What? A woman sitting in here for a job? Preposterous

This is Amanda Davidson.  She plays trombone in the NYPhilharmonic.  She is the first woman to play in the brass section in 168 years. There is a story about her here.
I met Evangeline Benedetti once, had dinner at her apartment along with her then husband who I met in class at Columbia. She was the first woman to get a job with the orchestra. This was 40+ years ago.

The orchestra itself is now full of women musicians.  It is so because of sheer talent of course and for a long time (not sure how it is now but I assume the same) auditions for positions were held behind a screen so they would be just on what the selection team heard and not what they saw.  No matter - this is a very hard job to get and that gender bias if there was one took a while to crack.

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