Lola Camus
Santander, (EFE).- All the symphonic concerts that the Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria has programmed this season will be directed by women, an initiative that seeks to make visible female talent in the most masculinized profession of classical music so that one day a proposal So stop being news.
“It is not that there is no talent, they simply forget about it,” Paula Sumillera, director of the Orquesta del Cantábrico and one of the five teachers who will take the podium at the Cantabrian theater, told EFE.
The head of the Antwerp Symphony, Elin Chan, has opened the cycle and until May, they will also conduct Clio Gould in the Argenta Hall, leading the Britten Sinfonia; Marzena Diakun, head of the Orchestra and Choir of the Community of Madrid and Anna Rakitina, with the Principality of Asturias Symphony.
“They are all talented women, it is normal for them to be there,” underlines Isabel Varela, head of production at the Cantabrian theater, which is betting on parity in all its shows.
Other of his classical music proposals make this quite clear: the Brodsky Quartet, made up of two men and two women, and the four-hand piano concert offered by Hugo Selles and Kristina Socanski.
It is, he says, “looking for the female figure as something habitual” to make it only news for his career and talent. “The day that we manage to make it a daily thing will be the day that we have achieved that the woman is where she has to be,” she says.
For the Vice President and Minister of Culture, Pablo Zuloaga, this symphony cycle “shows a change in the paradigm of how it should be programmed and how female talent should be made visible.”
a slap on the wrist
According to a study by the Classical and Modern and Women in Music associations in collaboration with the SGAE Foundation that was presented in 2022, although with data from the 2018/2019 season, only 8 percent of orchestra conductors in Spain are women. : 13 out of 141. And they only conducted 5 percent of the concerts.
Paula Sumillera believes that this report has been “a slap on the wrist” for programmers because “lately many female names have been seen” on billboards in auditoriums and theaters.
“We are more and more and showing that we can be there perfectly,” says this 35-year-old conductor, who is co-founder of the first professional orchestra in Cantabria and combines the podium with musical education and the direction of three choirs. “I have five jobs,” she clarifies.
Isabel Varela points out one more piece of information that illustrates the underrepresentation of female conductors: there are 35 public symphony orchestras in Spain and only two are directed by women: that of Murcia, which has had Virginia Martínez as its principal for ten years, and the Orquesta de the Community of Madrid, with Marzena Diakun. Then there are the private formations like that of Sumillera.
In her opinion, it is “wonderful to see teachers conducting because it gives visibility”, but there would also have to be women in management and in orchestra and auditorium conducting positions to advance the change.
Paula Sumillera saw her future in environmental and marine sciences but a professor from the conservatory, Emilio Otero, crossed her path, who convinced her that she had a talent for music and directed her towards directing. He saw her “throwing forward and with leadership capacity, a very important attribute to be a director.” That destination had not even crossed her mind but, as she explains, she had no references to visualize it.
He took the tests and passed them. “There were ten of us in class, two women (her and Lara Diloy) and there were none in the upper or previous class,” she recalls. And only the two of them have reached the professional level. “Someone has a group but that we are directing professionally, regularly, it is the two of us. We are very hard-working, very fighters, very fighting, very constant, ”she justifies, with a point of pride.
The washing machine and the children?
When Sommillera is asked if there is machismo in classical music, she pauses, thinks about it, and answers: “There is machismo everywhere, I have experienced it and my colleagues have experienced it too”.
He remembers that in a conducting course in France “with a teacher X” his classmates asked him “what is wrong with the teacher with you that he is putting the most pressure on… One day on the podium he was correcting me and I He explained that this is like when you are at home and you have the washing machine and you have to take care of the children”.
This summer she attended a contest in Italy and a girl “with an overwhelming personality who ate the whole world with potatoes” took first prize. But the comment was “it’s that she won because she’s a girl and it’s fashionable.”
And another colleague got first place in a job market and some wondered aloud “what was she wearing that day”.
It seems that there is machismo. One of the world’s great orchestras, the Vienna Philharmonic, was barred from entering female performers until 1997 and still believes the time has not come for a woman to conduct its famous New Year’s concert.
“It is that elitist part of classical music that we have to start cleaning up,” says Sumillera. “It seems that big institutions have a hard time adapting to change, but I think that a little further down, closer to the ground, where the music is, where you connect with the public and other things are being sought, it is different,” she adds.
And he knows it well because that is his bet since he decided to take the lead and embark on an adventure that he is passionate about, even if it is full of difficulties.