Orchestras: Ladies’ Day

Orin O’Brien, 31, the newest member of the New York Philharmonic, scurried into Philharmonic Hall one rainy night last week and, ignoring the musicians’ locker room, got dressed in a washroom. It was not a hazing rite. Indeed, no rookie has ever been so warmly accepted by the orchestra; to a man they say, “Orin is one of the boys.” Only Orin is one of the girls—the only girl, in fact, in the 104-member orchestra, a situation unique at the Philharmonic, so there is yet no place for her to dress.

Miss O’Brien, who is as curvy as the double bass she plays, does not mind. On tour, the men make up for it by falling all over themselves to carry her bags, and save her a seat on the bus. More than that, she is justifiably proud of breaking the sex barrier at the Philharmonic, which, apart from female harpists, has never in its 125-year history hired a woman musician fulltime. As it is, Orin struggled through ten years and several auditions before she finally won the job this year over 33 men bass players.

Rare Birds. Elsewhere in the U.S., lady musicians are having a heyday. The Cleveland Orchestra now has 11, the San Francisco 17, the Houston 25 and the American Symphony 44. Trombonist Betty Glover, 43, adds class to the brass of the Cincinnati Symphony; Helen Taylor, 24, plays a mean English horn for the Houston Symphony. The rare bird in the Los Angeles aviary is Barbara Winters, 28, who, to produce the needed penetrating sounds from her oboe, must pit her trim 120 lbs. against male fellow oboists who average a burly-chested 200 Ibs. To maintain the exceptional breath control necessary to control her contrary instrument, Winters swims and works out daily at a gym. “It leaves me almost no time for social life,” she says. “I’d hate to think what I would do if I were married.”

Peggy Lucchesi, mother of three, hauls around two 35-lb, timpani and beats the big bass drum for the San Francisco Symphony. While most married symphony women practice the “offbeat rhythm method”—that is, plan their babies for delivery during the off-season—Peggy merrily pounds away on her drum practically right into the labor room. Before her last delivery, the boys in the band room were betting that the baby would be born with its hands clapped over its ears.

Telltale Clicking. Despite the undeniable excellence of the ladies, some men musicians and conductors still view them with a wary eye. They subscribe to Sir Thomas Beecham’s dictum: “If she is attractive, I can’t perform with her; if she is not, then I won’t.” Lady-Killer Zubin Mehta, 30, who appreciates a well-turned ankle as much as a well-played musical phrase, has different reasons. He has enforced a limit of 16 women in his Los Angeles Philharmonic, because “a woman’s life in the orchestra is not as long as a man’s; she is just not as good at 60 as a man is at 60.”

San Francisco’s Josef Krips did not care if they were 60 or 16; he was an antifeminist for years, only recently claimed conversion when he hired a trio of “wonderful girls who play like angels.” But some of the women think differently, grumble privately about the insulting way he bunches them all in the middle of the orchestra so they won’t be seen. Boston’s Erich Leinsdorf requires that auditioning musicians play for him behind a screen, lest his eyes influence his ears; prospective members are cautioned not to talk and to enter on tiptoe, so the telltale clicking of their heels will not give them away.

Most musicians agree that women are all right in their place—just as long as that place is not the first desk, a position that gives them authority over the other players in their section. When that happens, egos get bruised. Says a woman who is a first cellist: “How do I tell an older man that he consistently comes in early on bar 24?” The majority of conductors avoid such problems by refusing to promote women to the first desk; one noted maestro once told a string player that she played better than any of his men, but alas, “your pants are too short.”

Band-Room Barbs. There is also a longstanding belief among impresarios that for psychological reasons, audiences do not respond so well to women players, because the “conflict and domination” struggle with an instrument is strictly man’s work. When attractive Doriot Dwyer was appointed first flutist of the Boston Symphony 14 years ago, one proper Brahmin sent her a package with a letter demanding that she hide her exposed ankles with the enclosed pair of thick grey stockings. She demurred, and at least one Boston man is glad; since the arrival of the ladies, he has taken to watching the concerts through binoculars.

Some musicians complain that women are emotionally ill tuned to the rigors of symphony life and that they play erratically during menstruation or when they are concerned about family problems. The American Symphony’s Elayne Jones, 38, surmounted three handicaps: she is a woman, a timpanist and a Negro. When she appeared with the Symphony of the Air a few years ago, she says, “two guys walked out after I walked in.” In the Detroit Symphony’s band room, Harpist Elyze Yockey, 37, is forever hearing somebody mutter, “Why don’t you stay home and take care of your babies?” (She has two.) One man expressed his disapproval of his curvaceous desk mate by twisting the tuning pegs of her cello until it sounded like a sick cat.

Respect, Not Money. All of this only makes the girls work harder. Philadelphia Cellist Elsa Hilger, 62, who in 1935 became one of the first women ever to play with a major U.S. orchestra, feels that she is “one of the gang.” She insists upon carrying her own bags, does not mind the bothersome business of changing behind trunks and fussing with her wardrobe while on tour (harpists find that pleated skirts stay neatly pressed if wound through the strings of their instruments). Says Boston’s Leinsdorf: “Uniformly, the women’s pride is so great that their attendance record is better than the men’s. They have my utmost respect.” But women rarely get the utmost money, and most orchestra managers freely admit that given equal talent, they will hire the breadwinning man over the woman every time.

Yet in the face of everything, the women can tune up that one eternally winning instrument: charm. When things get tight, as Orin O’Brien explains, “you just smile and give in.” No man can cope with that, and what really counts in the end is that the girls can play exceedingly well. “Let the best man in,” declares Leinsdorf, echoing the sentiments of most of the profession. “And if the best man is a woman, let her in too.”