report in 2023<\/a>, only one in nine music directors is a woman. A study by the Donne Foundation in 2024 showed that 10.1% of orchestras worldwide were led by women.<\/p>\n\u201cThe reality of my daily life is I wake up in the morning and I study my scores and I go and I conduct and I try to be the best artist that I can,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cI am fortunate that there were predecessors who came before me that did the hardest level of work. \u2026 I also take it very seriously that part of my role is to make it easier for the next group of women that come up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson said she\u2019s glad not to have been the first woman on the podium in front of the Madison Symphony Orchestra (a first she\u2019s experienced many times in her career). She also knows change for an organization that has had the same leadership for decades can be \u201cscary,\u201d and she takes the responsibility \u201cvery, very seriously.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI am really happy to answer questions when people have them,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cI understand that for a lot of audience members, they haven\u2019t seen very many women on the podium. That\u2019s OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madison Symphony\u2019s season starts with a one-off opening night on Sept. 18 led by maestro DeMain. It will feature Joshua Bell playing \u00c9douard Lalo\u2019s \u201cSymphonie espagnole\u201d and Jules Massenet\u2019s \u201cM\u00e9ditation\u201d from \u201cTha\u00efs\u201d on a program that also includes \u201cThe Sorcerer\u2019s Apprentice\u201d and \u201cBol\u00e9ro.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am going to do everything I possibly can to make this a really positive and exciting next chapter,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cTo win a position as a music director, that\u2019s just incredibly hard to do. For me to win (a position) at such an extraordinary regional orchestra as Madison is, it\u2019s a dream come true.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly cannot wait to get started.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source captimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cap Times is an independent newsroom serving Madison and Wisconsin. Sign up for the Food & Culture newsletter for exclusive weekly insight. Laura Jackson, conductor of the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra in Nevada, has been selected to lead the Madison Symphony Orchestra. Jackson has led the Reno Phil since 2009. She intends to stay on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2504783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2504782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Madison-Symphony-names-Laura-Jackson-as-new-director-Entertainment.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2504782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2504782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2504782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2504784,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2504782\/revisions\/2504784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2504783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2504782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2504782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2504782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}