6 - Soloists and Divas: Evolving Opportunities, Identity, and Reception

Summary

Chapter 6 shifts the focus to female performers within the classical music industry. Francesca Placanica considers the increased opportunities which female performers, both singers and instrumentalists, gained throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, not only in terms of being able to achieve star status, but also through being able to integrate into professional orchestras. Focusing upon the trumpeter Alison Balsom and percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, she considers the new opportunities that have developed over recent decades for women to maintain careers as virtuosa performers of instruments historically deemed unsuitable for women to play. Placanica also deftly probes the high degree of sexualisation which many contemporary performers, including Yuja Wang, Katherine Jenkins, and Vanessa Mae, face in the contemporary classical music industry and how this can be negotiated in a mediatised culture.