Orin O'Brien, 31, the newest member of the New York Philharmonic, scurried into Philharmonic Hall one rainy night last week and, ignoring the musicians' locker room, got dressed in a washroom. It was not a hazing rite. Indeed, no rookie has ever been so warmly accepted by the orchestra; to a man they say, "Orin is one of the boys." Only Orin is one of the girls—the only girl, in fact, in the 104-member orchestra, a situation unique at the Philharmonic, so there is yet no place for her to dress.
Miss O'Brien, who is as curvy as the double bass she plays, does not mind. On tour, the men make up for it by falling all over themselves to carry her bags, and save her a seat on the bus. More than that, she is justifiably proud of breaking the sex barrier at the Philharmonic, which, apart from female harpists, has never in its 125-year history hired a woman musician fulltime. As it is, Orin struggled through ten years and several auditions before she finally won the job this year over 33 men bass players.
Rare Birds. Elsewhere in the U.S., lady musicians are having a heyday. The Cleveland Orchestra now has 11, the San Francisco 17, the Houston 25 and the American Symphony 44. Trombonist Betty Glover, 43, adds class to the brass of the Cincinnati Symphony; Helen Taylor, 24, plays a mean English horn for the Houston Symphony. The rare bird in the Los Angeles aviary is Barbara Winters, 28, who, to produce the needed penetrating sounds from her oboe, must pit her trim 120 lbs. against male fellow oboists who average a burly-chested 200 Ibs. To maintain the exceptional breath control necessary to control her contrary instrument, Winters swims and works out daily at a gym. "It leaves me almost no time for social life," she says. "I'd hate to think what I would do if I were married."
Peggy Lucchesi, mother of three, hauls around two 35-lb, timpani and beats the big bass drum for the San Francisco Symphony. While most married symphony women practice the "offbeat rhythm method"—that is, plan their babies for delivery during the off-season—Peggy merrily pounds away on her drum practically right into the labor room. Before her last delivery, the boys in the band room were betting that the baby would be born with its hands clapped over its ears.
Telltale Clicking. Despite the undeniable excellence of the ladies, some men musicians and conductors still view them with a wary eye. They subscribe to Sir Thomas Beecham's dictum: "If she is attractive, I can't perform with her; if she is not, then I won't." Lady-Killer Zubin Mehta, 30, who appreciates a well-turned ankle as much as a well-played musical phrase, has different reasons. He has enforced a limit of 16 women in his Los Angeles Philharmonic, because "a woman's life in the orchestra is not as long as a man's; she is just not as good at 60 as a man is at 60."