A woman will lead the Vienna Phil on New Year’s Day
OrchestrasIt has been made known that the concertmaster for the Vienna Philharmonic New Years Day concert will be the unassuming Albena Danailova, one of four violinists who rotate the orchestra’s first seat.
The concert will be conducted by Christian Thielemann.
Albena, 48, has been persuaded to give her first major media interview.
The Vienna Philharmonic, long a male redoubt, now has 24 women members. Albena was recruited in 2011.
Nothing to do with gender.
The best ones will always get the job!
Aww, that’s cute, naive, but cute!!
I mean, I registered withering sarcasm from Jane but ya know. At least she’s actually been in the orchestra and worked her way up to this achievement. She wasn’t just plucked from obscurity and given the job just because.
So women only got good in the last several years?
Right, because for over a century, none of the “best ones” happened to be women but suddenly in that last decade, 24 are the “best ones.”
Here we go…..getting like BBC Proms….too “commercial/gimmicky”
Except in days gone by this orchestra was surely the last to have a ban on female musicians?
I noticed her gender, then unnoticed it. Look no hands, but look at my handiwork!
You wish. But you may not know Vienna, you may not know how long it takes to change in a very conservative society like Vienna Phil, regarding gender and racisms. It’s not America here.
It’s getting better in general, but in the artistic world it’s never the best who gets the job, it’s one of the best plus the necessary connections gets the job. Speaking from a classical violinist who’d lived in Austria more than 10 years, and now active in Vienna.
not in vienna 🙂
this orchestra is nepotism per excellence
Not for the first time.
I can’t wait for the “first female muslim palestinian” hire, maybe in the percussion section, that gives the VPO new explosive power.
Your post is idiotic.
I think this is wonderful. Can someone tell me if most or many orchestras have multiple concertmasters &concertmistresses ?
yes they do, they play musical chair.
Yes….
How sure can we be that all previous VPO NYE concert concertmasters were cisgender males self-identifying as men? Ms. Danailova may be a woman, but have we hurriedly concluded every previous concertmaster was not a woman simply by supply of facial hair?
Furthermore, I would suggest we pause celebrations related to “the first” of anything if it references gender. Perhaps Chopin can be considered the first great woman composer, or Amy Beach, the first great self-identifying male American composer.
If we are to subject ourselves to these twists of logic, we should at least be consistent.
Bravo VPO! Some things are hard, but they won’t be in this year’s concertmaster chair.
I would love to see her in the first chair, but I don’t know if the NYT meant she will actually sit in that chair or if she will just appear in the front desk with a senior concertmaster, probably Rainer Honeck, as she has in the previous ones, since there is a hierarchy among concertmasters in this orchestra. We will have to see next week when they post the rehearsal pictures.
My assumption is she will be concert master (technically, “concert mistress”) for the concert. Norman is British, and “leader” is the term in the U.K. for the concert master (apologies – you probably already know that). Her being “just one of the regular, rotating concertmasters sitting next to the concertmaster who’s actually leading the concert” really wouldn’t be much of a distinction.
We’ll see in 6 days, but my bet is we’ll have a lady concertmaster for the first time ever on the VPO New Year’s Concert.
Only until DEI steps in. . . and then talented women suffer with all others.
For some background on how the orchestra began admitting women in 1997.
http://www.osborne-conant.org/Taking-on.htm
Thank your for refreshing my memory of the history of women in the VPO. You and Abbie have certainly effected positive change. Since the article was written, the MET has staged an opera by a woman, in 2016.
The fact that this is news is a shame. Here is hoping that the VPO joins the 20th century soon. (Not a typo btw).
We are looking forward to the concert. A cultural event .
Thielemann in the vanguard of progressivism… again!
Will he be connecting the Anschluss Polka?
Albena was CM on the VPO’s 2023 Shonbrunn PBS b’cast.
She will not lead the concert, but will sit next to Volkhard Steude, one of the two longer-serving concertmasters (as many times before).
I have to correct myself: Rainer Honeck, the longest-serving of the Vienna Philharmonic’s current three concertmasters, will sit in the concertmaster’s chair. The fourth of the three, Yamen Saadi, is currently still in his probationary year and therefore not yet a confirmed member of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and therefore not an official member of the Vienna Philharmonic.
Now the photos from the rehearsals for the New Year`s concert on Wiener Philharmoniker`s FB page clearly show that Albena IS NOT leading the orchestra but sitting next to the concertmaster. The left side of the first desk in the first violins is the position of the assistant concertmaster and she will be in that role for this particular concert. You should correct your article and title.
Indeed. We are all getting a bit over-excited over this non-event. For New Year’s concerts in the future she will no doubt alternate in the concertmaster chair with Mr Steude, once Mr Honeck retires – which I would suspect is within the next couple of years – but for now she will be in the co – concertmaster seat, which is where she has been for quite a few New Year’s concerts over the last 15 years. The headline title here is incorrect.