British Orchestras – Where Are The Women?

So the Vienna Philharmonic has hired its first woman player. Britain has little to be smug about on this issue. “A random sample of five British symphony orchestras suggests that gender ratios vary wildly: the Hallé and the BBC Symphony may not do badly (the Hallé has 45 men and 38 women; the BBCSO 55 men, 37 women), but orchestras such as the London Philharmonic and Bournemouth Symphony trail, splitting at 52-23 and 45-26 respectively. And the London Symphony Orchestra, widely regarded as being the country’s most successful, has 77 male members to 22 female. When you start looking at how many women occupy principal positions within the sections, the disparity looks even greater.”