Orchestrating Change: Two Women Helping Chart a Bright Future for Utah Symphony
by Melissa Fields, for SLC Downtown Alliance
While Utah is frequently celebrated for its breathtaking landscapes and abundant outdoor recreation, it is also known for its less-than-stellar workplace equality record. Yet Utah Symphony, with its nearly balanced roster of 46 men and 40 women musicians, stands out as a bright exception. Here we profile two women—one a seasoned veteran and the other a fresh face—helping to shape Utah Symphony’s dynamic and inclusive future.
“As associate concertmaster, or violin second chair, I wear two different hats,” explains Kathryn Eberle, Utah Symphony associate concertmaster since 2011. “I support Madeline [Adkins, the symphony’s first violin chair/concertmaster] through a variety of tasks, from turning the pages of the music in time to helping facilitate what she is trying to convey to the rest of the section. And then when Madeline is away, I step into her role as liaison between the conductor and the rest of the orchestra.”
Duties in this critical leadership role include translating how the conductor wants the music to both sound and feel, leading the orchestra in tunings before rehearsals and performances, and playing violin solos when there is no guest soloist. Concertmasters also make sure all the violins’ bows move in the same direction, at the same time, creating a more visually and auditorily unified performance.
Eberle’s unwavering path to becoming a violinist began at age 3 with Suzuki Method lessons. At age 11, after performing a solo with an orchestra, “I knew I wanted to be a violinist,” she says. Other milestones include meeting Robert Lipsett, the teacher she studied under for nine years; earning a master’s degree from Juilliard; and, of course, landing her current job with Utah Symphony, where playing for and interacting with students is a favorite part of her job. “Between the Utah Symphony and the Utah Opera, we perform live for every school district in Utah every four years—an outreach effort that’s pretty rare. In fact, this past season alone USUO served more than 100,000 students and teachers,” she says.
Over the course of her fruitful career, Eberle says she’s never felt held back by her gender, but also points out with pride that Utah Symphony’s first three violin chairs—Adkins, herself, and Second Associate Concertmaster, Laura Ha—are all women. “I feel incredibly privileged to sit in the middle of that,” Eberle says. “The quote ‘You miss all the shots you don’t take’ really resonates with me. I feel like all three of us took the shot and we’re all here because of that.”
“My family is very musical,” recalls Utah Symphony’s new Assistant Conductor Jessica Rivero Altarriba, as she chats about her childhood in Cuba. “My father is a percussionist, and I have great memories of playing the maracas with him in his band.” Altarriba’s formal musical education began at age 7 with the piano and progressed to the flute. Later, after she entered conservatory, Altarriba found herself drawn from performing to conducting. “Conducting is the best way for me to express myself,” she says.
In 2018, after earning her undergrad from Arts University in Havana, Altarriba moved to Barcelona, Spain to hone her classical music proficiency. While there, curious about how the brain is impacted by music, she completed a master’s degree in music therapy as well. “I want to create a connection with people that transcends music,” she says.
Though moving to the U.S. was “never in my plan,” in 2023, Altarriba was invited to be New Jersey Symphony’s first-ever Colton Conducting Fellow. Other opportunities followed, including being chosen to study at Maryland’s Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University under Maestra Marin Alsop, one of the world’s preeminent conductors and a tireless champion of raising women to the conductor podium. “Equity doesn’t exist in the field of conducting,” Altarriba explains. “Marin has really helped motivate me to, despite being a woman and black, reach for my goals anyway. I now feel a lot of responsibility to show the next generation that they can be whomever they want to be and that there’s no reason your gender or the way you look needs to determine your future.”
Inspired by Maestra Alsop, as well as her recent appointment with Utah Symphony, Altarriba is “on a mission to transform the halls,” she says. “When I conduct, I always see the same people in the audience…older adults. It makes me wonder what audiences will be like when I am old. I hope to bring a different energy to audiences, one that’s more relevant to a younger generation.”
