It is interesting to note that shortly after the 8:00 mark, the timpanist shown is Elayne Jones, a Julliard graduate who later played in the New York City Opera, the American Symphony under Stokowski, and in 1972 became the timpanist for the San Francisco Symphony.
After graduating from Julliard, she spent the summer of 1943 at Tanglewood on a scholarship, and thus played timpani under Koussevitsky. She later recalled that the all-male BSO, annoyed that she was female (and black), continually tried to sabotage her. For instance, they would try to distract her so she'd be unable to count the measures of rest in her music. Her tenure at the San Francisco Symphony was also contentious. She ended up suing the orchestra in 1976 for $1.5 million in damages after being denied tenure. >From "Notable Black Musicians" by Jessie Carney Smith: On December 20th, 1977, Jones wrote the following to her friends and sponsors: "This is probably the most painful letter I have ever had to write....My endeavor to expose racism has been thwarted. Summary judgment has been granted; the case was dismissed." As New York Times music journalist Donal Henahan had written on September 7th, 1975, "The cause of orchestral democracy, while still breathing strongly, has felt the heavy hand of "I'm All Right, Jack' Unionism pressing against its windpipe. Bad show, all around." She is featured in the documentary "Thoth", which mainly concerns her son Stephen. The documentary can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGVGwpxg7yA - Michael Henry ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:19:06 -0500 (EST) From: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Hornlist] Tanglewood sometime in the 1940s To: [email protected] Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Anybody know who the young composer is, conducting the student orchestra in his own work under the eye of Maestros de Carvalho and Koussevitsky? Emory Waters 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
