My blog-league Judith Dobrzynski over at Real Clear Arts sent this my way earlier today. I’ll be going, namely because it occurred to me that I’ve never seen/heard an orchestra musician–man or woman–speak publicly about his or her career. Strange, yes? The panel is at the Brooklyn Museum on June 13th, and is free with museum admission.
Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art Presents Panel Discussion on Pioneering Female Classical MusiciansPanelists Include Orin O’Brien, the First Woman Appointed to a Position in a U.S. OrchestraA panel discussion titled “Groundbreakers and Music Makers: The First Generation of Orchestral Women” will take place on Sunday, June 13, from 2 to 4 p.m., at the Brooklyn Museum. Presented by the Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, the event will be held in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium and is free with Museum admission.
The panelists include musicians Jacqui Danilow, Laura Flax, and Orin O’Brien, the first woman appointed to a position in a U.S. orchestra (by New York Philharmonic Music Director Leonard Bernstein), telling how they have risen to the top of their field in the competitive, male-dominated arena of classical music. Each participant will describe her journey as a musician, her challenges, her accomplishments, her plans for the future, and how she sees the path of upcoming professional female musicians as different from her own and from the women who preceded her.
Why don’t orchestras publicize their musicians’ unique stories more often? And something somewhat related I’ve been wondering for a while: do orchestra musicians have orchestra e mail addresses?
Not to put down Orin O’Brien in any way. Maybe there’s a distinction to be made in calling her the first woman to be “appointed” to a position in an American orchestra, and I don’t know the details of her appointment, which Wikipedia states occurred in 1966. It does need to pointed out, though, that Doriot Anthony Dwyer won (by audition) the position of 2nd flute in the L.A. Philharmonic in 1946; subsequently, she won (also by audition) the position of Principal Flute in the Boston Symphony in 1952.
Sounds like a great panel, but I believe that Doriot Anthony Dwyer was appointed principal flutist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra about 14 years before Orin O’Brien was appointed to her position in the New York Philharmonic.