New maestra in St Louis
NewsOpera Theatre of Saint Louis has appointed Daniela Candillari as its first Principal Conductor.
Candillari, of Serbian and Slovenian origin, made her Met debut this season conducting Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice. She grew up with a grandmother opera singer and is a specialist in contemporary opera.
She is about to conduct Terence Blanchard;s Fire Shut Up in my Bones at the Lyric Opera, Chicago.
Maestra is not an Italian word. Maestro is used for both male and female conductors except by ignorant English speakers.
But it fits so wonderfully into the view of the world of the blog owner.
Only English-speaking people make this error??? Perhaps you could have used this as a teaching moment, rather than exposing your xenophobia.
Luciano Canepari thinks otherwise, and includes it in his dictionary of Italian pronunciation. I think I’ll believe the published Italian linguist over the random poster.
http://www.dipionline.it/dizionario/ricerca?lemma=maestra
Sniff . . . sniff
Thank you!!! I came here to the same the same thing. I’m sure someone will blame misogyny or the patriarchy for rules of grammar.
Of course. We old white men are just to blame for everything.
“She’s a specialist in contemporary opera.” Oyvey, just what the opera world needs–someone who specializes in esoteric, unlistenable pap that no one wants to listen to. Hope she doesn’t try to ram them down the audience’s throats: “say ahhh n relax, this won’t hurt a bit; it’s good for you!
Exhibit 1: She is about to conduct Terence Blanchard;s Fire Shut Up in my Bones at the Lyric Opera, Chicago. If this had not been composed by black man, wouldn’t have seen light of day, let alone the hyperventilating praise amongst the critics. Front page of NYT for chrisakes.
Same 2-hr.+ slog of 99% of modern operas. But apparently no one dares to say that in public lest they be labeled a racist.
Daniella is a rockstar, one of the finest modern music conductors I worked with – this is a great choice, especially for a company that sings everything in English.
So confused by the downvotes here. I have worked with several of the most famous modern music conductors across the US/Germany/UK/Canada in opera during my career. Daniella is extremely talented, and certainly understands that style of music as well as any of them – she’s just not well known outside of certain circles in the USA.
Sigh, I guess it was downvoted because I was in favor of a female conductor… I’d guess most people here have never seen her conduct, never talked to her, never worked with her, never seen the respect she commands from an orchestra, and have never worked at close to this level.
She is a great choice. And the fact has literally nothing to do with her gender.
What percentage of all conducting students in conservatoires around the world in the last 25 years have been women? 10%? 15%? 20%? In my conducting class in my first conservatoire there was only one woman out of six students, and in the second one were two women out of ten. In other conducting classes I have visited to for masterclasses women were no more than 1/5 of all students. Yet, easily over 40% of all new music directors and assistants are women. So, if women are 10-20% of all conducting students and 40% of all new appointments logic tells us that women are just better at conducting than men. It is either that or perhaps there is some other reason…
Perhaps having more women conductors in top positions will encourage more young women to study conducting at conservatoire level.
If that were the case, wouldn’t forgoing perceptions of an antimeritocracy be worth it?
Positive discrimination is unfair to those who have the merit and preparation of both sexes. It only helps those who, without positive discrimination, would not make it to the top of the profession.
Oh, absolutely not. I haven told “yes, we can invite you [to conduct] this season, but we have been told [by the public authority financing the orchestra] to have more women conducting, so we have to invite women” and “we are indeed looking for our next music director, but we are looking for a woman”. So, not only talent and experience, your genitals are important too.
And yet, according to wikipedia 90+ percent of professional orchestras are led by a male music director. I for one would not mind see that ratio change a little bit…