Ethel Stark and the Montreal Women's Symphony Orchestra

Maria Noriega Rachwal is no stranger to the academy or the orchestra. As a PhD candidate, teacher and musicologist at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music and  a flutist who has performed with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra, she has both studied women in music and experienced the special dynamic of playing in a large ensemble.

The result of her research is From Kitchen to Carnegie Hall: Ethel Stark and the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra, an account of the Montreal conductor Ethel Stark and the revolutionary all-female symphony orchestra she created in the 1940s. Writer Sylvia Urbanik spoke to Noreiga Rachwal about this unusual organization.

Can you describe your book?

This book is about the women of the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra, who dared to dream a place for themselves on the orchestral stage at a time when women were banned from symphony orchestras and ridiculed for playing “masculine” instruments such as the cello or the trumpet.

Were they all women of a certain social standing?

This was an orchestra of Jewish, Catholic and Anglican women, black women and white women, women of the high class, maids, factory workers, of ages ranging from 16 to 60. I couldn’t believe the determination and audacity of these women. This was an 80- to 100-piece orchestra, which had no funding, played on old instruments, and started from scratch, and went on to become the first Canadian orchestra to perform in Carnegie Hall.

What was the research process like?

I started to write my master’s thesis in Calgary nine years ago on the MWSO, but there wasn’t much information. Even though this was a groundbreaking orchestra, nobody had paid much attention to their work. Then in 2012 Ethel Stark, the conductor of the orchestra, passed away and all of a sudden there was this great interest in her, as is the case with many great musicians who die.

You mean the media took an interest?

The CBC did a radio documentary about the MWSO, and the producer discovered that there were still three members alive, who wanted to tell their side of the story. Then family members started calling into the show to talk about their mothers, grandmothers, friends and wives who played in the orchestra. I thought, “I have to write a book about this” not for me, but for these women and their incredible story.

What resources did you have?

When Ethel Stark’s nephew found out I had been doing research on his aunt, he gave me her unpublished memoirs, all written by hand, containing her whole history. I combined a lot of what I read in her diary, along with what the other women had told me, as well as the original research that I had done, and put it all together.

What is the most touching story that you came across while researching?

Violet Grant States was the first black woman to play in an orchestra in Canada, and at the time black people were not really welcomed into a lot of white organizations. When I interviewed her, she was so animated. She said to me: “Playing in the orchestra was the highlight of my life.” She credited the orchestra for breaking barriers in her life and giving her the confidence to do what she was able to do afterwards, to go back to school despite all the racism that she encountered, get her bachelor’s degree in music and music education, and go on to be a very successful teacher.