A Little Estrogen at the Staatsoper

Posted at 2:15 PM on May 9, 2008 by Gillian Martin (1 Comments)

Congratulations to Albena Danailova! The Bulgarian violinist was appointed yesterday as concertmaster of the Vienna Staatsoper Orchestra. She was already a member of their first violin section, but promoting her to leader of the orchestra is significant--the Vienna Staatsoper didn't even allow women to audition until about 10 years ago.

The other interesting thing about this situation is that most members of the Vienna Staatsoper Orchestra are also members of the Vienna Philharmonic, which is even less welcoming to women. They have one, a harpist. I'm curious to see how those who are members of both orchestras will take to having a woman be the boss of them.

Read more about it here.

Comments (1)

It's about time! Most American orchestras have been welcoming women into their ranks for many years.

Posted by Lisa R | May 13, 2008 7:55 PM