Leigh Gill replies to Don Satz:

>>There's obvious merit in Leighton's comments, but I find it significant to
>>keep in mind that the VPO's discrimination against women is the "source"
>>problem, while the Women's Philharmonic's motivation has been to help
>>redress the situation.
>
>If the Women's Philharmonic is opposed to sexism, the way for it to combat
>it is not with more sexism.  However, it seems to be opposed only to sexism
>against women, and is perfectly willing to practice sexism against men.

It's simply a crummy situation all around.  We keep getting these weird
"solutions" because too few people are willing to address root causes.
As I say, I'm not all that big on the VPO in any case, since I'm not all
that wild about hearing them repeat repertoire I already know.  I'm also
not big on their rhythm.  They vary widely, depending on who leads them.
The nonsense that they are the Greatest Orchestra in the World remains
nonsense, since one needs to take into account too many impossible factors
to begin to make a comparison, and even then it winds up a question of "one
man's meat." On the other hand, "all-girl" orchestras seem just as silly as
"stag only." In neither case do you have the best person available for the
seat.  And the reasons the VPO have given for keeping women out - "they're
troublemakers," "they engender intrigues" - sound like Ricky Riccardo
keepin' Lucy out of the show.

The VPO is essentially like the New Orleans Pilots Association.  It's a
club of very competent people, but a club nevertheless.  There is exactly
one member of NOPA not born in Louisiana.  He passed all his exams (among
the questions: draw the river from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, with all
salient marine features) every time he applied for membership, and still
it took him several years, passed over for cronies and relatives.  The
same thing goes on in the VPO.  The members *like* it that way.  It's
gemuetlich.  However, why should the VPO or the NOPA get public support,
as both do? If the answer is "quality," then it seems to me the public is
entitled to the most qualified for the buck, and you ensure that only with
rigorously blind auditions.  If, on the other hand, either one is willing
to forego public money, they can have an all-dog orchestra, for all I care.

The question of whether - until the Messiah comes - we should have
all-girl orchestras comes down to the issue of whether women musicians can
make a living as easily as males or if they have a harder time, due solely
to their sex.  Statistics seem to bear out the latter, not that everybody's
getting rich from performing classical music.  It's like the ghetto of the
All-Modern or All-American concert.  It has all the disadvantages of the
ghetto, but without such affairs, you tend not to hear this music in
concert at all.  Without such organizations, do women get hired in
commensurate numbers with equally-qualified males? If you don't have these,
should the women simply starve, go back to birthin' babies, or become
lawyers instead (perish the thought)?

And, speaking solely as a pig, I like being able to look at large
aggragations of (especially) young women without somebody calling a cop -
the appeal of Ina Ray Hutton's All-Girl Band.  The music is lagniappe.

Steve Schwartz