Is Gender a Factor in Conducting? Petrenko Creates a Furore
Just days after violinist Nigel Kennedy claimed that “conductors are completely over-rated”, and on the eve of Marin Alsop becoming the first woman to conduct the Last Night of the Proms, Russian born conductor Vasily Petrenko has created a storm by claiming that orchestras “react better when they have a man in front of them” and that “a cute girl on a podium means that musicians think about other things”.
Petrenko is the the principal conductor of the National Youth Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Oslo Philharmonic.
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