 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: leporellina
Date: 2011-09-30 09:29
Hi Phurster,
As far as I understood this article was published in 1996. Things have changed since then, even in an orchestra as full of tradition as the Vienna Philharmonic. Of course, women can't be satisfied as long as it is still worth being published whether the position of a principal violin, clarinet or any other instrument is held by a woman. It has to become naturally normal that the "best fit" for the job is not influenced by the gender, so no journalist can see a story in that. And that will still take some time in Vienna, even though three major orchestras have at least one female concert master, including the Vienna Philharmonic.
But in my opinion, it is not of any help in that process to bring up outdated and thus polemic articles.
BTW, the clarinet section of the Vienna Philharmonic sounds great, although they are only men ;-)
Best regards,
Katja
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2011-09-30 14:27
It's not what it was (back in '96), but, as with ANY orchestra the opportunities to replace personnel ar few and far between. Even if policies were completely changed it'd be a good 30 years to see real results. What'd you expect, that they'd fire everyone and run new auditions for every seat? That only happens in Brazil ...
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Author: kdk
Date: 2011-09-30 14:54
I haven't yet had time to read the entire article carefully and may have missed things in the writer's story that leave the following reaction misguided. I will read more of it later.
I was struck by how much of his argument rests on the situation with the two Philadelphia Orchestra bassoonists, a series of events that happened 16 years ago. It involved two individuals whose professional relationship went much farther back than Vigilante's tenure in the orchestra. They had both studied with Bernard Garfield, the principal bassoonist at the time. Gigliotti had been associate principal before Vigilante joined the orchestra. They had both free-lanced in the area for some time earlier. The series of incidents, culminating in the one in the parking lot, were all written about at the time in the local newspapers. There was much more history and background involved than their having been in the orchestra section together and was certainly a personal (non-work) issue between the two players. The orchestra became involved, I suppose, because Vigilante thought it owed her some level of protection from Gigliotti. But the incidents were, from everything I read, very much "he said, she said" in nature. Very likely, adding to the orchestra's discomfort in dealing with the issue were strong personal relationships elsewhere in the orchestra - Gigliotti's father, who had only recently retired, had been principal clarinet in the orchestra for decades and a long-time colleague (and, as far as I know, friend) of Garfield, who himself must have felt very torn over how to react to the situation. Mark Gigliotti's wife at the time was, I believe, a sometimes sub in the viola section. In sum, I don't think this situation was as cut-and-dried a case of pure, institutional gender bias as it was a collection of loyalties in both directions that probably froze everyone involved and prevented anyone from wanting to take strong administrative action against anyone in a situation that was not primarily based, as far as I've ever heard, in the work place - the stage during rehearsals and concerts - even though some of the incidents Vigilante eventually complained about may have occurred there.
Of course the end result is that Vigilante's life was permanently changed. Gigliotti's has gone on, from all appearances, more or less unaffected, so I suppose someone could completely discount all the subtleties and say the male won and the bias is proved. But, unlike the systematic evidence in the European orchestras' hiring practices, this was a highly individual situation that I'm not sure can be used to prove any general theory one way or the other.
Karl
Post Edited (2011-09-30 16:22)
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