Paola Ávila, a Colombian conductor who is paving the way for more women in symphonic music

Paola Ávila, 32, was born in Bogotá. She comes from a family that doesn’t have a particularly strong musical tradition. And even after her father enrolled Paola and her brother in a philharmonic orchestra ― even when music was all around her ― she continued to feel out of place.

This went on for years. That is, until she was a teenager and she saw a concert performance of Mozart’s Requiem. As she watched the conductor direct the music, she experienced an epiphany. “Until then,” she recalls, “my favorite thing about playing the viola was always the orchestra. I was never someone who played alone. And that day, I felt that I wanted to do this for the rest of my life; it was like an enlightenment.” She told this to EL PAÍS while fine-tuning details for a concert, Old and New World Soundscape, that she gave at the Cartagena Music Festival, which concluded this past week in the Colombian city.

Today, Ávila is the director of the Women’s Philharmonic Orchestra, the first group of its kind in Colombia. The orchestra seeks to settle the historical debt with women in symphonic music. She also directs the Cartagena Symphony Orchestra, a social project made up of children and youth from Cartagena. She wants to offer them a transformational journey through music, as occurred with her, while also shaking off the perception that conducting is a job reserved exclusively for men.

Ávila clarifies that, to be fair, her father did have a connection with music: he played the cuatro in a folk music group. He also had the good sense to enroll his children in the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra Cooperative. She was barely seven years old at the time. And, just as the memory of Mozart’s Requiem became a milestone in her life, she also has another image engraved in her mind, one that would mark her professional life. It was the afternoon when a truck arrived at her house with a huge piano, which had been gifted to them by a family of renowned musicians from Bogotá.

Already on the path of conducting music, she became a leading conductor in OrchKids, an educational program belonging to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. She then became a fellow in Orchestral Direction with the Chicago Sinfonietta, as well as a professor of Music Theory at the Juan N. Corpas University Foundation and at the Music Department of the University of the Andes. Ávila also obtained a Master’s degree in Orchestral Conducting from the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University. Her studies were under the tutelage of Marin Alsop, who was instrumental in shaping her career and worldview as a female conductor.

A historical debt

Until then, Ávila did not realize that musical direction was such a masculine territory. But it was Alsop ― the first woman to be the principal conductor of a major orchestra in the United States ― who opened her eyes. “Thanks to her, I became truly aware of the importance of recognizing women’s leadership in these spaces and how hard it was for those who paved the way for us.” She refers to the machismo that Alsop experienced in her career. “The day she was appointed, the entire orchestra resigned in protest of the fact that the new conductor was a woman.” Ávila also points out that female conductors are closely observed: even the tiniest detail of their physical appearance is scrutinized.

Today, it’s more common to see women conducting orchestras, such as Ligia Amadio in Brazil, Inma Shara in Spain, or Alondra de La Parra in Mexico. But just a few years ago, nobody questioned that there could only be men in orchestral direction. The presence of women in orchestras is relatively recent and still an uphill battle. “They only started accepting women in 1960 and there’s no orchestra in Latin America, Europe, or the United States today that even reaches 50 percent women. And, if that’s how it is when it comes to the participation of instrumentalists in orchestras, imagine what it means for a woman conducting. We’re still a novelty,” Ávila emphasizes.

To stop being a novelty, the Bogotá Women’s Philharmonic Orchestra was created. This is a project of the capital’s Philharmonic Orchestra, which calls up women so that they can continue their musical training. It recognizes those who, throughout history, have been relegated to lesser roles. Women receive a salary that allows them to live off their work. The orchestra also aims to play compositions made by women. “It’s like having a safe space where we can dedicate ourselves to training and to our music,” Ávila notes.

However, the members aren’t exempt from machismo. Even today, there are those who sarcastically ask them: “Why only women? By now, they have everything, they already have their rights.” It’s as if suggesting that women and girls should calm down a bit. There are also comments made about the musicians’ bodies that would never be made to a man. “Once, I showed up as a guest director at a space. The first comment I received was: ‘Finally, a feminine woman with long hair is coming to conduct,’” Ávila recalls.

Shy and introspective in her daily life, she transforms on stage. It’s as if she has two different personalities. But she also has a third one that she likes a lot: that of a teacher. She now has this role in Cartagena. For a year now, she’s been directing the Cartagena Symphony Orchestra, which brings together children and youth. They’ve come to the world of classical music thanks to the spaces that the Salvi Foundation has been opening in the city, which are as beautiful as they are exclusive. Some of the youngsters have reached the orchestra through the educational concerts that are held during the Cartagena Music Festival. Many of them never had contact with instruments before these sessions.

The project began in 2016, with the support of the Puerto de Cartagena Foundation, the RCN Television Network and the Mayor’s Office of Cartagena. It began holding performances during the week of the annual festival. And, since 2020, it has had help from the Colombian Ministry of Culture, so that it can become a stable orchestra. “[The fact] that there are children who come from absolutely remote places, [the fact that they] get to see a violin and an orchestra for the first time in their lives and end up playing in one, that, for me, is a miracle,” Ávila smiles.

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