Ravinia 2022, Issue 3

“The old boys’ network has existed for centuries,” says Marin Alsop in The Conductor , the recent film-festival and now streaming documentary about her life and work as the first female music director of a major American orchestra (the Baltimore Symphony). “We need to create the old girls’ network , so that we can really be there for each other and support each other.” In 2002 Alsop began doing just that. With support from Japanese textile industrialist Tomio Taki, she estab- lished the Taki Concordia Conducting Fellowship, designed to help talented women advance their conducting careers. Now renamed the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship, the award offers modest cash prizes and invalu- able opportunities to work with Alsop and other conductors on and off the podium. Twenty years and 30 Taki awards later, the “old girls network” she envisioned is taking shape. Ravinia celebrates the fellowship’s 20th anniversary July 29–31 as part of a weekend of programs titled Break- ing Barriers. Alsop, Ravinia’s freshly extended Chief Conductor, will lead the Chicago Symphony on the 29th along with three Taki Fellows: Jeri Lynne Johnson, Laura Jackson, and Anna Duczmal-Mróz, as well as a program on her own on the 30th. In- cluding master classes, exhibits and a panel discussion, the weekend focuses on the challenges overcome and those still faced by conductors who happen to be female. The fellowship grew out of Alsop’s work with The Concordia Orchestra, a group she founded in 1984 with Taki’s help. Trained as a violinist, she had been rejected twice for The Juilliard School’s conducting program. An aspiring conductor, she had no way to learn her craft. “When I played the violin, I could practice all the time,” Alsop told an audience at a 2015 lecture at Loyola University Maryland. “But for con- ducting, unless you have 40 people come over to your house every day to play, you can’t ever practice. So you can’t ever get experience because no one will let you conduct because you didn’t conduct before.” In the early 1980s she had formed String Fever, an all-female, all-string swing band. The group played at Ta- ki’s wedding, and she later approached him with a blunt appeal. Would he underwrite an orchestra for her to conduct? He agreed, and Alsop began building her conducting career. She was hailed as a pioneer, but as her career gained momentum she realized that the frontier for female conductors was not opening up. “I looked around,” she said,” It was five years, 10 years, 15 years. I just naturally assumed there would be a lot of women coming into [the field]. I might be one of the first, but there certainly would be a lot more. But there was kind of the same number. Maybe the names changed a little, but we were a handful of women who were always lumped together. And I thought, ‘If I don’t try to change the landscape, who will?’ Nobody else seemed willing to do it.” In 2001 Alsop, Taki, and the Concordia’s board decided to fold the orchestra because she was so busy conducting elsewhere. “As we were wrapping things up,” Alsop recalled, “Mr. Taki said to me, ‘We achieved this goal, getting a wom- an on the stage in this role. But what about the other women?’ ” Grateful for his long years of support, Alsop called the fellowship “a thank-you for Mr. Taki,” He and Alsop contributed money to fund the award, and in 2003 Carolyn Kuan became the first Taki Concor- dia Conducting Fellow. Now music director of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, her long list of conducting credits range from the Royal Danish Ballet to the San Francisco Symphony. She is one of 19 Taki Fellows who are music directors or chief conductors of orchestras, opera companies, and ensembles in the US and beyond. Now given every two years, the Taki’s monetary award is relatively small; $20,000 over two years for the top winner. The more enduring prize is the mentorship Alsop offers the top winners and runners-up. She is a mas- ter teacher, and for Taki Fellows just starting their careers, working with her on the podium is invaluable. “The fellowship was in its early stages,” said Laura Jackson, the 2004 Taki Fellow and, since 2009, music director of the Reno Philharmonic. “I applied not really knowing what was going to be a wonderful outcome.” Alsop was music director of the Colorado Symphony in 2004, and Jackson traveled to Denver to work with her. At the same time, having won a fellowship from the American Symphony Orchestra League, Jackson was assistant conductor at the Atlanta Symphony. “I conducted a piece on Marin’s program, the Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet overture. What was so unique was that I was mentored by her and the musicians. It was the first time I’d Taki Alsop Fellowship conductors Jeri Lynne Johnson, Laura Jackson, and Anna Duczmal-Mróz, who join Marin Alsop at Ravinia on July 29 RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 7