New York Women's Symphony Orchestra

The New York Women's Symphony Orchestra is a musical group operating in New York between 1935 and 1939 . led by Antonia Briko .

Returning to the USA after receiving a conducting education and conducting debut in Berlin, Briko convinced a number of notable music and public figures throughout 1934 (including Eleanor Roosevelt , New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia , conductor Bruno Walter and teacher Briko Zygmunt Stoyovsky ) support such an extravagant project as an all-female orchestra. The recruited composition included about 80 musicians, of which the oboe player Lois Wann was most famous in the future; Briko also singled out accompanist Elfrida Mestechkin, trombone player Betty Barry, and Timpani Muriel Watson.

Each season, the orchestra gave four concerts at Carnegie Hall , completing the season with the most ambitious compositions (including Requiem Giuseppe Verdi ). The orchestra’s program also included a place for the music of American authors - in particular, the orchestra performed (1936) the premiere of Elinor Remik Warren's “Knitted on a Harp” (based on a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay ).

In 1938, Briko announced that the task - to prove that women can form an orchestra that is not inferior in level to the groups of male musicians - was completed, and transformed the orchestra into the Briko Symphony Orchestra, where she began to receive male musicians. As a result, however, the orchestra lost its appeal in the eyes of the sponsors and was dissolved in 1939.