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PBS aired a story Tuesday night on the Dallas Opera’s Institute for Women Conductors, bringing some well-deserved attention to a program that seeks to right a long-standing tradition of gender inequality in opera’s top positions.
The institute, announced in 2015, invites six young women conductors to Dallas for classes and seminars on breaking the institutional barriers that have kept women away from the podium for decades. The residential program provides opportunities to network and to conduct—attendees work closely with the Dallas Opera’s principal guest conductor, Nicole Paiement, and lead full performances at the Winspear. The Dallas Opera has committed to the program for 20 years.
PBS NewsHour talks to Paiement, Dallas Opera CEO and General Director Keith Cerny, who conceived of the program, and several conductors. Watch the segment, embedded above, and read our 2015 story on the institute here.