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"Unlike most employers, symphony orchestras now have blind auditions, in which hiring decisions are made without knowledge of the applicant's sex ..." gender neutrality aside (and i'm not doubting it's true, misguided though it seems), but: how can this be possible? ... since so much of LISTENING to classical symphonic music involves actively LOOKING as well; it's part of the frustration of recordings, of music abstracted from context: no visual cues as to what's happening aurally, which live performers NECESSARILY transmit in the ways their bodies move, the nuances of, e.g., hesitation/anticipation/release as expressed through the face, the tension in arms/torso/fingers, even quizzical glances or looks askance, the ironically raised eyebrow, that tell you a performer thinks something nonliteral is happening, that nontextural surfaces deceive ... it's what INTERPRETATION's about, and the visual aspect matters * but OF COURSE gender identity's irrelevant to this (or relevant only in ways that expand the number of possible readings), though not to KNOW what an auditioner's is--since you have to WATCH what he/she physically does to get an idea of what he/she musically understands, the expressive/emotional breadth of it--seems utterly improbable to me