Normally, the same strange impulse which brings a crowd to an accident is present in the reaction to a concert in which something goes wrong.

Mostly this problem is contained in the fact that the US makes it so difficult for Canadians to get green cards (you heard it here), but if an American orchestra really wants a player, they have their ways.

Music is art, art is life, and we are who we are, and all of these aforementioned women, unless they should choose not to, will be performing well into the next many decades because they are great artists.

I had been playing since I was 2 years old, never remembering a life without music, always playing everything naturally and mostly by ear, and all the grownups wanted were more scales and drudgery out of me.

Normally, the same strange impulse which brings a crowd to an accident is present in the reaction to a concert in which something goes wrong.

A good example of how it must have been is today's world of conducting, which is still utterly dominated by men, and the prejudice the few female conductors have to battle even today is astounding.

Raising a small child as a woman while travelling 10 months out of the year would, I believe, be something I would not be able or even want to do, although with the amazing example of Leila, I am no longer so sure.