In response to Mr. Lebrecht's set of questions, mostly centering on the
fact that there are a lot of bland conductors out there who make a lot of
money and many very fine ones who make considerably less, I put forward a
reductionist reply - namely, that competence isn't always rewarded in any
endeavor, possibly with the exception of cliff diving.

At any rate, this slighted the problem of women conductors.  I've heard
some - Brico, Boulanger, Comet, Falletta, Alsop, Baird, Jones, and Sorrell
come to mind - but not certainly not all.  Thorstein Veblen - the man who
invented sociology and still probably the greatest of sociologists - had
a theory of hiring: people are hired either for reasons of prestige or
because of similarities to the people hiring.  For example, every job I've
gotten has been due to the fact that I have a Ph.D. I know a lot of rather
dim Ph.D.'s, and neither the fact nor the subject of my dissertation had
anything to do with the requirements of the jobs.

In the case of women, since they are starting out, they tend to lack
cachet.  And they don't remind symphony boards of themselves when they
were a boy.

Steve Schwartz