Music: The Next Generation

Winning a conducting competition used to be the main road to prominence. But Joeske van Walsum, head of the Van Walsum Management agency in London, says competitions have fallen out of favor because they expose young talent to the limelight too quickly. Van Walsum recommends that his clients seek assistantships, where they serve as an apprentice to the director of a major orchestra.

Maazel has begun combining a competition with an apprenticeship. In his new Maazel/Vilar Conductors' Competition, up to six finalists will receive a cash award of $45,000, train with Maazel at regular intervals over three years and eventually earn engagements with major orchestras. Maazel hopes his program will build a young person's experience "step by step" through workshops that teach everything from foreign languages to orchestral administration.

The challenges don't end once a conductor gets a job. With orchestras working to attract a younger, broader audience, conductors need to be good managers. "[Fund-raising and marketing] are things you didn't have to address 40 or 50 years ago," says Slatkin, "but now you do." He and the National Symphony Orchestra have launched an annual three-week workshop aimed at teaching young conductors some of these skills.

Despite the career obstacles, the new generation is starting to make its mark on the profession. "There's a different relationship between conductors and orchestras today," says Neil Thomson, head of the conducting department at London's Royal College of Music. The days when maestros could verbally abuse musicians from the podium are over. Many have even stopped insisting they be called "maestro." Michael Tilson Thomas goes by "Michael," Simon Rattle is just "Simon," Cleveland's Welser-Most is "Franz."

Young conductors are also increasingly concerned with what van Walsum calls "quality of life." Once, music directors jetted around the world to boost record sales, spurred on by generous recording contracts. Today, with classical-music sales at a low, few companies are extending recording contracts, and music directors seem content to stay home. Young conductors like Welser-Most are spending upwards of 18 weeks per year with their orchestras, compared with many conductors of the previous generation, like Ozawa, who would spend only 10 to 12. "There's an amazing degree of devotion to their primary job," says Morris. "And that's an incredibly healthy development."

The more open-minded approach has encouraged more women to enter the field, which has traditionally been slow to drop sexual stereotypes. The prestigious Vienna Philharmonic didn't allow a woman into the orchestra until 1997. Colorado Symphony director Marin Alsop, one of the more prominent female conductors, says that at her master classes about half the students are now women. Maazel, too, noticed a significant number of females among the applicants to his competition.