Conducting Her Destiny: The Making of a Maestra

Women are relative newcomers to the traditionally male profession of conducting. To acquire a professional position, they first have to overcome lingering stereotypical attitudes about their gender, attitudes that only clutter and complicate the challenges normally faced on the road to any musical podium. As a result, only a few women have achieved significant positions in the field of conducting. Why, in an enlightened age, when numerous gender barriers have been overcome, do female conductors still struggle to reach the 'top' of the profession? The information provided in this document examines the emergence of women in music and the challenges they faced when entering the profession of conducting. This document will not include a detailed history of women in all aspects of music, only those which propelled women forward in their status, such as important women patrons, ensemble singers, and conductors. Women conductors in this document include: Margaret Hillis, Sarah Caldwell, Antonia Brico, Judith Somogi, Ethel Leginska, and Gena Branscombe. Each of these women was a first in their field: the first to conduct a major symphony, first to conduct an American orchestra, and first to conduct a major opera. The status of women in society has changed dramatically over the last century, but changing attitudes in professional organizations have been slow to develop. Society has accepted women as being capable of navigating space and administering in government rather than capable of leading a professional orchestra, choral ensemble, or operatic production. Changing attitudes, coupled with the work pioneered in the last twenty years by conductors such as JoAnn Falletta, Marin Alsop, and Alice Parker, have encouraged and enabled women to pursue conducting and enter the profession. As stated in a journal by Alan Rich, there are many reasons for not pursuing a career in music, but by today's standards, being female is no longer one of them

Being More Realistic About Reasons: On Rationality and Reasons Perspectivism

This paper looks at whether it is possible to unify the requirements of rationality with the demands of normative reasons. It might seem impossible to do because one depends upon the agent’s perspective and the other upon features of the situation. Enter Reasons Perspectivism. Reasons perspectivists think they can show that rationality does consist in responding correctly to reasons by placing epistemic constraints on these reasons. They think that if normative reasons are subject to the right epistemic constraints, rational requirements will correspond to the demands generated by normative reasons. While this proposal is prima facie plausible, it cannot ultimately unify reasons and rationality. There is no epistemic constraint that can do what reasons perspectivists would need it to do. Some constraints are too strict. The rest are too slack. This points to a general problem with the reasons-first program. Once we recognize that the agent’s epistemic position helps determine what she should do, we have to reject the idea that the features of the agent’s situation can help determine what we should do. Either rationality crowds out reasons and their demands or the reasons will make unreasonable demands