The New York Philharmonic has more women than men in its orchestra, the first since its creation in 1842. Narrowly, 45 to 44, but symbolic progress for one of America’s greatest orchestras that has made equality one of its priorities.
Deborah Borda: « All we are looking for is equity because the company is 50-50″
This very slight increase in the number of women in the orchestra of the New York Philharmonic (NYPhil) is certainly fragile because there are still 16 vacancies left but, when we know that 10 of the last 12 hires have been attributed to women, we can imagine that this balance will continue. An equality dear to the president of the New York institution, Deborah Borda, one of the rare women to conduct a large American orchestra. ” Women earn these positions fairly and without competition. All we are looking for is equity because the company is 50-50″ told the New York Times.
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It is in the violin section that women are most represented at the New York Philharmonic (27 out of 30) but the percussion section is always made up exclusively of men. And even if the presidency is held by a woman, 2/3 of the managerial positions are still occupied by men, including that of music director of Jaap van Zweden who will leave his post in 2024 and will perhaps be replaced by a woman. She would be only the third to lead one of the 25 largest American orchestras after Marin Alsop, until 2021 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the French Nathalie Stutzmann who leads the Atlanta one this year.
Women of the New York Philharmonic have only been allowed to wear pants in concert since 2018
In his article, Javier Hernandez, the journalist of New York Times recall that it was in 1922 that a woman, a harpist, was the first to be admitted to the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States but that in 1992, despite the introduction of blind auditions in the 1970s, there were only 29 inductees in the orchestra. Worse, it was only in 2018 that the New York Philharmonic changed its dress code to allow female musicians to wear trousers in concert, whereas until then they were only entitled to long skirts or long dresses (their male colleagues nicknamed them ” skirts“). After NYPhil’s return to the renovated David Geffen Hall on October 8, a new chapter in its history opens. Now, as principal oboe Sherry Sylar says, the orchestra is ” like a family. There are moms and dads”.
Philippe Gault
