Washington Post 9/22/76
MORE MUSIC
By Judith Martin

The number of women who play in major American symphony orchestras has increased by 36 per cent in the last decade, according to a report by the American Symphony Orchestra League to be published in the next issue of Symphony News.

In th 1964-65 season, there were 433 women among the 2,357 musicians employed by orchestras with budgets of $1 million or more; in the 1974-75 season, the figure is 589 women out of 3,369 musicians.

However, in the Nationl Symphony orchestras, and in the superstar orchestras in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, the figure is much lower. Washington's orchestra employs 97 musicians, of whom 12 are women. A third of them are in the second violin section.

Some orchestras have used the practice of screened auditions to avoid racial or sexual discrimination, said Benjamin Dunham, publisher of Symphony News. They have even gone so far as to ask applicants to remove their shoes because judges have sharp ears and can easily pick up the sound difference between high and low heels when applicants enter the audition area.

The study, commissioned by the Arts and Humanities Committee of the National Committee for the Obserance of International Women's Year also looked at metropolitan orchestras budgets from $1000,000 to $1 million, urban orchestras ($50,000 to $100,000), and community orchestras (under $50,000). The lower the budget, the shorter the season and the lower the salary, the more likely the orchestra is to employ a high percentage of women, they found.

However, Dunham points out that the most prestigious orchestras have the lowest turnover rates, and therefore fewer opportunities for affirmative action in hiring women. "In 1974, Boston hired a 23-year-old trumpet player, and the last time that they had hired a trumpeter this one hadn't even been born."

He felt that the employment statistics were impressive because the number of actual musicians employed remained almost the same for the decade. This meant that women were taking over jobs formerly held by men -- not just being given a chance of newly created jobs in an exanding situation.

No major symphony orchestras have women as music directors, although they reported that six community orchestras do and there are two assistant conductors of metropolitan orchestras who are women. The study did not cover opera orchestras, such as those in which Sarah Caldwell, Eve Queler and Judith Somogyi conduct.

More than 60 of the 539 women in major orchestras now are principals or section leaders, and the figure has risen in smaller orchestras.