At 6:02 PM -0400 7/23/05, David W. Fenton wrote:
I remember reading somewhere recently about the change in orchestras where someone entirely attributed the increasing hiring of women entirely to the institution of blind auditions 10 or 15 years ago.
That may be correct in terms of the top tier orchestras, although I'd be inclined to place it more like 20-25 years ago. But while I can't speak for European orchestras, the process in North America started during World War II when so many younger (and not so young) players were drafted into military service. My father would have gone if not for a congenital heart defect (although he was a music educator and not an orchestral player.) And just as Rosie the Riveter went to work in factories that had never hired women except as secretaries, orchestras started discovering women players who were perfectly competent. True, it wasn't as dramatic a sociological change as on the assembly lines, since older refugees from Europe, many of them Jewish and escaping Nazi Germany, filled in quite a few orchestral chairs, but I would say that this set the scene for the use of blind auditions.
John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
