the Argentine who succeeds as an orchestra director despite prejudices

In the world there are only about fifteen women with leadership positions in top orchestras. To Natalia Salinas, one of the most prominent figures in Latin America in her generation and with an ever-expanding career as a conductorthat reality did not discourage her.

Nor are the statistics that confirm the frustrating situation: in the United States, for example, only Marin Alsop achieved tenure between 2007 and 2021 in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, one of the twenty-five best in the United States.

In France, directly there are no women with permanent positions; Mexico has only one conductor in a youth orchestra and, in Brazil, the Argentine Alicia Pouzo is the only principal conductor in the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra.

Natalia was born in the South, in Río Gallegos, there she did her initial training, and then she moved to Buenos Aires to study choral and orchestral conducting at the University of La Plata.

While she was a student, she began working as assistant and co-director of Professor Santiago Santero. In 2019 she settled in France, today she lives in the city of Strasbourg, where she was doing her Franco-German doctorate in Orchestral Conducting, and Next year he will write his thesis dedicated to music for Ginastera orchestra. She was invited to conduct in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

Salinas travels the world, takes the podium in different theaters, and He is particularly interested in opera musical direction.. Last year he was an assistant at the Teatro Colón in two titles in the lyrical season and musical director of three others in the Chamber Opera. In Mexico she had her debut and maintains commitments with orchestras in Chile and Brazil.

In Argentina He conducted some of the most important orchestrasand these days he was reuniting with the National Symphony Orchestra, under his baton they performed in the CCK’s Argentine Room with a demanding program of French music.

In addition to the difficulties that women face in the profession, it is a lonely, very demanding career and requires certain renunciations (few women in leadership can start a family).

And, if that were not enough, the director is a musician without an instrument, like the pilot, the conductor needs hours of flying with the orchestra to gain practice. That is why it is important to achieve tenure in an orchestra.

“It’s a hard and long race,” Salinas confesses in a café in Almagro, after an extensive rehearsal with the National Symphony Orchestra. “Once you know what the profession is about, you have to choose it again. And I chose her again,” she says firmly as she stirs the cup of coffee with milk.

“When you leave the theater, no one is waiting for you. It’s not like the pianist or any other soloist who goes to congratulate you after the performance. I return to the hotel alone, to continue studying. In December of last year I had to pause, take a short vacation because I was exhausted. All the time on tour, from hotel to hotel, always studying,” she concluded.

-How was your choice of profession? Surely when you started studying, there weren’t even female references.

-It is true, my references in orchestral conducting were male, I started looking for female references a few years ago. But I grew up with female leaders as role models since I was a child. My mother was director of the Conservatory, I always saw her in that position of authority, of power, and she was super natural. The Conservatory was like my second home, so I always saw my mother serve in that position, it was the most natural thing in my entire life. Then, from the age of 6 to 25, more or less, I sang in choirs. I have always been directed by women in choirs in the south, it is the most common thing there to see women directors. So, for me it was never an idea to be a woman and want to be a director.

-Do you remember your first experience in front of an orchestra?

-At first, you don’t know what to listen to. It is an amount of sound that comes from many sides, and you mark the four quarters so as not to get lost. I believe that it is essential in institutions to have the practice and auditory habituation of what an orchestra sounds like when you’re on the podium.

-And when did you start to see the difficulties?

-When I started practicing professionally. In 2012 I did a masterclass in San Pablo, which had a big impact on me. It is one of the most important festivals that Brazil has, when you are a student you aspire to go because It is very important for training. There I met Marin Alsop who, although she did not focus much on the issue of feminism, was the first time I saw a woman conductor.

-And did you mention any particularity of female leadership?

-Yes, for example, he talked about the physical appearance of a woman when she directs, about being careful with the clothes we wear because we are of a similar build. small one could read that our arms have little energy. So Alsop suggested wearing loose clothing. These types of references caught my attention, that you have to show strength like men. There I began to recognize some situations in which I had not been able to practice and had to do with situations of discrimination. That experience was like a window that opened and I began to see the most, specifically gender prejudices.

-Some conducting teachers suggested certain repertoires to women. They discouraged Mahler, for example, in favor of Mozart. Did something like this happen to you?

-I never heard it, but I see it constantly. If you analyze the annual programs of the best orchestras in the world, you will never see a woman conducting Mahler’s Second Symphony or Verdi’s Requiem, to give a few examples. Normally, all small projects are assigned to women in order to comply with the female presence in the programming. There are no women directing opera either. Who is it delegated to? Always to men, it is like this permanently and everywhere. By chance, the Australian Simone Young was invited to conduct Wagner in Bayreuth, for the first time in history, after 147 years. And Marin Aslop is just now going to direct at the MET.

-How did you develop your own idea of ​​authority and how do you exercise it?

-I think it develops over the years. In the beginning, what happens with all young directors, men and women, is that you are always tested. The orchestra tests you, with leading questions, with behaviors or comments to see how you react; to see if you put a stop to it, if it affects you, and if they can transfer you.

-You have to handle psychology.

-Yes, as the years go by you learn it. I also believe that orchestra conductors must have a lot of focus, a very good self-knowledge through therapies. At the Conservatory I studied piano, I have a training of spending many hours studying, interpreting. It’s like a ground wire, my personal connection to the music, and it’s something I bring to the orchestra. I study orchestral scores with the same rigor. I achieve the respect and silence of an orchestra when I demonstrate the deep knowledge I have of the work, of what I hear and the corrections I make.

-Did you feel intimidated by the musicians in the orchestra?

-No, they don’t make it explicit either. Some small comment always appears, imagine that they also behave like a crowd. You are physically located in front of them, you listen a lot and you have to deal with it. But, as I said, the situations in which you can feel bad have to do with yourself. If you are in a fragile moment, for whatever reason, it is transmitted. There you have to establish barriers, I do that a little. I am a woman, I can’t naturally appear as the nice director because, sometimes, for a woman, being nice can be translated as weakness and fragility. I go with extra seriousness when I am in some fragility.

-Difficult to avoid the association between the feminine and weakness.

-Yes, and sometimes it is misinterpreted. I was born in a democracy, I don’t know at all what militarized societies are like, I don’t have that imprint and I will never have it. My construction of authority has to do with horizontality. I don’t consider that I am more important than them, I simply we fulfill different roles. From my podium I carry out certain actions to promote a common issue, but I also leave them talking because I take the proposals they make to me.

-How does a director study?

-I am lucky to be able to play the reduction of orchestra scores on the piano. We do it a lot because in the institutions where we train as conductors we do not always have an orchestra. That is still in my personal practice. Then, there is also a practice that has to do with gestures, the whole question ultimately for a directory is abstract, we do not produce the sound, but we manipulate energies and speeds. Gestures are a communication tool and it is something that we have to exercise all the time. And we have to update ourselves, practice to acquire new gestures that are effective, concrete or modify them in case something does not work and offer something clearer.

-Do you practice in front of the mirror?

-Not at this point. But when he was a student, yes: he spent a lot of time in front of the mirror. Now I focus on the score, I’m at my desk and I start moving my hands singing. I sing a lot of what is written in the sheet music.

-That is to say that there is a universal gestural base and then you develop your own gestural language according to your needs.

-It is totally true, there are gestures that are universal. I don’t know how to speak Chinese, but if tomorrow I go to China to conduct an orchestra I can do it without any problem. I can handle the rehearsal from the movement.

-And the look is important too, right?

-Yes, I connect a lot with my gaze, especially anticipating. Eye contact also helps a lot when asking for something. If you are making eye contact all the time, you lose it as a tool. I tend to have the look a little broader. Yes, looking at the musicians, but in a bigger picture.

-Does the right hand mark the time and the left the dynamics?

-It’s true, but I’m left-handed and I do it the other way around. I hold the baton with my left hand, which marks the time, and the other hand marks the directions and dynamics. That is, I do the same but reversed.

-From the outside, what things do you like about a director and when do you perceive that he is a bad director?

-You have to understand two things: what happens in concert does not necessarily speak of a director. For me the issue is how they rehearse, what their ideas are and how he manages to convey them. The result of the concert is the work of an entire week that is reflected, more or less, depending on the level of the orchestra as well. I believe that good directors are those who propose a concept and modify a work based on ideas that are coherent.

-Your next big challenge?

-Direct more opera. I don’t intend to stop and direct opera out of nowhere. I did everything there is to do in a career: take individual classes, study languages, assist in theater, I not only did them here, but also in Europe. I have 16 assists in opera, 13 opera productions in which I was in charge as main director. It’s time to go out, to exploit myself, but we have to find a place. Who wants to bet on a female director in opera? If the great directors in the world are not directing opera, it is quite subversive of me to pretend to be. But I’m going to fight it.