Ravinia 2022, Issue 3

SCOTT BUMP (YANKOVSKAYA); OCKEN PHOTOGRAPHY (ARRIECHE); TODD ROSENBERG (GONZÁLEZ-GRANADOS) Top Right: In 2016, before her Chicago Opera Theater directorship, Lidiya Yankovskaya created the Refugee Orchestra Project to share the role that these individuals play in our cultural landscape. Bottom right: Appointed music director of the Olympia Symphony just last month, Alexandra Arrieche has led the popular Night of the Proms concert series since 2015. Below: In mid-June, Lina González-Granados stepped in for Riccardo Muti with the Chicago Symphony for the second time this year, leading a breathtaking performance of Brahms and Beethoven with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. Symphony Orchestra in Washington. “If you ask me whom I admire most, it would be Marin and my Taki fellows. Though we’re all conductors, we are so different. We all bring a different background to the table. “We are always helping each other. For example, when we have a piece we’ve never conducted, we ask, what can the group share? If not in the next five minutes, within 24 hours, you have all the help you need. Next year I will be conducting the Hartford Symphony, which is Carolyn Kuan’s orchestra. She’s the first Taki ever, and she invites the Takis to come there.” The Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship is not the only program focused on developing woman con- ductors. In addition to Dallas Opera’s Hart Institute, a competition based in Paris, La Maestra, was launched in 2020. Among the 12 winners this year is Polish conductor Anna Sułkows- ka-Migoń, a 2022 Taki Award Recipi- ent. In the wake of the #MeToo move- ment and the social justice upheavals two years ago, some orchestras have established their own programs to focus on women conductors as well as other underrepresented groups. The Taki Award is distinctive because it has no set ideas about what a successful conducting career should look like. Arrieche regularly collabo- rates with dancers and visual artists, and during the pandemic she hosted a podcast looking at the links and lim- its between pop and classical music. She has conducted a popular annual European pop-music event, Night of the Proms, and worked with Earth Wind & Fire, the Pointer Sisters, Alan Parsons, and Chaka Khan. Kelly Corcoran, a 2007 Taki award- ee, founded the Nashville Philharmon- ic and spent a total of nine seasons with the Nashville Symphony, seven as associate conductor, two as chorus director. In 2014 she founded Intersec- tion, a contemporary music ensemble dedicated to challenging the tradition- al concert experience and performing concerts for all ages. She earned a master’s degree in public health and is interested in the connection between music and physical well-being. Going into its third decade, the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship is shifting from what Alsop calls “a mom-and-pop operation,” to a more business-like model. Kristin Jurkscheit, Alsop’s life partner and a former horn player, became the orga- nization’s executive director in 2019. With an executive MBA from Johns Hopkins University, she is looking at data to chart the fellowship’s future. “We usually have 50 applicants in our fellowship years,” said Jurkscheit. “But the last round we had 141. It was crazy. And 70 percent were in the 31–50 age range and at a very high [talent] level, which was compelling. It speaks a lot to how women of a certain generation who didn’t have a community are still looking for opportunities.” “There’s a group of women who kind of missed out,” said Alsop. “Now everybody wants young women. I was on the first wave, so I had a little of the novelty, and now I have experi- ence, so that’s good. But that second group in the middle—age 30 to 50 or so—were too soon for the #MeToo movement, so they didn’t get a benefit from doors opening.” Alsop is delighted that Taki fellows are becoming a community, willing to help one another, offering advice, psychological support and, when they can, jobs. Laura Jackson thinks something even more significant is happening: “I feel there’s this river of fabulously gifted women that is turn- ing into a flood.” Alsop is a little more cautious about the momentum. “I’m vigilant because I don’t trust that the doors are going to stay open,” she said. “We really have to stay the course. You have to keep your foot on the gas. You can’t let up. As soon as you do, there will be people who want to go back to the old way.” Wynne Delacoma was classical music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1991 to 2006 and has been an adjunct journalism faculty member at Northwestern University. She is a freelance music critic, writer, and lecturer. RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 18 – JULY 31, 2022 10