Conductors are now working all over the world, some on their own, some in organisations employing more than one conductor, and anything that helps with feelings of professional isolation and offers contact with others in similar situations has got to be of potential benefit. Some conductors have joined together to form associations to help with such circumstances and have created websites to help spread knowledge of their existence, so report of the new website of the German Conductors Association
is very welcome as it joins others on the internet:
Hungarian Conductors Association
New Zealand Conductors Association
European Conductors Association
ACENA (Association for Conductive Education in North America)
http://www.acena.org/ invites membership from conductors working in North America
In the UK, a professional organisation is currently being set up (more news on this as it comes)
These associations offer different things to their members such as a discussion forum, job and membership information, calendar of events and meetings as well as contact details, and are in German, Hungarian and English according to the country.
If anyone knows of any other associations/groups, please let me know.
1 comment:
Strictly speaking, only two of the five organizations that you mention is a professional organization for conductors in the normal understanding of the expression, the Conductors’ Associations of Hungary and New Zealand, in the sense that they are constituted bodies exclusively to represent the professional interests of conductors within a given country. As you imply, conductors do perhaps lose out from not having collective voices – though there are few countries in which a critical mass for a viable body as yet exists.
Of the other three organizations that you mentioned, one is an organistion embracing both conductors and members of other professions who have undertaken post-qualifications courses, one is an association of individuals and bodies with an involvement in Conductive Education 9including conductors but their employers and others too), and the third is an association of organisations (mainly employers but also two already mentioned above).
By this mixed token you might have also included the International Pető Association:
http://www.petoassociation.hu/main.php?p=main&mid=d127dd713c8e3e67a32980fdcd1174b0&c=list
Such specifics aside, you have performed a valuable service in bringing the complex question of conductors’ and other CE organizations to the public arena. I hope that we shall hear much more of this matter.
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