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The Chicago Symphony Orchestra family wishes the legendary American pianist Byron Janis a very happy ninety-fifth birthday!
Janis made his professional debut at the age of fifteen in 1943, performing Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. The following year, he was chosen by Vladimir Horowitz as his first student, and at eighteen, he became the youngest artist signed to a contract by RCA Victor Records. On October 29, 1948, Janis made his Carnegie Hall debut, and Olin Downes in the New York Times wrote, “Not for a long time had this writer heard such a talent allied with the musicianship, the feeling, the intelligence and artistic balance shown by the twenty-year-old pianist, Byron Janis. . . . Whatever he touched he made significant and fascinating by the most legitimate and expressive means.”
On March 4, 1954, Janis made his debut with the Chicago Symphony in Orchestra Hall. “Mr. Janis played a performance of the Tchaikovsky concerto uncommonly beautiful for what it was, and uncommonly exciting for what it can be. . . . If you have it, you have it, and Mr. Janis does,” wrote Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Tribune. “He has temperament and fire and he wants, perhaps more than anything in the world, to play the piano. You can always tell that by the sound. It comes out in the explosions of the double octaves, in the instinctive sensing of the crest of a phrase . . . his Tchaikovsky was big, beautiful and dynamic, yet with all its tensions it sensed the relaxed sweep of the grand style. . . . Reiner and the Orchestra gave superb collaboration, part Russian song, part Russian bear.”
For more than twenty years, Byron Janis was a regular visitor, as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and as a recitalist in Orchestra Hall. A complete list of his appearances is below.
July 10, 1952, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37
Dimitri Mitropoulos, conductor
March 4 and 5, 1954, Orchestra Hall
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto in B-flat Minor, Op. 23
Fritz Reiner, conductor
July 27, 1956, Ravinia Festival
BERNSTEIN Symphony No. 2 (The Age of Anxiety)
Leonard Bernstein, conductor
December 6 and 7, 1956, Civic Opera House
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
STRAUSS Burlesque for Piano and Orchestra in D Minor
Fritz Reiner, conductor
August 2, 1957, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30
William Steinberg, conductor
August 3, 1957, Ravinia Festival
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23
William Steinberg, conductor
January 20, 1958, Pabst Theatre, Milwaukee
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37
Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor
July 17, 1958, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
Walter Hendl, conductor
July 22, 1958, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37
Igor Markevitch, conductor
February 19 and 20, 1959, Orchestra Hall
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Fritz Reiner, conductor
February 24, 1959, Orchestra Hall
LISZT Totentanz for Piano and Orchestra
Fritz Reiner, conductor
March 23, 1959, Pabst Theatre, Milwaukee
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Fritz Reiner, conductor
July 9, 1959, Ravinia Festival
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23
Walter Hendl, conductor
July 11, 1959, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30
Walter Hendl, conductor
February 4 and 5, 1960, Orchestra Hall
LISZT Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major
Fritz Reiner, conductor
February 9, 1960, Orchestra Hall
LISZT Concerto for Piano No. 2 in A Major
Fritz Reiner, conductor
July 5, 1960, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18
Walter Hendl, conductor
July 7, 1960, Ravinia Festival
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Walter Hendl, conductor
July 20, 1961, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
Joseph Rosenstock, conductor
July 22, 1961, Ravinia Festival
LISZT Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major
Joseph Rosenstock, conductor
January 4 and 5, 1962, Orchestra Hall
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23
Leopold Stokowski, conductor
August 4, 1962, Ravinia Festival
LISZT Concerto for Piano No. 2 in A Major
RACHMANINOV Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
André Cluytens, conductor
November 1, 2, and 3, 1962, Orchestra Hall
November 4, 1962, Edgewater Beach Hotel (WGN Great Music from Chicago television broadcast)
November 5, 1962, Pabst Theatre, Milwaukee
PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26
Hans Rosbaud, conductor
July 11, 1963, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30
Walter Hendl, conductor
July 16, 1963, Ravinia Festival
GRIEG Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
November 21 and 22, 1963, Orchestra Hall
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18
Jean Martinon, conductor
December 31, 1964, January 1 and 2, 1965, Orchestra Hall
January 4, 1965, Pabst Theatre, Milwaukee
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K. 488
Willem van Otterloo, conductor
July 26, 1966, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
July 28, 1966, Ravinia Festival
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30
RACHMANINOV Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
April 20 and 21, 1967, Orchestra Hall
PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat Major, Op. 10
STRAUSS Burlesque for Piano and Orchestra in D Minor
Irwin Hoffman, conductor
June 27, 1967, Ravinia Festival
PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
June 29, 1967, Ravinia Festival
GERSHWIN Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
June 29, 1968, Ravinia Festival
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
July 6, 1971, Ravinia Festival
STRAUSS Burlesque for Piano and Orchestra in D Minor
LISZT Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major
Lawrence Foster, conductor
June 29, 1973, Ravinia Festival
PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26
James Levine, conductor
August 15, 1974, Ravinia Festival
SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concerto No. 5 in F Major, Op. 103 (Egyptian)
David Zinman, conductor
Janis also made several recordings with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as follows:
LISZT Totentanz for Piano and Orchestra
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded in Orchestra Hall on February 23, 1959, for RCA
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded in Orchestra Hall on March 2, 1957, for RCA
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded in Orchestra Hall on February 21, 1959, for RCA
STRAUSS Burlesque for Piano and Orchestra in D Minor
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded in Orchestra Hall on March 4, 1957, for RCA
Under the auspices of Allied Arts, Janis has appeared as piano recitalist on several occasions, as follows:
March 25, 1956
March 15, 1958
April 9, 1961
April 29, 1962
January 16, 1966
January 29, 1967
December 1, 1968
May 5, 1974
December 16, 1975
February 8, 1976
Happy, happy birthday!
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The Chicago Symphony Orchestra family remembers one of its iconic musicians, Milton Preves (1909–2000), in honor of the anniversary of his birth on June 18.
Born in Cleveland, Preves moved to Chicago as a teenager and attended Senn High School. He was a student of Leon Sametini at Chicago Musical College, Richard Czerwonky at the Bush Conservatory of Music, and Albert Noelte and Ramon Girvin at the Institute of Music and Allied Arts before attending the University of Chicago.
Preves joined the Little Symphony of Chicago in 1930, regularly worked in radio orchestras, and was invited by Mischa Mischakoff (then CSO concertmaster) to join the Mischakoff String Quartet in 1932. Two years later, second music director Frederick Stock appointed Preves to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s viola section, promoting him to assistant principal in 1936 and principal in 1939. He would remain in that post for the next forty-seven years, serving under a total of seven music directors, including Désiré Defauw, Artur Rodzinski, Rafael Kubelík, Fritz Reiner, Jean Martinon, and Sir Georg Solti.
Preves performed as a soloist with the Orchestra on dozens of occasions, including the world premieres of David Van Vactor’s Viola Concerto and Ernest Bloch’s Suite hébraïque for Viola and Orchestra, both dedicated to him. Under Reiner, he recorded Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote—along with cellist Antonio Janigro and concertmaster John Weicher—with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for RCA in 1959.

A lifelong educator, Preves served on the faculties of Roosevelt, Northwestern, and DePaul universities, and he also always taught privately out of his home. An avid conductor, he held titled posts with the North Side Symphony Orchestra of Chicago, Oak Park–River Forest Symphony, Wheaton Summer Symphony, Gary Symphony, and the Gold Coast Chamber Orchestra. As a chamber musician, he performed with the Budapest, Fine Arts, Gordon, and Chicago Symphony string quartets, as well as the Chicago Symphony Chamber Players.
As reported in his obituary in the Chicago Tribune, “It was while directing the Oak Park–River Forest group that he gained an unusual measure of national attention. He briefly became an icon of the fledgling civil rights movement in 1963, when he resigned from the community orchestra because it would not allow a Black violinist he had invited to perform with the group.” (More information can be found here.)
Preves died at the age of ninety on June 11, 2000, following a long illness. Shortly thereafter, his family began donating materials to the Rosenthal Archives, establishing his collection of correspondence, contracts, photographs, scrapbooks, programs, and recordings. Most recently, his children donated additional photographs, mostly portraits of music directors and guest conductors, all autographed and dedicated to Preves. A sample of that collection is below.



















In October 1984, on the occasion of Milton Preves’s fiftieth anniversary with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, fellow viola Isadore Zverow (1909–1999) composed this poem to honor his colleague:
It’s no mean feat, without retreat
To hold the forte so long,
To stroke and pluck in cold and heat—
All to produce a song.
Toward music bent, with single intent,
Unyielding dedication,
You of yourself so gladly lent
Your valued perspiration.
You sat and played and marked and bowed
And sometimes e’en reproached
And sometimes we squirmed (just a bit)
We didn’t wanna be coached.
And yet whene’er the chips were down
Throughout these fifty anna,
Your steadfast presence was a crown
Aiming at Nirvana.
This article also appears here.
Sending happy ninetieth birthday wishes to the legendary pianist Byron Janis!
Between 1952 and 1974, Janis appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on numerous occasions at Orchestra Hall, in Milwaukee, and at the Ravinia Festival, under the batons of music directors Fritz Reiner and Jean Martinon; associate conductors Walter Hendl and Irwin Hoffman; Ravinia Festival music directors Seiji Ozawa and James Levine; and guest conductors Leonard Bernstein, André Cluytens, Igor Markevitch, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Hans Rosbaud, Joseph Rosenstock, William Steinberg, Leopold Stokowski, Willem Van Otterloo, and David Zinman.
Janis made his debut with the Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival on July 10, 1952, in Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting.
Two years later—a few weeks shy of his twenty-sixth birthday—he first performed in Orchestra Hall on March 4 and 5, 1954, in Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with Fritz Reiner on the podium. “If you have it, you have it, and Mr. Janis does,” wrote Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Tribune following his debut. “He has good fingers, a direct approach, and a good tone. He has temperament and fire and he wants, perhaps more than anything else in the world, to play the piano. You can always tell that by the sound. It comes out in the explosions of the double octaves, in the instinctive sensing of the crest of a phrase, in the way a Russian song suddenly knows pain, which is not quite the same thing as being sad. Because of these things, because he is such a pianist, his Tchaikovsky was big, beautiful, and dynamic, yet with all its tensions it sensed the relaxed sweep of the grand style. Few things could be more stupid than to patronize such playing, which Reiner and the orchestra gave superb collaboration, part Russian song, part Russian bear. When I look forward to what that playing can be, I am speaking of it in Janis’s own terms. Give him time to strengthen those fingers, to deepen and polish that tone. But listen as he does it, for he is worth hearing now.”
He most recently appeared with the CSO in Orchestra Hall on April 20 and 21, 1967, in Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto and Strauss’s Burleske with Irwin Hoffman conducting, and at the Ravinia Festival on August 15, 1974, in Saint-Saëns’s Fifth Piano Concerto under the baton of David Zinman.
Janis also made several recordings with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as follows:
RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded March 2, 1957, in Orchestra Hall by RCA

Byron Janis’s complete RCA catalog—including his recordings with the CSO—recently was re-released in a box set.
STRAUSS Burleske for Piano and Orchestra
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded March 4, 1957, in Orchestra Hall by RCA
SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded February 21, 1959, in Orchestra Hall by RCA
LISZT Totentanz for Piano and Orchestra
Fritz Reiner, conductor
Recorded February 23, 1959, in Orchestra Hall by RCA
PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat Major, Op. 10
Irwin Hoffman, conductor
Recorded by WFMT on April 20 and 21, 1967, in Orchestra Hall
Released in 1995 on From the Archives, vol. 10: Great Soloists
Happy, happy birthday!
In the spring of 1976, the major American political parties had not yet hosted their conventions to nominate candidates for president. But on May 11—the day after the first of three concerts at Carnegie Hall by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Sir Georg Solti—Donal Henahan of The New York Times had a suggestion:
“Solti’s Chicagoans Stimulate a Yen to Yell”
It is pretty well agreed now, among decibel collectors, that the audiences at Chicago Symphony concerts make more noise than anybody. If you happen to pass Carnegie Hall tomorrow or Friday night and notice that sturdy old monument rocking slightly on its foundations, do not worry: It is only the Chicago orchestra’s fans going happily mad over a performance conducted by Sir Georg Solti. (Don’t run out to buy tickets, by the way; Chicago Symphony concerts are invariably sold out as soon as they are announced.)
The sheer fervor, somewhat resembling religious fanaticism, that characterizes the New York ovations for Chicago/Solti, is a phenomenon worth some sociologist’s study. Of course, the Chicago Symphony is one of the world’s great orchestras, and Sir Georg is undeniably one of the world’s most exciting conductors. The cheering is, therefore, aimed at real quality.
But the Dionysian frenzy that many observers have commented upon goes beyond ordinary enthusiasm into the category of the demonstration. Chicago players and Sir Georg himself have confessed that the intensity of these ovations in New York takes them aback. Thoughtful musicians cross their fingers, in fact. They have seen reputations rise and fall, for what seems too little reason either way, and know how capricious and irrational audiences can be.
The Chicago/Solti phenomenon has been compared to the cult that grew up around Toscanini and his NBC Symphony a generation ago, to the Stokowski fan clubs of his Philadelphia Orchestra years and to the von Karajan mystique in some sectors of the musical world today. Unsophisticated music listeners, with the help of judicious publicity agents, love to fasten upon an idol, to proclaim this or that artist “the greatest” and fall prostrate at mention of the holy name. Other and wiser folk simply like to cheer what they regard as the best. Cheering is an emotional purgative, a primal scream that often seems to do the screamer more good than the
Beyond the obvious fact of its lofty quality, there are several arguable rationalizations for the kind of hysteria regularly generated by the Chicago under Sir Georg. When the orchestra made its first Carnegie Hall appearances under him six years ago, many knowledgeable New Yorkers were simply flattened by what they heard. The Chicago Symphony—unlike the Cleveland under Szell, the Boston under Leinsdorf, the Philadelphia under Ormandy—had not been a regular visitor.
Fritz Reiner, who built the orchestra to its current level in the late 1950s, hated touring. He refused to do the kind of barnstorming to high prestige places that would have made the Chicago Symphony’s greatness apparent to more than the blessed few who heard it regularly in its own Orchestra Hall during Dr. Reiner’s ten‐year regime.
The fact, which Sir Georg readily admits, is that the Chicago Symphony as it stands (or sits) is largely the product of the Reiner years. The Solti genius has consisted in making splendid use of a ready‐made instrument. Not the least amazing thing about the Chicago’s current status as a symbol of excellence is that of all major American orchestras it is the oldest: Most of the players date back to the Reiner years before.
Another possible factor in the Chicago’s popularity is the high percentage of opera fans who frequent these concerts. One of Sir Georg’s first smash successes at Carnegie came in 1971 with a concert performance of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, and he subsequently offered four other operatic attractions. His sixth, on Friday night, will be The Flying Dutchman.
Sir Georg, you remember, had been artistic director of London’s Covent Garden opera house, and his renown as an opera conductor fattened considerably when he completed the first Ring cycle ever produced on commercially available recordings, for London Records. And, since opera enthusiasts on the whole are famous—or notorious, as you wish—for treating their heroes and heroines to hysterical ovations, Chicago/Solti has not suffered from being attractive to the opera set.
Another and probably more disputable conjecture: there existed in New York at the time of the Chicago/Solti arrival on the scene, a considerable number of people who yearned to hear concerts led by an unashamedly passionate “maestro,” preferably someone cast in the Toscanini mold. To some extent, Leonard Bernstein in his early years with the Philharmonic fulfilled the needs of this sizable and vocal constituency.
But when Pierre Boulez took charge of the Philharmonic these New Yorkers missed their former feeling of audience participation. They came to regard themselves as disenfranchised musical citizens. Mr. Boulez seemed to them more acoustical scientist than performer, and his analytical talents and objective approach to music were largely unappreciated. For this emotional breed of listener, the coming of Chicago/Solti offered a chance not merely to applaud but also—almost in the political sense of the word—to demonstrate. It was as if they were sending a message.
The yen to yell can come to be as important to certain audiences as the music itself. Opera fans, in particular, seem to regard their demonstrations of affection and approbation as part of the performance, and that can be obnoxious when carried too far. But any continuing audience, such as the one attracted by the Chicago/Solti concerts, is also acting out a communal claim to eliteness. It is proclaiming its own superior taste and knowledge, as well as showing the performers how much they are appreciated: We happy few who know what’s what, we proud melomaniacs, we who make (and can easily break) heroes, salute.
In any event, the Chicago Solti ovations are likely to go down among the legends of New York’s cultural life. And perhaps the explanation is simpler than suggested here. When the inevitable ranting and raving is heard at Carnegie Hall, it may merely be one sector of the musical electorate voting for its concept of what orchestral concerts should be. The Chicago Symphony for President, as it were. Well, we could do worse.
The 1976 U.S. presidential election was held on November 2, 1976. Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, the Democratic party candidate, ran against and defeated incumbent president Gerald Ford, the Republican candidate.
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Leopold Stokowski made his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on January 2 and 3, 1958, in a program that included his orchestrations of several chorales by J.S. Bach, Brahms’s Second Symphony, Szabelski’s Toccata, and the finale from act 3 of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. Over the next decade, he was a frequent visitor, leading concerts in Orchestra Hall and at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee.
On February 15 and 16, 1968, Stokowski returned to Chicago to conduct the Orchestra in Shostakovich’s Suite from The Golden Age and Symphony no. 6, along with Khachaturian’s Symphony no. 3. The following week at Medinah Temple, RCA recorded the program along with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture. On the subsequent release, the two works by Shostakovich were paired, and Khachaturian’s symphony and Rimsky-Korsakov’s overture were released on the same album.

Leopold Stokowski and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra recording Khachaturian’s Symphony no. 3 at Medinah Temple in February 1968 (Terry’s photo)
“This is probably the best Age of Gold ever to be recorded—and it is certainly the funniest,” wrote the reviewer in High Fidelity. Stokowski “brings out all of the work’s many instrumental nuances, and he also manages to exploit the full potential of each melodic line and underline the ballet’s oft-changing moods.” And the writer in Stereo Review raved that Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony was “gloriously played by Stokowski and the Chicagoans and well worth the price by itself.”
Regarding Khachaturian’s Symphony no. 3, the American Record Guide praised “the excellent organ [played by Mary Sauer] used in the performance, the satisfactory way in which it is brought into relation with the regular orchestra and the special trumpet choir [augmented to fifteen players], Stokowski’s own sharp ear for color, and the Chicago Symphony’s responsive playing.”
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In 1941, Frederick Stock appointed Helen Kotas to the position of principal horn, making her the first woman to hold a rostered position in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She was the first female to secure such a position—in fact, the first woman to be hired as principal of any section, except harp—in a major U.S. orchestra.
While still a student, earning a degree in psychology from the University of Chicago (which she received in 1936), Kotas served as a member of the Civic Orchestra and principal horn in the Woman’s Symphony Orchestra. Stock hired her as a regular extra horn at the beginning of the Orchestra’s fiftieth season in 1940, although she was not under contract. In 1940 and 1941, Kotas performed in Leopold Stokowski’s All-American Youth Orchestra’s summer tours; also in 1941, Fritz Reiner offered her the third-chair seat in the horn section of the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Kotas surrounded by the rest of the horn section in October 1941: Max Pottag, Frank Erickson, Joseph Mourek, and William Verschoor
Shortly after her audition in Pittsburgh, Stock auditioned Kotas for principal horn to fill the vacancy left by Philip Farkas when he left to join the Cleveland Orchestra. Stock offered her the job and contacted Reiner, who agreed to release her from the Pittsburgh commitment. Kotas would serve as principal until 1947, when Farkas returned to the Orchestra. She moved to third chair for one season and left the Orchestra in 1948; she married University of Chicago pathologist Edwin Hirsch the following year.
Kotas later was principal horn of the Grant Park Orchestra from 1950 until 1958, and she also served as principal horn of the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra from 1954 until 1959, and third horn until 1965, after which she largely retired from performing.
The first woman listed on the Orchestra’s roster was Mrs. Lawrence (Anna) Winch, second harp for the 1892–93 season. Other women subsequently performed as second harp; however, the position was not contracted and rostered full-time until the beginning of the 1957–58 season, when Carol Baum was hired as second harp. The first rostered woman in the string section was cellist Alice Lawrence in the 1942–43 season, and the first in the wind section was flutist Caroline Solfronk Vacha in the 1943–44 season.
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