Groundbreaking Female Flutist Frances Blaisdell dies at 97

NYT


March 31, 2009
Frances Blaisdell, ‘Girl Flutist’ Who Opened Doors, Dies at 97
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Frances Blaisdell, a flutist who played her way into what was then the male world of orchestral music, becoming one of the early women to play a woodwind instrument with the New York Philharmonic, died on March 11 in Portola Valley, Calif. She was 97.

Her son, John, announced her death.

In addition to playing with the Philharmonic, Ms. Blaisdell performed with prominent chamber ensembles, on Broadway, at Radio City Music Hall, in vaudeville, and with Phil Spitalny and His All-Girl Orchestra on the “Hour of Charm” on CBS and NBC radio. She also taught generations of leading flutists.

“I had lots of opportunities because I was sort of a freak, and people couldn’t imagine a girl flutist,” she said in an interview printed in The Flutist Quarterly in 2005.

Chamber Music magazine suggested in 1992 that she was considerably more than that, saying, “Every woman flute player in every major American orchestra, every little girl who pays the flute in a school band, has Frances Blaisdell to thank. She was first.”

Ms. Blaisdell had to overcome the mixed feelings of her father to become a professional; proud of her talent, he feared that as a woman, she would not survive as a player. He was in the lumber business, but his own love was the flute, and he started teaching her to play when she was 5. He wished she were a boy and called her Jim, she said in The Flutist Quarterly interview, which first appeared in the New York Flute Club newsletter. Ms. Blaisdell wrote to Ernest Wagner, a flutist with the New York Philharmonic, to ask if he would teach “Jim.”

When she appeared for her lesson, she said, Mr. Wagner refused to teach her, saying there was no future for a woman trying to play the flute in orchestras. But he finally agreed to six lessons, and then more.

Ms. Blaisdell’s father wanted her to pursue a career, but saw no future for her in music. He gave her the choice of being a teacher, nurse or secretary. She persuaded him that since she was graduating at 16, two years early, she should spend the two years pursuing her dream.

“Two years, but not another day,” he said.

So in 1928 she wrote Georges Barrère, the great French flutist, who taught at what is now Juilliard. She was given an appointment, perhaps because her name had been taken down as “Francis.” She was admitted with a scholarship.

Ms. Blaisdell later studied with two other giants of the flute, Marcel Moyse and William Kincaid. In 1941, after Barrère had a stroke, she took his place in the Barrère Trio.

In 1930, she became first flute of the National Orchestral Association and soon joined Barrère to play Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 under the baton of Walter Damrosch at Madison Square Garden. She was first flute in the New Opera Company and in the New Friends of Music.

On Nov. 26, 1932, she was the soloist with the Philharmonic at a children’s concert, playing Mozart’s Flute Concerto No. 2 in D major. Josh Marcum, a spokesman for the Philharmonic, confirmed the appearance.

But in 1937, she was refused an audition for an opening as assistant first flute of the Philharmonic because she was a woman. In 1962, she said, she became one of the first women to play a woodwind with the Philharmonic, when a piece demanded extra flutes. Mr. Marcum said this was possible, but not provable.

In 1937, Ms. Blaisdell married Alexander Williams, first clarinetist for the Philharmonic. They and three other Philharmonic players formed the Blaisdell Woodwind Quintet, which had a radio series. Mr. Williams died in 2003.

In addition to her son, Frances Louise Blaisdell is survived by her daughter, Alexandra Hawley; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Ms. Blaisdell played several concerts with the soprano Lily Pons, providing the requisite flute trills that accompany many showpieces for a coloratura soprano, and taught at the Manhattan School of Music, among other places. In 1973, she moved to California, where she taught at Stanford for 35 years.

Ms. Blaisdell adapted to the show business side of classical music. She said she wore a beautiful gold lamé dress at Radio City Music Hall for five shows a day in 1934 or 1935. She had two Rockettes on each side of her. Still, she was deathly frightened the first time she gazed into the immense black space, which looked, she said, like the “caverns of hell.”

A Rockette nudged her and said, “Get going, kid, and smile.”

Ms. Blaisdell did. After a couple of shows, it was easy."