I haven’t written many blog posts for a while, but through research for my MA dissertation last year, I came across some really interesting stories of women’s orchestras which I thought would be worth sharing. Since it’s Women’s History Month I thought I’d start now and share a blog a month until next March on one of the many women’s orchestras that have existed throughout history and in the modern day.
To give you an indication of women’s orchestras across the world throughout history I’ve included the graph used in my dissertation. It visualises the timeline of women’s orchestras across the world, including symphony, chamber, string and wind orchestras. It is not an exhaustive list but is representative based on the available literature. There is difficulty in defining when orchestras start or end, whether based on initial conception, rehearsals or performances, which may account for occasional discrepancies between sources. Orchestras with only a start date specified fade out after an average number of years active have passed, determined using available data. Orchestras currently active are indicated with a wavy end border. Each orchestra is colour coded according to the country they were founded and active in.
There’s not much information on the very early women’s orchestras, other than the fact they existed, so the first orchestra I’m going to write about is the Women’s Symphony Orchestra of Chicago (WSOC), founded in 1925.
There are many reasons why women’s orchestras formed which I’m not going to go into now, but essentially, in the early 1900s women were barred from symphony orchestras due to resistance against women working outside the home. Women responded to this exclusion and lack of opportunities by founding and playing in all-female ensembles. WSOC was even the second women’s orchestra to be founded just in Chicago, following the Chicago Women’s Symphony Orchestra which was founded in 1924.
After its foundation in 1925, WSOC played its first concert in 1926. At this stage they still had to employ men to conduct and cover instruments that were hard to find female players for, but the orchestra started scholarships to redress this and soon found a qualified women to conduct in Ethel Leginska. Through the training of female instrumentalists and the programming of works by female composers they offered the city something new, something that Chicago Symphony Orchestra itself didn’t offer.
WSOC performed in festivals, parks and on the radio, becoming so successful that in 1937, the Musician’s Union demanded the orchestra be rated as professionals and that women be paid union scale: $5 per concert (half of what Chicago Symphony Orchestra players earned), and $2 per rehearsal. However, this put financial strains on the orchestra, prompting them to host fundraising campaigns to meet the shortfall. Some reporters claimed WSOC didn’t need to pay its members since it was only comprised of housewives, grandmothers and high school girls.
WSOC faced further change after the board decided to fire conductor Ebba Sundstrom, a move critics favoured, saying “evidently, the Women’s Symphony orchestra has been waiting for the day when a man would stand before them and take matters into his own hands”. The following season was conducted mostly by men, and the press attributed WSOC’s success to this fact, thus perpetuating the prejudice female conductors already faced and shutting the doors to further opportunities for them.
Izler Solomon (a male conductor) was hired as the next permanent conductor in 1939 and was praised for his “unbelievable transfiguration” of the orchestra. He was quoted saying women’s orchestras need a man to conduct because “they take orders better from a man”, and admitted three men to play double bass, preferring not to engage inferior players who happened to be women.
WSOC scaled down their number of concerts due to WWII, and many members found work in other orchestras due to wartime absence of male personnel. The advancement in opportunities for lots of women during the war contributed to many women’s orchestras folding over this time.
WSOC disbanded in 1947 after further financial struggles, but knew that they had been successful in achieving their aims of improving opportunities for women to play and learn orchestral repertoire to a professional standard.
If you enjoyed this blog please feel free to get in touch to ask more about women’s orchestras, or request my full dissertation to read.
References:
Brown, Rae Linda (1993). ‘The Woman's Symphony Orchestra of Chicago and Florence B. Price's Piano Concerto in One Movement’, American Music, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Summer, 1993), pp. 185-205.
Dempf, Linda (2006). ‘The Women’s Symphony Orchestra of Chicago’, Notes, Second Series, Vol. 62, No. 4, pp 857-903.
Noriega, Maria L. (2010). The Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra and the Emergence of Women as Orchestral Musicians in Canada (1940-1965). M.A. Thesis, University of Calgary.
Women’s Symphony Orchestra of Chicago (1948). ‘Women’s Symphony Orchestra of Chicago records, 1929-1948’, Chicago History Museum, WorldCat. Available at: https://www.worldcat.org/title/709937788 (Accessed: 22nd June 2023).
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