Again We Have Bernstein to Thank for "The Only Girl in the Orchestra"

 

Yesterday I treated myself to a screening of the Oscar-nominated film The Only Girl in the Orchestra, on the life of double bassist Orin O'Brien. Orin's niece, Molly O'Brien, produced and directed the film. At 30 years old, Orin auditioned for Leonard Bernstein to join the New York Philharmonic in 1966, thus becoming the first woman to perform with the ensemble.

In the film we saw several newspaper articles on her appointment. Zubin Mehta was even quoted as saying that women should not be in the orchestra.

André Watts

Again we have Leonard Bernstein to thank for appointing the first woman instrumentalist to a post in the New York Philharmonic. He also appointed the first African-American player, Jerome Ashby, in 1979. And of course we all know about what Bernstein did to launch the career of pianist André Watts in 1963.

My question is: Where are the films that document the progress of African Americans in classical music? I produced the documentary on my father's life (Matthew Kennedy: One Man's Journey) after I found the recordings and programs and international newspaper articles about him that he had been hoarding, without any intention of showing them to anyone else. It seemed as if he had lost interest in his own career. How could that be?

As James Baldwin famously said, "What the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself." My father actually believed the whites who led him to think that he was not worthy of praise or recognition as a pianist. I'll never forget the look on his face - while we were organizing the score for the film - when he heard the recording of a performance made when he was in his twenties. In the same moment, he began to question the white individuals who told him that he was not worthy of a concert career. He believed them because he could not afford to distrust them at the time. They had him totally brainwashed.

Recently I attended the Zora Neale Hurston Summit at Barnard College. My dear friend, anthropologist and historian Chadra Pittman, was a participant. I went primarily to support her, but again I was gobsmacked at the genius of Zora Neale Hurston, and annoyed at how ignored she has been by the anthropological establishment. At the end of Chadra's panel, several elder African-American ladies stood and told their individual stories of how white male professors of anthropology repeatedly tried to stifle their careers. I was reminded of the discouragement I myself had received from some white males in the early years of my career. Even some white females were even more vicious. It simply shows how courageous we must be and how much perseverance we must have as black women to forge our own paths, and not listen to the naysayers.

I introduced myself to both Orin and Molly after the screening, and shared that I had participated in Bernstein's masterclass on the Mahler 5th symphony at Juilliard. Molly asked me to stay in touch. The film has inspired me to resume the production of my own documentary. We had started fundraising before the COVID pandemic, but unfortunately, most of our sources dried up. But there has been some recent interest. Now that the films on my parents are done, it's my turn!