Double Bassist Orin O’Brien – One of a Kind
Credit: James Estrin
A premiere of the documentary, The Only Girl In The Orchestra was recently screened at DOC NYC film festival and highlights the career of double bassist Orin O’Brien who was the first woman to be hired as a permanent section player by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic in 1966. The film was directed by her niece, Molly O’Brien, a Primetime Emmy award winner. “One of the reasons I agreed to do the film was that perhaps it would stimulate interest in the bass and in classical music in general. I wish there was orchestral playing available in every school because it is such a great, civilizing influence. Cooperation results in beautiful sound and gives us an idea of what the world could be if we had more of what music can bring,” says Orin O’Brien. She retired from the New York Philharmonic two years ago but still teaches at the Manhattan School of Music and Mannes School of Music and co-chaired the double bass department at The Juilliard School for ten years - as this 88-year-young musician continues to be a groundbreaking and inspirational force for students, musicians and just about everyone.
O’Brien’s rise began in Los Angeles and reads like a Hollywood screenplay, not surprisingly since her father, George O’Brien was a silent and sound film actor, her mother Marguerite Churchill had leading roles in films with John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Ralph Bellamy and sibling was true crime author Darcy O’Brien. While at Beverly Hills High School, O’Brien switched from piano to double bass, as the school orchestra needed a player, and immediately bonded with the instrument – which resulted in lessons with Milton Kestenbaum, of whom she shared a stand with in the Pasadena Symphony for a couple of years while he helped show her the ropes of orchestral playing.
Kestenbaum suggested O’Brien continue studies at The Juilliard School with Frederick Zimmermann, so the 19 year-old went to New York where she also began moonlighting as an usher at Carnegie Hall for two years, which gave her an opportunity to observe different conductors and hear different orchestras. Zimmermann encouraged her to audition for the New York Philharmonic, which she did during her third year at The Juilliard School but despite a successful showing was not chosen. She comments that her audition letter included the sentences, ‘Dear Mr. O’Brien, your time is Saturday at 9:30 am. You will play a solo and then there will be sight-reading.’ O’Brien says that at that time screens were not used in audition situations and that during the 1970’s, orchestras compiled a list of required repertoire rather than the sight-reading of different pieces, symphonies or tone poems.
“After the audition I began getting work around New York and the bassist who won the audition with the New York Philharmonic had been a member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra and recommended me to the conductor there, to try out a new bassist. I played there for two weeks, was hired and played ten years until I joined the New York Philharmonic in 1966.” By the way, O’Brien’s around town gigs during pre-New York Philharmonic years included Radio City Music Hall, the Metropolitan Opera orchestra in Wagner’s Ring cycle conducted by Erich Leinsdorf and Don Giovanni in which she climbed into an onstage tower with bass, wearing a costume and wig to play in the stage band. “I was very happy to be working. When I joined the New York Philharmonic with Bernstein I had played Falstaff with him at the Met, so it was very exciting and I knew most of the musicians by name, some of them had been in the New York City Ballet Orchestra with me, so they welcomed me as a fellow professional.”
O’Brien is an advocate for double bass players coming out of the orchestral shadows and into the mainstream of string instruments, as she explains that her instructor at The Juilliard School was considered the go-to source in the United States for studying the instrument.
“The main reason I teach is because my great teacher Frederick Zimmermann, who was a member of the New York Philharmonic from 1930-1966 believed that a noble instrument should be nobly regarded. He taught our instrument in the same way a great cellist or violinist teaches. He taught a very specific way of using the bow for control and expressiveness. And he insisted that etudes be a great part of your training and divided each lesson into three parts: solo pieces, technique such as etudes and bowing exercises, and orchestral works to prepare for the main obligation we have; to play expertly and musically anything we have in the orchestral literature.”
O’Brien’s accomplishments as chamber musician are equally impressive and include performances at the Marlboro Music Festival in recordings with Pablo Casals, a solo as principal bass of the American Symphony Orchestra in Ginastera’s Variaciones Concertantes and premiere of Gunther Schuller’s Quartet for Four Double Basses, which she recorded with Zimmermann and two of his students with Schuller conducting. “Bassists do not have the intense string quartet training that every other string player has. Bassists are lucky if they get to play Schubert’s so-called Trout quintet and maybe the Octet.” She mentions that Zimmermann arranged three volumes of double bass trios and quartets of various musical periods because he thought students should have the experience of learning about a variety of elements such as intonation matching, rhythmic precision and when to play out or subdue a line.
While in California, O’Brien attended the Music Academy of the West summer program and festival from 1952-1955. In recognition of her work, she was recipient of their Distinguished Alumni Award in 2015. Her fond memories include playing in the Academy Festival Orchestra, listening to master classes of Lotte Lehmann and playing in chamber music ensembles coached by Henri Temianka and Gabor Rejto - an historic time in the school’s 76-year history. “My first summer at the Music Academy was a revelation to me. I look back on this time and realize that I had found my tribe. Everyone there shared the same interests – we all wanted to play music 24 hours a day and I volunteered to play the cello part on the bass if a trio was missing the instrument.”
O’Brien first came to the Music Academy at age 17 and remembers being housed in a sorority house at the University of California, Santa Barbara with thirteen other girls sharing two bathrooms - and had three cellist roommates. “I had just begun serious study of the bass as I had played piano for ten years, and right away began studying with Kestenbaum who saw that I needed a lot of help, so he started me with the basics and on a bass I had borrowed from my high school.” Obviously a quick study, O’Brien comments that as a member of the Academy Festival Orchestra she rehearsed and played under several outstanding conductors such as Richard Lert, Alexander Hilsberg and Maurice Abravanel – who chose extraordinary repertoire like Strauss’ Don Juan, Debussy’s L’enfant prodigue and Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos with a guest appearance by soprano Marni Nixon, the singing voice for leading actresses in soundtracks like My Fair Lady, The King and I and West Side Story.
Lert was born in Vienna and held prestigious posts with orchestras in Germany. O’Brien adds that his father was a friend of Brahms and that “he immigrated to California during the late 1930’s and his wife was the famous writer Vicky Baum who wrote the novel Grand Hotel. They were able to come to Los Angeles because she had a contract to write a screen play for the film – and he became conductor of the Pasadena Symphony.” While at the Music Academy, O’Brien audited Lotte Lehmann’s weekly opera and lieder classes and says, “She was magnificent, the singers were mesmerized and there were some great voices that came out of her classes.” And she attended Lert’s Beethoven conducting class and recalls, “Every young conductor there had to play on the piano four-hand versions of the symphonies. It was a revelation and I still remember Lert teaching them that you don’t learn anything by conducting a great orchestra. You should go to a college or a young orchestra and teach them how to play. A professional orchestra will play well no matter how you conduct. I thought of those words many times when the New York Philharmonic had a less than sterling conductor on the podium, and we still played perfectly and better than what the conductor could do.”
Before returning for subsequent summers at the Music Academy, O’Brien continued studies with Kestenbaum at the University of California, Los Angeles where she was a member of the school’s orchestra under Lukas Foss and opera orchestra with Jan Popper – in addition to playing in the Pasadena Symphony. The experience she gained was a plus as she returned to Santa Barbara as principal bass of the Music Academy orchestra and as librarian. She says, “Hilsberg was a conductor no one mentions today, yet he was respected and an excellent musician. He acted as if the Music Academy orchestra was a professional group and every rehearsal was thorough and serious.”
O’Brien continues, “At the end of the summer, he invited me to become a member of the New Orleans Philharmonic, of which he was Music Director. I had been responsible for giving him his scores and baton before each rehearsal, and I guess he thought I was very interested, which I was. I thanked him but told him I needed more study because I knew I didn’t know enough yet.” She also reflects that during her last summer at the Music Academy Abravanel was conductor, “and quite different from Lert and Hilsberg, who were more in the German-Russian tradition. I know musicians in the New York Philharmonic who worked with Abravanel at Tanglewood and really enjoyed his work.”
More recollections of O’Brien’s Music Academy days include Piatigorsky giving lectures, “holding a cello in one hand and telling marvelous stories about music and all the great musicians he had known,” playing Baroque concerti in a small chamber orchestra led by Temianka and performing a Baroque sonata in Rejto’s cello class that contained his students from the Eastman School of Music. “At that time, there were no bass classes there, just lessons.”
Apparently, a etter O’Brien received regarding her first audition to the New York Philharmonic referred to her as Mr., which further illustrates the fact that this orchestra and others have come a long way in recognizing that there is always room for talent, regardless of gender. As such, the New York Philharmonic became a trendsetter in hiring harpist Stephanie Goldner in 1922, who became the first female member, and in 1997 the fabled Vienna Philharmonic got with the program and hired a female harpist. Nowadays, any orchestra worth its salt has female members in section or principal positions. O’Brien states that she never thought about breaking the glass ceiling. “The female aspect of the situation did not occur to me since the playing of an audition itself was a huge undertaking for anyone – the hours and years of preparation, not knowing what music they could ask you to play. Even though I saw that there were no women in the orchestra at that time, my teacher kept insisting that if you play well enough, they will accept you.”
O’Brien reiterates that Zimmermann was the main reason she considered auditioning for the New York Philharmonic in addition to encouragement from colleagues in the New York City Ballet Orchestra. “I just wanted to be able to practice enough so I could do exactly what I knew was correct. I didn’t think of anything else. The publicity that resulted was a bit shocking to me and seemed superficial in that I was never asked about my musical experience or background.” No need to ask any more questions about why Orin O’Brien is one of a kind.