1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
Music

La Maestra

December 28, 2018

Alondra de la Parra is one of the new stars of classical music. She has conducted more than 100 orchestras in 20 countries, breaking the glass ceiling in a male-dominated profession.

Österreich Alondra de la Parra und Camerata Salzburg
Image: DW

She was recently appointed Music Director of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane, Australia.

Even early on, Alondra de la Parra dreamt big: "When I was 13 or 14, I wanted to be a conductor. But I thought, ‘how could that happen, I don't look like a conductor at all. Most conductors come from Germany and are very old with white hair. But I am from Mexico and a girl."

Alondra de la Parra was born in New York in 1980, but her home country is Mexico. She studied music in England and the USA, and at the age of 24 founded the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, which she both manages and conducts. The mother of two children, she embodies a new type of conductor: young, feminine and widely underestimated. As an artist between cultures, continents and musical genres, she has always faced resistance: "At the beginning of my career, the fact that I was a woman certainly didn't please a lot of people."

Alondra de la Parra allowed us access to her private archive for "La Maestra", and the film presents previously unpublished footage from the conductor's life, including videos shot at a workshop with the German conductor Kurt Masur.
 

Broadcasting Hours: 

DW English

MON 18.02.2019 – 01:15 UTC
MON 18.02.2019 – 05:15 UTC
TUE 19.02.2019  – 09:15 UTC
SUN 24.02.2019 – 15:15 UTC

Cape Town UTC +2 | Delhi UTC +5,5 | Hong Kong UTC +8
San Francisco UTC -8 | Edmonton UTC -7 | New York UTC -5
Lagos UTC +1 | Cape Town UTC +2 | Nairobi UTC +3 
London UTC +0 | Berlin UTC +1 | Moscow UTC +3


DW Deutsch+

TUE 19.02.2019  – 09:15 UTC 

Vancouver UTC -8 | New York UTC -5 | Sao Paulo UTC -3

Skip next section DW's Top Story

DW's Top Story

Skip next section More stories from DW