Darwin, C. (2024) Odaline de la Martinez – conductor, composer, entrepreneur, leader. In: The Routledge Companion to Women and Musical Leadership: The Nineteenth Century and Beyond. Routledge Music Companions . Routledge, Abingdon. ISBN 9780367456764 (hardback) 9781003024767 (e-book)
Abstract
Leadership is a much-discussed concept. A brief internet search gives access to videos, podcasts, books, courses, and companies all vying for attention and claiming to support and inspire would-be leaders. Recently, there has also been a growing interest in the particular challenges faced by women as leaders, inspiring books such as Harvard Business Review's On Women and Leadership and Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In. Conducting, meanwhile, is a peculiarly public form of leadership. Apart from politicians, few other leaders are expected to stand on a podium and exercise their leadership skills on a group of adults in full view of the public. Plenty of what a conductor does also takes place behind closed doors, of course: negotiating contracts, preparing scores, and rehearsing, for example. Nonetheless, conductors are uniquely judged on their ability to lead in public and in the moment. Even a politician is only partly judged by his or her speeches. Despite the huge literature on leadership in general, however, there is relatively little written on conducting as a form of leadership. Much of a conductor's training is done aurally and through example and experience, and where conducting texts discuss leadership, it is generally in the context of ‘rehearsal technique’, which is, as will become clear, only a part of the way in which an influential conductor can lead. What, then, can be learned about conducting, and about the challenges for female conductors, by considering conducting as a form of leadership?
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |