From Thursday to Sunday, the Philharmonie de Paris will host the second edition of the La Maestra conducting competition, reserved for female conductors. The duty will attend the events, including the semi-finals and final, Saturday and Sunday, will be relayed on the Arte Concert YouTube channel.
Do we really need to go through discrimination, even positive? Sarah Koné, deputy director in charge of social responsibility and new projects at the Philharmonie de Paris, does not hesitate: “The project is to give a boost to the march of history. This story is on the move all over the world, but an institution like ours must seize on these movements and support them by encouraging them,” she told the Homework.
Sarah Koné wishes “that this competition is not called to celebrate its 10th anniversary”, in other words that there is then no longer any need to discriminate, even positively. “But sometimes, you have to make a strong gesture to allow history to move! she adds.
The second lock
The Maestra had its first edition, after an initial postponement, in September 2020, with 12 candidates from all over the world. The competition had devoted the Indonesian Rebecca Tong, trained in Cincinnati and England, stationed in Jakarta, followed by Stephanie Childress, now assistant conductor at the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, then Lina Gonzalez-Granados, resident conductor of the Los Angeles Opera House. The Venezuelan Glass Marcano, Orchestra Prize, has been hired as an assistant in Tours.
Pragmatism in the follow-up is required: the competition is coupled with an “academy”, a career support program over a period of two years that allows the collaboration of many French and European institutions (halls, orchestras).
The project is to give a boost to the march of history. This story is on the move all over the world, but an institution like ours must seize on these movements and accompany them by encouraging them.
The novelty of the second edition is the acceptance of applications from musicians over 40, which is almost unique for a competition: “As history has not completely changed, it has given some careers of female chefs who have such great talent and who might have exploded if they had been male chefs. Knowing that there is a fight to be fought because we are a woman, there should not be a second fight because we are 10 or 15 years too old in relation to the criteria, “says Sarah Kone. The idea of breaking this second lock comes from the chief members of the jury of the first edition, Claire Gibault and Marin Alsop.
For this 2022 edition, 202 chefs of 48 nationalities have registered. Their average age is 35 years old. Fourteen competitors were admitted. The youngest is a Frenchwoman, Clara Baget, 23, and the oldest, 45, are the French Mélisse Brunet and the Greek Zoe Zeniodi. In the absence of Canadian or Ukrainian, a Russian competitor participates in this competition, scrutinized by artistic agents around the world.