Maestros all?

[jean]

I was under the impression it was just a title rather than an indication of their ability.

At home in Italy, it is!

[jean]

But I have/had no problem referring to my ... err ... students as "students": far preferable (puns aside) than the horrible word "pupil"....

I can't understand the objection to the term student being extended to those of school age.

Reminds me of the horror I noted at a Teacher Training College when an American library assistant would refer to the teaching staff as teachers. They weren't! They were lecturers!

All kinds of status-marking can be indicated by an initially arbitrary choice of term..

(What exactly is a chorister?)

[Conchis]

I was under the impression it was just a title rather than an indication of their ability.

So was I, until a few years back I had a conversation with an older person about Kurt Sanderling who, in the opinion of the older person, was 'one of the few conductors alive today deserving of the term 'maestro''.

[Pulcinella]

I can't understand the objection to the term student being extended to those of school age.

Reminds me of the horror I noted at a Teacher Training College when an American library assistant would refer to the teaching staff as teachers. They weren't! They were lecturers!

All kinds of status-marking can be indicated by an initially arbitrary choice of term..

(What exactly is a chorister?)

I would hope that teaching staff were indeed teachers, jean.
Far too many just think that giving a lecture counts as teaching: not in my book it doesn't!

[jean]

Il maestro di cappella is an operatic intermezzo in one act by Domenico Cimarosa. (Though often translated in English as The Music Teacher, the Italian term maestro di cappella is the equivalent of the German kapellmeister — "master of the choir or orchestra".)...

[P. G. Tipps]

I am all for showing respect to the person on the podium as long as he/she shows similar respect to the audience by being suitably attired. Given that, I am all for 'maestro'.

However if 'actress' and 'heroine' are now deemed to be 'sexist' surely there can be no place for 'maestra'?

We really must be logical and consistent, lady gentlemen and gentleman gentlemen ...

[Hornspieler]

To quote from that much loved Rodgers and Hart Musical:

...a lot of chaplets in a pot of tea ...

Does it matter how they are (ad)dressed?

Put the kettle on, my friend. I'm dying for a cup of your delicious brew

HS