“Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands, and all you can do is scratch it,” the English conductor Sir Thomas Beecham is said to have told a cellist during a rehearsal. The quip is still played for laughs, dredged up by the likes of Classic FM (“The best […]
Author Archives: Julia Conrad
… is a writer and translator based in Chicago. She is at work on “Sex and the Symphony,” a hidden history of women in classical music, forthcoming from Simon & Schuster.
Posted inEssay
The Post-Election Hand of Fellowship
In the weeks before the 2024 U.S. election, when my Trump anxiety kept me from sleeping or focusing, the only thing I found solace in was an academic book of musicology. If I had encountered Samantha Ege’s South Side Impresarios: How Race Women Transformed Chicago’s Classical Music Scene at any other time, I would have […]
Posted inReview
Seeking the Truth About Julia Perry
I am always bitter about going to the established-yet-edgy New York venue (Le) Poisson Rouge—their cheapest beer is $10—but their programs make it impossible to stay away. The kickoff event for the Julia Perry Centenary Festival and Celebration on March 13 was no exception. Even more irresistibly, it was one of the first-ever concerts dedicated […]
Posted inRankings & Roundups
Augusta Holmès’s Most Virile Works, Ranked
Have you ever wondered why they call it the long 19th century? From Beethoven’s hammering martellatos, to Wagner’s massive, veiny works that seem to last forever, to Liszt’s immense hand size (…), the Romantic period was in many ways a musical virility contest with many—many—climaxes. But there was one composer who critics considered the most […]
Posted inInterview
Explosions of the Voice
When I spoke to Paola Prestini over Zoom, we immediately started talking about her dream to make an opera from Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, a novel about two women whose lives are forged in response to each other. Prestini’s music is just as defined by her collaborations. In an interview ostensibly about her, she […]
Posted inInterview
Trust the Truths
Can an opera album stand on its own as an opera? I listened to Christopher Cerrone’s 58-minute “In a Grove” while walking in Nebraska. I passed a deserted main street, barking dogs tied to porches, children learning to bike, and Trump 2024 signs, while listening to the story of a murder. Based on the Ryūnosuke […]
Posted inRankings & Roundups
The Sex Lives of Women Composers, Ranked
We are regularly bombarded with information about Schumann’s syphilis, Mozart’s interest in rimming, and Tchaikovsky’s unfortunate love for his nephew. But what about the kinky exploits of women composers in history? In the name of gender equality in music, I have ranked the sex lives of 30 women composers in absolutely objective order of worst […]
Posted inEssay
A Spiritual Vibration
In Chinese, the characters to describe the type of intense intellectual bond that transcends words like “friendship” or “romance” mean: “Know yourself.” The term is pronounced zhiji in Mandarin, but the characters—and core meaning—remains the same across other dialects. To know yourself, in other words, depends on recognizing your image reflected in another. In turn, […]