This made me laugh.

I am, generally speaking, not an aficionado of the short.

As far as I can tell, shorts are at their most permissible as recreational or sporting clothes for kids or grown ups (biking shorts are allowed as long as you are on a bike, kids should be able to wear shorts all summer, running shorts are a thing if you run…). I’ve never understood how other cellists could play in shorts without destroying the finish on their cellos, but my hat is off to those who can.

It did once come up at a conducting workshop I was teaching whether shorts should or could be worn on the podium.

My strong view was “no”. It seems disrespectful to the musicians and the music, and particularly distracting (sometimes genuinely revolting) to the players on the first desks. I’m generally anti-sandals on the podium, too (regardless of gender in both cases). Again, if you’re sitting on the first stand trying to play Brahms or Sibelius, you really don’t want a pair of sweaty, cheesy feet in your sight line.

In this conversation, there was one conductor who had been wearing shorts all week. He was brave enough to ask “do you mean we should never wear shorts when we’re conducting -not just in formal situations with established orchestras.”

I spoke slowly and clearly, gently and firmly:

“It is my opinion that, as a conductor, you should _never_ wear shorts in front of the orchestra.”

“Even if it is very hot, and the orchestra vibe is informal?”

“Never.”

“Ever? What if the players are wearing shorts?”

“Have you ever seen a basketball game?”

“Yes”

“What were the players wearing?”

“Shorts.”

“What was the coach wearing?”

“Hmmmmmm,, urgh……”

“The players were wearing shorts because they were playing basketball. The coach was wearing a $5000 suit because he was not playing basketball.”

I continued.

“If you are asking my view, which you just have, that view is that you should never, ever wear shorts in front of an orchestra.”

I don’t need to tell you, dear readers, what he wore to conduct the next day……

I tried to speak in a gentle but firm tone, as positively as I could…. “I thought we discussed yesterday that shorts are not appropriate attire when conducting?” I said.

“Oh,” he said, “I’m very sorry. I didn’t realise you meant even here.”

Shusha… Donta tella anyway one I’mma wearinga shortsa downastairsa