Brooklyn Museum Hosts Feminist Art Panel Production 6/13

A panel discussion titled "Groundbreakers and Music Makers: The First Generation of Orchestral Women" will take place on Sunday, June 13, from 2 to 4 p.m., at the Brooklyn Museum. Presented by the Museum's Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, the event will be held in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium and is free with Museum admission.

The panelists include musicians Jacqui Danilow, Laura Flax, and Orin O'Brien, the first woman appointed to a position in a U.S. orchestra (by New York Philharmonic Music Director Leonard Bernstein), telling how they have risen to the top of their field in the competitive, male-dominated arena of classical music. Each participant will describe her journey as a musician, her challenges, her accomplishments, her plans for the future, and how she sees the path of upcoming professional female musicians as different from her own and from the women who preceded her.

The discussion will be moderated by Deborah Siegel, author of Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild.

About the Panelists

Jacqui Danilow has been playing double bass with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 1980. She began her musical training at the Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of Orin O'Brien and earned her Master's Degree at the Juilliard School of Music under the professorship of Homer Mensch. Starting her orchestral career in the New Jersey Symphony, She has also performed on Broadway, in the recording studio, and with numerous orchestral ensembles in the New York City area. She has held the position of principal bass with the American Symphony Orchestra, the American Composer's Orchestra, the Stamford Symphony, the Opera Orchestra of New York, and the Bard Music Festival. Danilow is a devoted music education advocate and is working to make classical orchestral music an integral part of every child's education.

Laura Flax is principal clarinetist with the New York City Opera Orchestra, the American Symphony Orchestra, and the Bard Festival Orchestra. Formerly a member of the San Francisco and San Diego symphonies, she has been a guest performer with the New York Philharmonic, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the American Composers Orchestras. She was a member of the Naumburg award- winning Da Capo Chamber Players for twenty years. She has given master classes and recitals throughout the country at institutions and chamber music societies including the Eastman School of Music, the Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society, the University of Chicago, Carnegie Recital Hall, and MIT. As a chamber artist, Flax has appeared regularly with Jaime Laredo's Chamber Music at the Y series, Suzuki and Friends in Indianapolis, Da Camera of Houston, and the Bard Music Festival. She is on the faculty of the Bard Conservatory and Juilliard Pre-College. Ms. Flax lives in New York with her twin daughters, Amalie and Fanny.

Orin O'Brien was born in Hollywood, California, to parents who were actors in theater and film. She has been a member of the New York Philharmonic since 1966- the first woman appointed to a position in a U.S. orchestra and served as acting associate principal bass during seasons 1976-77, 1984-85, and 2009-10. Ms. She has also performed with Musica Aeterna, the New York City Opera, the Martha Graham Ballet Company, the Saidenberg Little Symphony, the American Opera Society, and the Little Orchestra Society. She is Chair of the bass departments at the Manhattan School of Music and the Mannes School of Music and is the former Chair of the bass department at Juilliard School of Music. She is also a former faculty member of the Institute de Haute Etudes Musicales in Montreux, Switzerland, and has given master classes at Tanglewood, Peabody, New England Conservatory, Yale, and Hart College.

The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art is an exhibition and education facility dedicated to feminist art. The Center's mission is to raise awareness of feminism's cultural contributions, to educate new generations about the meaning of feminist art, to maintain a dynamic and welcoming learning facility, and to present feminism in an approachable and relevant way.

The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art was established through the generosity of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation.