Tamara Brooks,

As a child, when I was playing the piano or the violin, I didn't think of myself as a girl. I only saw myself as a joyful musician.

I loved the sounds of the orchestra so much that I've wanted to conduct as long as I can remember. I don't think I ever saw a woman conductor, but somehow, in my imagination, I thought it would be wonderful to be one. I didn't think it was unusual at all. But other people were astonished that I wanted to do such a thing with my life.

I was fortunate to live in a country where there was no barrier to my study of conducting. If I did well in exams, if I was musical, if I was on fire about what I was doing — the professors in the conservatories were delighted to teach me.

Yet when I got into the professional world, there were barriers. Some of those were easily broken, though. When I was in my early twenties, I prepared some choruses for major symphony orchestras. I prepared the chorus for Mahler's second symphony and took it to a conductor I had never met before. There was no time for him to hear it before our first rehearsal. When the chorus started to sing, he stopped them — and turned around to me and asked, “Who prepared this chorus?”

I said, “I did.”

He said, “No, no, I mean who was the man who did the rehearsals?”

And I said, “I did.”

He said, “Well, how can that be? They're very good.”

This was a good man. He just had never imagined that anyone but a male conductor would work for him. Society still doesn't expect that women can do certain things. They don't see women in positions of traditional male responsibility.

It's been a great pleasure to help my female students go forward, though. A number of them have had opportunities that I didn't have but that younger women are beginning to have. They say my example inspired them, and I trust they mean that. One of them was just recently named the Associate Conductor of the National Symphony in Washington, our United States national symphony. So this is a good indication that there is hope.

My advice to women who are struggling to realize their potential in conducting would be this. First, no one should entertain the idea of a career in music who is not compelled to do so, almost in a sacred way. This is a field that deals with the life of the spirit.

If someone wants to be a musician or a conductor in order to be famous, I would say he or she is not doing it for the right reason. Most women will not be famous in this field because the structure of the musical world favors men at this time. Conducting is associated with strength, which is associated with men. But I believe women are strong as well. And, with this conviction, I have been able to conduct all over the world, to have responsibilities in a major conservatory, to work in many parts of the world where there are no women conductors — and to provide an example to other woman in these places.

I did not, however, have the opportunities that my male colleagues had. My resume was not acceptable for major symphonies. It was easy for managers to say, “Gee, our city isn't ready for a woman yet.” I'm not saying I should have had these positions. But I believe I should have had the opportunity to have these positions.

It's important to realize, though, that the point at which my portfolio is not acceptable for a job is not the place where the real problem lies. There is something deeper. Something that still prevents society from evaluating women in terms of their talent and accomplishment.

There was one position I was not allowed even to apply for because I was a woman. And I could have brought legal suit. But I chose to conduct in other places instead. I chose to continue making music — with joy.

In some countries where I have conducted, as I said before, there were no women conductors. Yet in these countries I was wonderfully received by the critics, the audience, the management. In one instance, an orchestra, when they found out a woman conductor had been hired, was ready to strike so they wouldn't have to play for a woman. In the end, though, they played for me. And we had a wonderful relationship. Their initial reaction was based only on myth, not on the reality of what we were to each other as musicians.

In one country, there's a view that music is for males only. But a correspondingly ludicrous view, on the part of people in some countries, is that women musicians (as a sort of protest) shouldn't play music that men have written. I find this very troubling.

I feel that men and women have much ground on which they can meet spiritually. One of the marvels of music is that it opens the field for many kinds of people — and certainly men and women — to meet on a fruitful, beautiful plane. Art, for me, is a sphere absolutely without barriers. I believe that music is part of who we are as spiritual beings.

Creative activity is about the ongoing creation of God. In music, we communicate in tones that have an extraordinary effect on our well-being, on how we view the world, on how we can participate in the world with joy. Art is one of the great and real ways we can have a spiritual connection with each other.