Women as conductors? Slow but sure

The last two years seem to have been particularly encouraging. “Recently, more and more women are being appointed assistant conductors, music directors, resident conductors, and especially taking compositions,” said Vitry, who recently gave a talk in China on “Women in Music.” “But if you look at the statistics earlier than a few years ago, which surprised me, the ratio of female conductors for the last 25 years or so has remained almost unchanged at 9-10 percent. That is, of all the orchestras registered by the League of American Orchestras, from community and youth orchestras to multimillion-dollar budgets, only about 9% have women as music directors. ”