleggi is conductor in residence at the Sao Paulo Symphony, where Alsop is music director. In 2016, she was named conductor of the year by the Sao Paulo music critics.
She wrote at the time: ‘Two years ago, while I was a student at the Festival do Inverno de Campos do Jordao, Marin Alsop and Osesp offered me a chance: to assist for one month the major orchestra in South America, Osesp. I could barely breath the first time I heard Osesp playing! And then a conductor cancelled, I stepped in at the last minute.. and it all started. Osesp opened a position of Assistant Conductor for the first time, and I had the chance to assist fantastic Maestros, rehearsing, conducting, preparing the choir, teaching the Academy, stepping in other times, conducting Sunday morning concerts and my own fantastic subscription week! And now this, I can’t believe it…’
So glad for her. She has been overlooked by many in Europe.
Glad to see another seemingly very talented female conductor on the way to seize important European conducting jobs. I sincerely hope that she, like her mentor Aslop, will bring up more female talents to occupy job vacancies left by retired men. Nowadays the music industry is still a male-dominated world. And it need a change ASAP.
Saw her conduct in Sao Paulo: excellent!
Who knows, it could still be the titular director of OSESP!
I particularly like the way you lead the orchestra, even more so than the current conductor.
As far as I know the term ‘Maestra’ in Italian generally refers to a schoolteacher and not to a female musician although ‘Maestro’ is always used for the males whether they be musicians or schoolteachers, for that matter. We seem to have some sort of double standard which I have yet to figure out!
Very like the “concertmistress” misnomer since concertmaster is a genderless title designating the “leader” chair in Brit parlance.