Page 669 - Liverpool Philharmonic 22-23 Season Coverage Book

Dalia Stasevska (Photo: Jarmo Katila/PA)

“Positive action can often be seen as tokenism,” says James Murphy, chief executive of

the Royal Philharmonic Society, as we discuss the charity’s role in Farnham’s
pioneering initiative. “But for those of us who have donated significant time to putting
batons in women’s hands it’s a wonderful thing.”

“What we’re seeing in conducting is kind of like the women’s football phenomena,”
the conductor Helen Harrison tells me, echoing Farnham’s analogy. “There are so
many parallels in terms of being seen.”

Harrison’s passion for conducting was ignited when she was asked to stand up and
direct the opening of Shostakovich’s Festive Overture when she was 16.

But when she graduated from Cambridge with a music degree in the mid-Nineties, she
couldn’t see a route into the classical world that didn’t involve either playing an
instrument or teaching, so she trained to be an accountant instead – all the while
playing in orchestras.

“It kept burning, it kept burning,” Harrison says. Gradually, over time, she signed up
to courses at the The Royal Northern College of Music – first as an observer, then as a
participant.