Orin O’Brien
credit: Henry Grossman

It is an honor and a pleasure to welcome Orin O’Brien to the show!  I’ve been hoping to have Orin as a guest for years, and I want to give a big shout-out to Chris Mathers for connecting the two of us!

We chat about numerous shared acquaintances, including Greg Sarchet, Miloslov Gajdos, David Grossman, Ira Gold, Ed Barker, Hal Robinson, Max Dimoff, Michael Hovnanian, Douglas Mapp, and Ron Wasserman.

More About Orin

New York Philharmonic bassist Orin O’Brien was born in Hollywood to parents in the film industry, George O’Brien and Marguerite Churchill, and received her early musical training in Los Angeles, where she studied with Milton Kestenbaum and Herman Reinshagen. She then studied in New York with Frederick Zimmermann and graduated from The Juilliard School, and is an alumna of the Music Academy of the West, now a partner in the New York Philharmonic Global Academy.

She has been a member of the New York Philharmonic since 1966, where she has played with the world’s leading conductors. She has participated in numerous chamber music festivals, including Marlboro, and in first performances of the Gunther Schuller Quartet for Four Double Basses.

She co-chaired the double bass department of The Juilliard School for ten years, and currently serves on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College of Music. Her most recent chamber music performances were the quintets of Schubert and Dvorak with the Guarneri String Quartet.

We dig into a wealth of topics, including:

• how Orin came to study with Fred Zimmerman
• how to play specific excerpts
• the switch from gut strings to steel strings and the premiere of the Gunther Schuller Quartet (these two events are interlocking)
• how Orin felt about being the first woman in the NY Phil (the answer will surprise you!)
• how to really be a good principal player
• what trips people up in auditions
• New York in the 50s
• Herman Reinshagen and the bass lineage of the 20th century
  the great premieres throughout her career
• how special Riccardo Muti is as a conductor, and what makes him special – one of the living greats
• what was special about the musicianship of Carlos Kleiber
• how a great conductor can use imagery to inspire the orchestra

Links to Check Out:

• Double Bass Notebook – amazing book by Orin O’Brien
• Orin’s New York Philharmonic page
• the Manhattan School of Music double bass program
• Orin O’Brien Tribute from ISB 2013 (arranged and conducted by Inez Wyrick and narrated by Kristin Korb)
• Felix Weingartner – On the performance of Beethoven’s Symphonies (PDF)
• Women in Orchestras panel discussion with Orin – Brooklyn Museum
• the Miloslav Gajdos video Orin references
• Corresponding with Carlos: A Biography of Carlos Kleiber

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