I have been able to determine that the film has to have been made in the summer of 1949. I noticed the African-American timpanist in the student orchestra and figured that she must be Elayne Jones (given the relative rarity of African-Americans pursuing classical music training and the equal rarity of female timpanists back in those days, there weren't a lot of other candidates to choose from). I had this hunch because I remembered seeing the American Symphony Orchestra in its early years when Stokowski was still in charge and Elayne was the timpanist in that ensemble, which was still some cause for comment, even in the late 1960s and early 70s. I searched down some biographical information on her (she's still alive and playing a bit out on the west coast, though in her 80s) and it was revealed that she attended Tanglewood in the summer of 1949. Her story is pretty interesting and not a little controversial. She was hired by the San Francisco Symphony, but was denied tenure when her time came up. As it happened she and the only Asian musician (bassoonist Ryohei Nakagawa) were the only members not given tenure out of a fairly large group eligible at the time. Lawsuits followed and she pursued a freelance career of playing, including being timpanist for the S. F. Opera and teaching, but was not reinstated in the S. F. O. Given the amount and level of testimonials on her behalf over the years, it appears that justice was not served in this case.
If this is at all an area of interest to you, you can get a bit more information through these links: http://bit.ly/bQb2rs http://bit.ly/6E9E0S http://bit.ly/hRLvBf Cheers, Peter Hirsch In a message dated 12/11/2010 1:50:38 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, [email protected] writes: This was brought to my attention on the audio archivist's list. Though it is not specifically about the horn, this might be of interesting to the historically minded on this list. There are shots of the Boston Symphony and Tanglewood student orchestra horn sections and I would be interested in hearing if any of the student horn players can be identified. I don't have any information in front of me at the moment about the BSO horns, but I believe Valkenier was still active in the Koussevitzky era and I think it is him leading the section, though I would be happy if someone,who knows better lets me know I'm wrong. It is almost 20 minutes long and the narration is in french, but it does have a complete performance of Egmont Overture by the BSO, a whole movement of a work for chorus and orchestra by Randall Thomson and lost of "candid" shots of life at Tanglewood. Most of the horn-related stuff is in the first half in case you have a short attention span and want to move on before it is over. http://www.ina.fr/video/VDD09016050/tanglewood-ecole-et-festival-de-musique . fr.html Enjoy, Peter Hirsch _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
