Interview with Opera North's 2022-23 Female Conductor Trainee Joséphine Korda

Hollywood A-lister Cate Blanchett is in the running for an Academy Award next month for her performance as a fictional top-flight orchestral conductor in the acclaimed, though controversial, movie Tár – but the reality is that there are still relatively few women conductors operating at the highest level.
By Yvette Huddleston
Published 6th Feb 2023, 16:45 BST

This gender imbalance in classical music, and particularly on the podium, is being addressed by Opera North’s annual Female Conductor Traineeship programme which offers emerging conductors wide-ranging experience and support. This year’s trainee is 26-year-old Joséphine Korda who has taken up her place on the intensive nine-week scheme while studying for her masters at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. She has been working with Opera North in Leeds since December, sitting in on rehearsals for the company’s three winter season productions – the ever-popular Puccini opera Tosca, Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen and Ariadne auf Naxos by Strauss – participating in education work and taking part in masterclasses with Opera North’s music director Garry Walker and guest conductor Andrew Gourlay. “It is such a wonderful opportunity and it has been going really well so far,” says Korda. “I have been taking cover rehearsals and I have had six days’ podium time with the Orchestra of Opera North – it is quite unusual to get them all to yourself. I get feedback every week on my conducting and I have been observing, taking notes – a lot of it is just being part of the process of putting on the operas and seeing how everybody works together.”

Born and brought up in London, Korda started playing the trumpet at the age of seven – she also plays the piano – and music has always been very much part of her life. “My family are all keen amateur musicians and my dad loves singing opera, so I grew up hearing and seeing classical music and opera,” she says. When she was just 17, she put on a production of the Strauss opera Die Fledermaus – a not unambitious undertaking for a teenager – and it turned out to be a seminal experience. “Working on that production, which I conducted, made me realise that was what I wanted to do,” she says. “I decided that conducting was what I wanted to focus on.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

After leaving school she studied music at Oxford University, where she formed her own orchestra, and having completed her degree, she went on to study composition and conducting at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris.

Opera North's Female Conductor Trainee 2022-23 Joséphine Korda. Picture: Mai Toyama.Opera North's Female Conductor Trainee 2022-23 Joséphine Korda. Picture: Mai Toyama.
Opera North's Female Conductor Trainee 2022-23 Joséphine Korda. Picture: Mai Toyama.

“The great thing about conducting, for me and what I find most exciting, is the collaborative aspect of it,” she says. “You are working with these amazing musicians to create a sound together. When you are on the podium you are giving your energy to them, and you have all those energies coming towards you – it’s quite an incredible feeling when that happens. You feel those musical vibrations all through your body.”

Although they are relatively few in number, there are some extremely impressive women conductors on the international music scene including American conductor Marin Allsop – chief conductor of both the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, and Finnish conductor and cellist Susanna Mälkki who has conducted with many of the world’s major orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London Sinfonietta and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Korda cites both women as being an inspiration for her. “Marin Alsop is a big influence and I was lucky enough to get the chance to do a masterclass with her at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London last year,” she says.

Alsop, Mälkki and others such as Dalia Stasevska, Ruth Reinhardt, Alice Farnham and JoAnn Falletta are all fantastic role models for emerging female conductors of the next generation. Korda is following in their footsteps. She is clear on where she would like her career to go – and she is aiming high. “What I am hoping for is to be able to conduct the top world-class orchestras,” she says, without hesitation. “My feeling is that there are a lot of young women coming through now but I think the problem is further down the line, getting women into the top positions. That is why schemes like this one are so important and useful because they open up doors and opportunities.”

Joséphine Korda will be conducting at a concert by the Opera North Youth Orchestra and Chorus on March 5. Details and tickets operanorth.co.uk