Want to help conductor Marin Alsop promote women in conducting? You can do so by participating in the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship’s (TACF) #PurpleBaton social media campaign for 2026.
In honor of National Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, TACF will continue the initiative it first undertook in 2025. Last year, more than 100 conductors and organizations made #PurpleBaton social media posts. In TACF’s words:
#PurpleBaton celebrates women conductors in classical music, advocates for greater representation of women music directors and conductors, and broadcasts support for orchestras to invite more great women conductors onto their podiums.
Everyone can participate by simply adding the #PurpleBaton hashtag to social media posts. Women conductors are invited to post images or videos of themselves, and to use the posts to discuss their work. Others can post about women conductors they admire, a great recording or performance with a woman conductor, or the first time they heard a woman conduct a performance or recording.
You can buy your own purple baton to support TACF, or download purple baton graphics from Marin Alsop’s personal website.
At 69, Alsop is among the elder stateswomen of conducting. In the 1980s, she couldn’t get into the Juilliard School’s conducting program, so she started her own orchestra. During her long career, she’s held music director positions at the Baltimore Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and other orchestras, in addition to holding various principal guest conductor positions.
Alsop is a passionate activist for women in conducting, founding the Taki Concordia Conducting Fellowship in 2002. Renamed the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship (TACF) in 2019, its mission “is to mentor, support, and promote women conductors as they advance in their professional careers.”
Currently, only about 11% of conductors, worldwide, are women. Since 2002, TACF has named 42 women conductors as Taki Fellows, and since 2022, 50 more women have participated in the TACF Mentoring Program. Among the Taki Fellows who’ve appeared locally are Carolyn Kuan (the first Fellow), Alondra de la Parra, Mei-Ann Chen, Karina Canellakis, Lidya Yankovskaya, Ruth Reinhardt, and Molly Turner.
