The artistic director of Europe’s largest centre for the arts says women are being held back in classical music – by deliberate prejudice.

And London’s Southbank Centre artistic director Jude Kelly says – although orchestras are full of female musicians, the peak of the profession is still “a place of too great an absence for women.”

Kelly’s comments have added to a debate fanned last year by some eminent male conductors insisting there was no place for women on the podium.

That preceded the historic appearence in London of American conductor Marin Alsop as the first female conductor of “The Last Night of The Proms”.

London’s Southbank 2014-15 season includes work by several female composers including Stevie Wishart and Anna Clyne.