Music, Maestra : JoAnn Falletta has ventured into a male-dominated world to become conductor of the Long Beach Symphony and two other orchestras

More than 50 years ago, in Europe and the United States, Dutch-born Antonia Brico dared to tread where no woman had ventured before: the field of symphonic conducting.

In the late 1950s, pioneer Sarah Caldwell formed the Opera Company of Boston and Margaret Hillis the Chicago Symphony Chorus as one way to sneak into orchestral conducting.

Today the picture is far brighter as women become integrated into the music world at large--in 1989, four were appointed concertmasters in Minnesota, Atlanta, St. Louis and Detroit.

And although men still run the nation’s top 21 orchestras (those with budgets in excess of $8 million), a small, albeit growing number of women are mounting the nation’s podiums, conducting subscription concerts and moving through the ranks to become music directors of their own orchestras.

JoAnn Falletta, 36, on her way to becoming a jet-setting maestra, has advanced step-by-logical-step to the helm of the Long Beach Symphony, the Denver Chamber Orchestra and the Bay Area Women’s Philharmonic. She also is a candidate for music director of the Virginia Symphony.

Yet unlike her male counterparts, Falletta must constantly confront issues of gender politics in the music place: How does a woman establish authority over largely male forces? What attire works best? A masculine look? A feminine touch?

Tails that allow for freedom of movement are de rigueur when Falletta conducts the 65-member Bay Area Women’s Philharmonic--”We want to appear equal,” she says--and are popular with Denver audiences. Experimenting in Long Beach, she wears tails or skirts or black-and-white outfits designed by her late father, who worked in the garment industry. However, to avoid appearing masculine when making guest appearances in the South, she sticks to dresses.

Still there are comments. One San Francisco reviewer recently pondered what “psychosexual message” Falletta seeks to convey by wearing a tux.

And there are still reviews that marvel that one so “petite,” so “diminutive” and “attractive” as Falletta can nevertheless command a strong podium presence.

“People often ask how a little thing like me can control all those musicians,” Falletta says. “I mean I am tired after a concert, but some people are amazed I can get to the end without collapsing.

“Yes, this is a controlling position, but it’s psychological control, not physical. You are not beating people with a whip. All the musicians want and expect is to have someone up there who brings the music alive.”

But it’s predominantly the orchestral musician over age 50, she notes, who has the most difficulty accepting a young American woman on the platform.

Falletta recalls an elderly woodwind player with the Baltimore Symphony who said at rehearsal that he had hoped to die before this became a reality.

It’s a sunny afternoon, and Falletta is talking about her 15-year career with a visitor in a reception area of a Long Beach complex overlooking the ocean. Falletta recently purchased a condo there to satisfy the Long Beach Symphony’s requirement that she live for 100 days in the area.

Speaking in soft tones at times barely audible, Falletta recalls growing up in an Italian household in New York that was constantly filled with music. Weekends, relatives would drop by and the two Falletta sisters would sing and play guitar and piano. At 13, “in love” with the great symphonic repertory--she spent hours in record stores debating the merits of the Beethoven Third over the Sixth--Falletta was determined to become a conductor. She was admitted “reluctantly” to the conducting program at the Mannes College of Music and, “defying the odds,” at age 28 began her doctoral studies at Juilliard.

There, under the tutelage of Jorge Mester, she was forced to embark on a painful inner journey toward self-discovery.

Her stage manner and verbal patterns were scrutinized and analyzed. Rather than ask for changes, the soft-spoken Falletta apologized to the Juilliard orchestra for what she wanted, and rather than look into a player’s eyes, she cast her head downward.

“This was so painful for me because I had to look at myself and realize the things I was doing was natural from my upbringing,” Falletta remembers.

Mester, currently in Perth, where he is leading the West Australian Symphony prior to returning to the Southland for appearances with his Pasadena Symphony, acknowledges that “it’s a cultural thing” for women to be nurturing, understanding and self-effacing. He believes that when assuming a leadership role, these “wonderful characteristics” need to be combined with assertiveness, intelligence and problem-solving skills--a balance he believes Falletta has attained.

Falletta says she’s learned to wield her power discriminately:

Eschewing anger or a display of theatrics, she makes her point through silence or via facial expressions that convey her disappointment in a player who has let her down.

“While a man who shows anger is regarded as powerful and strong, a woman who loses her temper diminishes her power immediately,” she says.

Falletta’s growing popularity with members of the Long Beach Symphony, which general manager Mary Newkirk describes as “young, spirited and integrated sexually,” as well as with concert-goers has resulted in a 25% increase in new subscribers.

A mere six years ago, carrying an accumulated deficit in excess of $780,000, the orchestra had to abandon the concert platform for one year. Today, with a $2-million operating budget and renewals running around 90%, the 3,054-seat Terrace Theatre is sold out by subscription.

“Our subscribers have all come back because of JoAnn,” Newkirk says. “Most of our audience has never seen a woman conductor and there is a curiosity factor about her. But she has an incredibly broad repertory for someone her age.”

In fact, Falletta’s commitment to American composers prompted the Long Beach Symphony to offer her the post of music director following the forced departure of Murry Sidlin in 1988.

Unwittingly, Falletta has become a champion for America’s female composers. Named music director in 1986 of the Bay Area Women’s Philharmonic, an organization honoring historical and contemporary female figures, she has awarded nine commissions and premiered pieces by promising talent.

For the orchestra’s 10th season commencing Oct. 6, she will present new works by Americans Vivian Fine, Judith Shaten, Alexis Alrich, Emma Lou Diemer, Janika Vandervelde and Gwyneth Walker, as well as introduce scores by four female Soviet composers.

Yet prior to her appointment in San Francisco, Falletta says she had little knowledge of modern music in general.

“My training was traditional with only the standard literature, and it’s been amazing to realize that there were women writing in the 1600s, and women writing symphonies in the United States in the early part of the 20th Century,” she explains. “I try to do these pieces with almost every orchestra I conduct.”

Falletta’s first season with the Long Beach Symphony in 1989 included Pulitzer Prize-winner Ellen Zwilich’s “Concerto Grosso.” This season--the six-concert series begins Sept. 22--Falletta will introduce the orchestra to Joan Tower’s “Sequoia.”

The way Tower tells it, Falletta “is a real advocate of the American composer, male or female.”

(Of the approximate 2,000 composers listed with the New York-based American Music Center, 20% are women.)

“Most major conductors prefer to work only with dead composers,” Tower says. “But you need to remind audiences that there are composers above ground, let alone that some of them are women. JoAnn’s function in this regard is incredible.”

Increasingly women are being accepted into prestigious conducting programs--about 10% of the more than 150 applications received annually at Tanglewood are from women--and are rising slowly through the orchestral ranks.

“It’s like being in the army,” notes the French-born Catherine Comet, 45, regarded as a pioneer by her peers. Comet served two seasons as Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductor of the St. Louis Symphony, then worked as associate conductor of the Baltimore Symphony before being named music director of the Grand Rapids Symphony in 1986. A champion of American contemporary music, she also has been named to head New York’s American Symphony.

New Yorker Marin Alsop, 33, who founded her own chamber orchestra, Concordia, to gain a podium foothold, heads the Eugene (Ore.) Symphony and in the fall begins her tenure with the Long Island Philharmonic.

Los Angeles-born Victoria Bond, 45, formerly Andre Previn’s assistant in Pittsburgh, since 1987 has headed the Roanoke Symphony in Virginia. Kate Tamarkin, 34, became associate director of the Dallas Symphony in 1989, and Uruguay-born Gisele Ben-Dor remains resident conductor of the Houston Symphony.

Once relegated solely to summer guest appearances, women are being invited to conduct subscription concerts.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s Iona Brown has appeared with the San Francisco Symphony. Comet, the first woman to conduct a full program at the Philadelphia Orchestra, leads the Boston Symphony this fall--Nadia Boulanger conducted there in 1938--and in January conducts the Chicago Symphony.

Britisher Sian Edwards, 30, who has conducted operatic performances at Covent Garden and Glyndebourne, is scheduled in November, 1991, to lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic in subscription concerts at the Music Center, becoming the first woman to do so. (Ethel Leginska, Judith Somogi and Antonia Brico conducted summer programs at the Hollywood Bowl, as did Rachel Worby, who also led youth concerts at the Music Center in 1985.)

Falletta, whose upcoming guest appearances include the Sacramento Symphony, Florida Orchestra, Juilliard Symphony and Vienna Chamber Orchestra, believes that for the aspiring conductor there are no shortcuts.

“If you come out of school and don’t conduct for eight years waiting for the perfect job, it’s very rare your professional life will develop,” Falletta says. After graduation, she founded the Queens Philharmonic, which she describes as “absolutely horrible, terrible and an embarrassment to think of now” before being appointed in 1983 to the Denver Chamber Orchestra. Winner of the 1985 Stokowski competition, she also served stints as associate of the Milwaukee Symphony and music adviser to the Nassau and Santa Cruz symphonies.

“There is no quick process in conducting,” she continues. “When I outgrew one orchestra another was waiting to challenge me. I am extremely fortunate to have had a natural progression in my career.”

The fear of disrupting this momentum is causing Falletta much pain in her personal life with her husband of four years, Robert Alemany, a computer scientist and a musician.

The couple, who live in Westchester, N.Y., want a child and are trying to decide when it would be best for Falletta to take time out.

Citing newswoman Connie Chung and others over 40 who are opting for lighter workloads and are making headlines about their desire to conceive before the biological clock ticks too far, Falletta says she does not want to one day look back in anguish at a missed opportunity to have a family.

“This is really very, very tough,” she says. “The question is: Can you take off the minimum time and have a child? I can’t just say to myself, ‘Well, at 40 I’m going to slow down.’ I don’t want to. I find myself getting busier and busier and doing more interesting things. I grumble at male conductors. They have it so much easier. They often have wives who operate as support systems, taking care of correspondence and flights and who have dinner ready when they come home from rehearsals. Sometimes I get very jealous of it all.”

Trepidations aside, Falletta is negotiating a renewal of her contract with the Long Beach Symphony that pays her $70,000 a year and expires in June.

Hoping to persuade the board “to be a little less cautious,” Falletta seeks to expand the current series at the Terrace Theatre to seven events and also offer an alternate series in the more intimate 840-seat Center Theatre. She plans to increase youth concerts and through eclectic programming such as concerts of contemporary Asian fare address the “whole diverse population base” in Long Beach.

In fact, it is Falletta’s concern for her constituents that prompted officials of the

Looking ahead, Falletta is cautiously optimistic that some of the “major” orchestras--she declines to elaborate--have asked for tapes of her performances.

“The big orchestras usually have boards drawn from conservative elements of the community and they prefer older European conductors,” she says. “But it’s encouraging that they are giving women serious consideration and not just for publicity purposes.

“I’m lucky I was born at a time when things are much easier than for women like Antonia Brico who struggled so and tended to be bitter about the success of younger colleagues. (Brico died in 1989 at age 87.)

“I feel centered because I am a musician. Yet when I see people who have accomplished wonderful things, you know like helping to cure a disease or save a child from starving, I realize my part is so small.

“But I also see so many of my colleagues who have a nice home, a family and a car and yet have got the feeling there is a big hole inside. My life with all the ups and downs and frustrations and disappointments is very satisfying. I am able to express myself through my music. And that’s my contribution.”