Helen Quach | |
---|---|
![]() Quach circa 1977 | |
Born | |
Died | 31 July 2013 73) Canberra, Australia | (aged
Occupation | Symphony conductor |
Years active | 1958–2008 |
Employers |
Helen Quach ( /kwɒk/ "quok"; 4 July 1940 – 31 July 2013) was a Vietnamese-born symphony conductor who founded the Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra in Sydney, served as the music director of the Manila Symphony Orchestra and guest conducted for symphonies around the world.
Quach was educated in New South Wales, where she studied under noted Russian conductor Nikolai Malko. She then took a conducting course from Sir John Barbirolli and Carlo Zecchi in Italy before moving to the US to serve as an assistant to Leonard Bernstein. She is considered as the first Asian female conductor hired by Bernstein in 1967. (The first female conductor hired by Bernstein was Sylvia Caduff in 1960). Helen Quach spent much of her adult life in Australia and the Philippines. Critics often commented on her toughness in spite of a diminutive appearance.[ citation needed ]
Quach was born in Saigon on 4 July 1940, to Chinese parents; her father was in business and her mother was a musician. Quach began playing the piano at the age of five. [1] She moved to Australia when she was ten years old. [2] Her parents had sent her there to increase her educational opportunities but also to keep her away from war. [3] She studied at the Brigidine Convent in Randwick, New South Wales. [4] Quach later studied at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music. [1] [5]
Quach came from an academically oriented family. Her two brothers both became physicians. On her decision to attend a music conservatory, she said she thought that universities become "too academic. I don't like to clutter up my life with all those degrees." [6]
In 1958, Quach was a second-year student at the NSW Conservatorium when she became one of the first two women awarded a scholarship to study under noted conductor Nikolai Malko, who was then the musical director of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. The announcements of the award had specifically excluded women, but Malko said he reconsidered because Quach and the other female recipient were "more than usually talented". [4] In 1964, Quach won a scholarship for a conducting course taught by Sir John Barbirolli and Carlo Zecchi in Sicily. [7]
She appeared as a contestant on the November 13, 1966, episode of US panel game show What's My Line? .
Quach moved to New York in 1967, having won the Dimitri Mitropoulos International Conducting Competition, which came with a position as an assistant to Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic. Quach was able to conduct the Philharmonic at a gala concert and on Bernstein's television series. [7] "Miss Quach runs the danger of being a pretty young woman, and thus conquering all hearts for non-musical reasons. But ... she seems to be at her best in works of large dimension (odd for so diminutive a creature) and if there can be such a thing as a maestra, Miss Quach could well be it," Bernstein said. [3]
Quach returned to Sydney in 1969 to give a concert with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. "I have a choleric temperament, kept well under control – forceful when I conduct, but very quiet and ready to listen when away from my baton. I am a woman. I like a lot of personal attention," she said of herself at the time. [5] As an early-career conductor, Quach also spent three- to four-year stints in Paris, Hong Kong and Taiwan. [3] In the late 1960s, she worked with a children's orchestra in Taipei. Because of her toughness with the children, Quach was called a "woman tyrant" by Chinese newspapers. [1]
In 1971, Quach founded the Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra in Sydney. Three years later, she was named the music director of the Manila Symphony Orchestra. By the late 1970s, she was spending six months out of the year conducting the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the other half of the year travelling as a guest conductor. [7] From 1980 to 1983, she conducted the Taiwan Symphony Orchestra. She said that the Taiwanese people were not ready for her style of music at that time. [3]
As Quach was breaking into conducting under Bernstein, conducting was dominated by males; no major symphony had employed a female conductor full-time, and only a few women had ever served as guest conductors. [8] In 1977, about a decade into her career, Quach was one of very few females conducting major symphonies anywhere in the world (others included Sarah Caldwell of Boston, Sylvia Caduff, and Zheng Xiaoying). Still, Quach once said that she felt she had been most hindered by people of her own ethnicity. "As you know, an orchestra is supported by the society and Chinese society is not the best soil to develop musical talents. All parents want their children to become doctors or engineers. Nobody wants their children to dedicate their lives to music," she said. [9]
While living in Taipei, Quach was diagnosed with cancer. She refused conventional medical treatment and moved back to Australia. [2] Quach developed a following in the Philippines and she returned to the country in 2007 and 2008. On the latter trip, she conducted the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra for La bohème . [2]
Quach died of cancer in Canberra on 31 July 2013. [10] Reporting on her death, the Philippine Daily Inquirer referred to Quach as "the dragon lady of the podium". [2] Quach never married. [11] "I just never met anyone that I wanted to share my life permanently with," she had explained in the 1980s. [3]
The New York Philharmonic is an American symphony orchestra based in New York City. Known officially as the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., and globally known as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, it is one of the leading American orchestras popularly called the "Big Five". The Philharmonic's home is David Geffen Hall, at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
Sir John Barbirolli was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 1943 and conducted for the rest of his life. Earlier in his career he was Arturo Toscanini's successor as music director of the New York Philharmonic, serving from 1936 to 1943. He was also chief conductor of the Houston Symphony from 1961 to 1967, and was a guest conductor of many other orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, with all of which he made recordings.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra in Los Angeles, California. Colloquially referred to as the LA Phil, the orchestra has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September. Gustavo Dudamel is the current music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen is conductor laureate, Zubin Mehta is conductor emeritus, and Susanna Mälkki is principal guest conductor. John Adams is the orchestra's current composer-in-residence.
The Symphony No. 9 by Gustav Mahler was written between 1908 and 1909, and was the last symphony that he completed. A typical performance takes about 75 to 90 minutes. A survey of conductors voted Mahler's Symphony No. 9 the fourth greatest symphony of all time in a ballot conducted by BBC Music Magazine in 2016. As in the case of his earlier Das Lied von der Erde, Mahler did not live to see his Symphony No. 9 performed.
Dame Janet Abbott Baker is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer.
Dimitri Mitropoulos was a Greek and American conductor, pianist, and composer.
Ralph Vaughan Williams dedicated his Symphony No. 4 in F minor to Arnold Bax.
Marin Alsop is an American conductor, the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize for conducting and the first conductor to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She is music director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Ravinia Festival, and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008 and to the American Philosophical Society in 2020.
Simone Margaret Young AM is an Australian conductor and academic teacher. She is currently chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
The Portland Youth Philharmonic (PYP) is the oldest youth orchestra in the United States, established in 1924 as the Portland Junior Symphony (PJS). Now based in Portland, Oregon, the orchestra's origin dates back to 1910, when music teacher Mary V. Dodge began playing music for local children in Burns, Oregon. Dodge purchased instruments for the children and organized the orchestra, which would become known as the Sagebrush Symphony Orchestra. After touring the state, including a performance at the Oregon State Fair in Salem, the orchestra disbanded in 1918 when Dodge moved to Portland. There, Dodge opened a violin school and became music director of the Irvington School Orchestra.
Nicolai Andreyevich Malko was a Russian-born American symphonic conductor.
Zoe Zeniodi is a conductor from Greece. She is currently the Artistic Director of El Sistema Greece. She is the first woman conductor to ever perform with Opera Southwest. She has been selected by the Dallas Opera for the residency of the Institute of Women Conductors, 2016. and a Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship Mentee.
The New York Philharmonic concert of April 6, 1962, is widely regarded as one of the most controversial in the orchestra's history. Featuring a performance by Glenn Gould of the First Piano Concerto of Johannes Brahms, conducted by its music director, Leonard Bernstein, the concert became famous because of Bernstein's remarks from the podium prior to the concerto. Before Gould performed, Bernstein disassociated himself from the interpretation that was to come, describing it as "unorthodox" and departing from Brahms' original tempi. Gould, for his part, claimed publicly to be in favor of Bernstein's remarks.
Jiří Tancibudek AM was a Czech-born Australian oboist, conductor and teacher of great renown in his adopted country and elsewhere. His obituary in the Adelaide Review, titled "Prince of the oboe", said of his playing:
Mei-Ann Chen is a Taiwanese American conductor. She is currently music director of the Chicago Sinfonietta and conductor laureate of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra.
MaestraAntonia Joy Wilson is a professional conductor of international acclaim who has performed at Carnegie Hall and is a guest conductor worldwide. Antonia was the First Prize Winner of an International Classical Music Festival: Conducting Competition in Mexico. Antonia Joy Wilson is a music director of over eight American orchestras and she has extensive experience with classical, pops, choral, opera, gospel, dance, ballet, mime, jazz, country, storytelling, multimedia and multiple arts concert repertoire. Currently, as artistic director of Global Arts Center & Multimedia Symphony collaborating in XR Visual Worlds in development, Maestra Wilson thrives on entrepreneurial enterprises. Antonia has a vision of "Arts Access for All" and she is passionate about creating diversity through multimedia performances. Maestra Wilson conducted the international South American tour with Shen Yun Performing Arts based in New York. She made her debut conducting the Colorado Symphony Orchestra at the age of 21, making her the youngest woman to conduct a major American orchestra. She later went on to serve as a music director and conductor for seven American orchestras. In addition, she has performed a guest conductor role in Europe, Latin America, North America, and Asia. In 1996, she was the first prize winner at the International Classical Music Festival's conducting competition held in Mexico.
Carolyn Narelle Watson is an Australian conductor.
Sylvia Caduff is a Swiss orchestral conductor.
Jessica Bejarano is the founder and conductor of the San Francisco Philharmonic.