![]() ![]() In 2019, the Boston Symphony settled a lawsuit in which the principal flutist of the orchestra said she was being paid less than a male colleague, the principal oboist. Fewer women got the best-paid principal positions, and some who did found that they earned far less than their male counterparts. Sexism was widespread in the industry (the maestro Zubin Mehta, who opined in 1970 that he still did not think women should be in orchestras because they “ become men,” was named the orchestra’s music director six years later). By 1992, there were 29 women in the orchestra.Įven as representation increased, however, female musicians often faced discrimination. The orchestra’s move toward blind auditions in the 1970s was seen as making the process fairer. Often described as the first woman to become a permanent member of the orchestra, she was at the vanguard of a pioneering group of female artists who opened doors for other women to join. Then, in 1966, Orin O’Brien, a double bassist, was hired as the Philharmonic’s first female section player. She departed in 1932, and the orchestra became an all-male bastion again for decades. It was not until 1922 that the Philharmonic hired its first female member, Stephanie Goldner, a 26-year-old harpist from Vienna. (In “Philharmonic: A History of New York’s Orchestra,” Howard Shanet wrote that during the 19th century, the ensemble’s public rehearsals on Friday afternoons were popular with “unaccompanied ladies who could venture forth by day with more propriety than they could by night.”) At the time of its founding in 1842, women were not only discouraged from pursuing careers in music - it was rare for them to attend evening concerts unless they were with men. “There are moms and pops both.”įor much of its history, the Philharmonic, the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, was closed off to women. “It’s more of a family now,” said Sherry Sylar, associate principal oboe, who joined the orchestra in 1984. Meaningful demographic change can take decades. ![]() And turnover is generally extremely slow at leading ensembles like the Philharmonic, whose players are tenured and can remain in their posts for many years. Symphony orchestras were long seen as the dominion of men. Still, many artists hailed the new prevalence of women in the Philharmonic as a significant development. That was the decade it began holding blind auditions, with musicians trying out by playing behind screens. The orchestra’s new female majority could prove fleeting - it currently has 16 player vacancies to fill, in part because auditions were put on hold during the pandemic - but it still represents a profound shift for an ensemble that had only five women at the beginning of the 1970s. “This has been a hard-won, long battle, and it continues to be.” “It’s a sea change,” said Cynthia Phelps, the principal viola, who joined the orchestra in 1992. That’s because there were no women in the orchestra.īut this fall, as the Philharmonic opens its newly renovated home, David Geffen Hall, its players have returned not only to more equitable facilities backstage, but to a milestone onstage: For the first time in its 180-year history, the women in the Philharmonic outnumber the men, 45 to 44. When the New York Philharmonic moved to Lincoln Center in 1962, its new hall had no women’s dressing rooms. ![]()
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