SignOnSanDiego.com is running an interview with hornist Julie Landsman of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York. Interestingly, the article choses to focus a lot of attention on the fact that Julie is a woman:
She still relishes the startled reaction of the all-male judging panel when she appeared from behind the screen that was used to ensure impartiality.
“They gasped. It was a beautiful moment in time. I loved it,” recalled Landsman, who performs this weekend at the Mainly Mozart Festival. “I don't think I would have won that audition if they had known I was a woman. My gut feeling is, had the screen not been there, their eyes would have affected their ears.”
The article even manages to drool over the fact that female students have success studying with Landsman:
Several of her female students – she calls them “my girls” – have joined the Met's French horn section after winning their behind-the-screen auditions.
It is really too bad that this dead horse got beaten up one more time for the article; very few people are surprised any more when a woman (*gasp*) manages to play the horn well. The readership of SignOnSanDiego.com really missed an opportunity to find out something interesting from Ms. Landsman, such as what does it feel like to be the principle horn of a major orchestra? Or how has the orchestra scene changed during the time of her tenure? Or in what ways, if any, is technology and the Internet influencing classical music?
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