Happy Friday!
I hope you've had an enjoyable week and are ready for Halloween and November. And for those living in the U.S. (except Arizona), this weekend we set the clocks back to standard time. It will be nice to have it light earlier in the morning, but I admit that I am partial to daylight savings time because I am not much of a morning person. Evening daylight suits me fine! (This is a controversial topic and as a neurologist I should have the opposite opinion.)
I visited a dear friend in Los Angeles after the meeting that I participated in last weekend. After having a fantastic dinner, we were surfing the channels on Netflix and came across a short documentary called "The Only Woman in the Orchestra". We looked at each other, smiled, said "yes!" and were compelled to watch it. It tells the story of Orin O'Brien, the first female musician in the New York Philharmonic. The film, which won Best Documentary Short Film at the 97th Academy Awards, was directed and co-produced by Molly O'Brien. Coincidence? Not at all. Molly is the head of documentary at NBC News Studios and Orin's niece.
Orin O'Brien was born in Hollywood, California in 1935 to two actors. George O'Brien began his career as a stunt man and his first starring role was in The Man Who Came Back (1924) followed by The Iron Horse, which was a huge success. He continued to make movies for John Ford including the lead in East Side, West Side. He also starred in Westerns. He enlisted in the Navy in WWII, then served in the Naval Reserve, retiring with the rank of captain. Orin's mother, Marguerite Churchill, was a child actress and debuted on Broadway on Christmas Day 1922, one day shy of her 12th birthday. She appeared in more than 25 films, including as the leading lady to John Wayne in The Big Trail. She also starred with her husband in several films. Her last movie was released in 1950. She and O'Brien were divorced in 1948, when Orin was 13.
Orin played piano for 10 years before taking up the double bass; she chose the double bass because it was an ensemble instrument. Music helped her escape from the flying emotions in the household surrounding her parents' divorce. She attended college at UCLA for a year then moved to New York City to study double bass at Julliard with Frederick Zimmerman, who was a member of the NY Phil.
She was a member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra from 1956-1966 (George Balachine was the choreographer and Igor Stravinsky composed pieces for them). She also performed with the Metropolitan Opera and the American Symphony Orchestra. She joined the NY Phil in 1966 under the direction of Leonard Bernstein (who is featured in the documentary using historical footage), beating out 33 other candidates who auditioned. (Disappointingly, before depicting O'Brien being hired by Bernstein, the film shows footage of Zubin Mehta saying that women had no place in the orchestra. Somehow, he got over that...)
An article in a local newspaper (possibly the New York Times) described her coming in to work and getting dressed in the washroom rather than the musicians' locker room. She was accepted by the men in the orchestra who described her as "one of the boys". She was quite attractive, "as curvy as the double bass she plays" and her fellow orchestra members offered to carry her bags and save her a seat on the bus while on tour. However, she never let a man carry her double bass.
"Lenny" Berstein greatly influenced and inspired Orin's musical life – she spent 55 years in the NY Philharmonic – and Orin describes him as "the greatest musical explainer...that ever lived". She played all nine Mahler symphonies with him and teaches them to her students the way Berstein conducted it. The documentary shows her instructing her students, who were her surrogate children as she never married. Her other children may have been her 6 double basses.
Orin stated repeatedly in the documentary that playing the double bass in the orchestra supports everything else that is going on, and that playing something together is better than playing something alone. Indeed, her philosophy is that the key to enjoying life is playing second fiddle (I didn't make that up). She never wanted to be in the limelight like her parents and comes across as a very humble person who is dedicated to her art. When her niece first approached her about making the documentary, Orin initially turned her down because she didn't want the attention, then reconsidered because Molly, her only living relative, was directing.
The film is only 35 minutes long but is so rich and inspiring. Check it out.
Have a great weekend!
Deb
Berstein once told O'Brien something to the effect of his being able to do moves while conducting that would be inappropriate to do on the streets. You be the judge. (And Orin was right – I couldn't find any video of the NY Phil that showed the bass section for longer than a second.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=422-yb8TXj8