The classical world is welcoming new conductors soon at the Los Angeles Symphony and the New York Philharmonic: Gustavo Dudamel and Alan Gilbert. Both have raised expectations for the artistic future of these venerable institutions.

Now name a leading woman conductor of a major symphony. Other than Marin Alsop.  She became the 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in its 2007-2008 season and might be the best-known woman conductor around.

Any other ideas? Give up?

Little wonder: Women have made inroads in many fields, but leading an orchestra can still be elusive for them. Mary Davenport Engberg (1880 – 1951) was the first woman to conduct a symphony orchestra. More than half a century after her death women are still rare on the podium.

Marin Alsop has growing recognition for her musicality, her feeling for Brahms and Mahler, for new works. She has an expanding list of well-regarded CDs that are likely to allow many more listeners to hear her. But even as she's getting better known, no woman conductor has had the name recognition of a Bernstein, a Karajan, a Böhm, Solti or Muti.

There are maybe a dozen women conductors actively working now with symphony orchestras or opera companies. Not bad, but still, not that many. It's been a tough slog.  Historically, many women had to take matters into their own hands to become conductors, by founding a company or getting into conducting through their composing.

Sarah Caldwell, a conductor who died three years ago, was an impresario who ran an opera company. Conductor Eve Queler founded the Opera Orchestra of New York in 1971.

Nadia Boulanger (1887 – 1979) composed many songs, chamber music, a rhapsody for piano and orchestra and co-wrote an opera. Her compositions led to her conducting. She was considered good enough to conduct the premiere of Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks concerto in Washington in 1938. 

Peggy Stuart Coolidge (1913 – 1981) was a composer who also gained renown as a conductor. (Did you know she also had a concert devoted to her works in the Soviet Union–why don't we hear her on programs in America and Britain? But that's another story.)

Still, more women conductors today like Ms. Alsop are being given a chance to lead symphonies through their musical excellence, rather than getting a break because they also run the company or compose their own works. Rachael Worby recently became artistic director for the Ridgewood Symphony in New Jersey and has conducted around the world. JoAnn Falletta is music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and has recorded widely.

Great. I just wish there were more of them.

It's interesting that a woman won the recent popular BBC Two reality show "Maestro," in which someone was chosen to learn to conduct the BBC Concert Orchestra in front of a live audience.

But consider: The judging panel included Simone Young, an Australian opera conductor who is music director of the Hamburg State Opera. Perhaps she was well equipped to spot a woman's conducting talent where others might not have.

It's tough to make it in classical music, tougher for a woman. But the talent is there. We just need the opportunities.