Trailblazing N.Y. Philharmonic bassist says she's nothing special. Her niece — and the Oscars — disagree

Molly O'Brien still remembers the first time she walked into her aunt Orin's New York City apartment when she was 11 years old.

There were stacks of records and books, and "beautiful artwork and sculpture drizzled all over the place." The smell of something delicious on the stove wafted in from the kitchen. A series of gorgeous double-basses from Italy and England lined the walls, conjuring up images in her mind of "handsome ... broad-shouldered European men."

"It's just this cultural bouillon cube when you walk into that place," Molly told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal. "I wanted to be her when I grew up. I still do."

Molly channelled that admiration for her aunt into her newest documentary, The Only Girl in the Orchestra, which follows Orin O'Brien's career in the esteemed New York Philharmonic orchestra.

The film, which is streaming on Netflix, is now nominated for Best Documentary Short Film at the Academy Awards.

'She made me do it'

Asked how it feels to be a hair's breadth away from Hollywood's biggest red carpet event, 89-year-old Orin hesitated. 

"I'm thrilled for Molly, because Molly is the director," she told Kӧksal. "She made me do it."

She's not exaggerating. Molly says it took her 10 years of near-constant badgering to convince her aunt to let her make the movie. 

The daughter of actors, Orin says she's always been wary of the entertainment industry's glitz and glamour, with its focus on fame, obsession with appearances, and tendency to leave people feeling lonely and alienated. 

She avoids social media at all costs, calling it "total waste of time," preferring instead to listen to the radio. She didn't even get a television until the mid-'70s, and only to watch conductor Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts on CBS.

Her dislike of the spotlight is even reflected in her instrument of choice. Rarely used for solos, the double-bass is perfect for being part of something bigger than yourself. 

"When you play, the bass vibrates against your body and your body becomes a tone conductor almost for the instrument. And then when you're in the middle of a symphony orchestra of 100 people, the tone of the whole orchestra blends together, and it's a thrill," Orin said.

"We play together, which is a message. You cannot have a symphony orchestra concert without 100 people playing together."

So how did Molly convince her team-player aunt to take a starring role in a film about her own life?

"I promised that I would work very hard to make sure the film lifted the double-bass, lifted classical music and lifted teaching into the spotlight as much as it lifted her," Molly said. "And I believe I did."

'I don't feel I'm an artist'

Orin joined the orchestra in 1955, when it was led by the aforementioned Bernstein, and remained there for 55 years, retiring in 2021.

At the time, she was the only woman out of more than 100 musicians. In fact, the orchestra hadn't had a female member since its first woman, harpist Stephanie Golder, left in 1932. 

As of 2022, women in the New York Philarmonica outnumbered men. 

Orin still has boxes of newspaper clippings from those early days, full of stories by writers astonished by the idea of a woman performing alongside men in the orchestra. 

One reporter noted in 1966 that Orin had nowhere to change her clothes. Another claimed that the men had to carry her instrument case around for her, which Orin says is patently false.

"I was upset, although I didn't show it, naturally," she told Kӧksal. 

But it wasn't just what the stories said that bothered her. It's what they didn't say.

They didn't say she attended the renowned Julliard performing arts conservatory. They didn't say she had performed for the New York City Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera. They didn't say she studied under the legendary double-bassist Frederick Zimmermann.

"I had 10 years of solid professional experience that was never hardly brought up. Just, oh, I was a girl," she said. 

But even now, when her career accomplishments are on full display in The Only Girl In The Orchestra, Orin downplays her importance. 

The documentary includes a scene where Orin repeatedly insists she's not an artist, while her niece insists that she is.

"I don't feel I'm an artist. I don't feel I'm good enough," she tells Molly in the scene. "You're trying to make me more important, and I'm not comfortable with that."

Asked if she still feels that way, Orin told Koksal: "Artist is a very fancy word. I think of myself as more of an artisan."

Orin says being a working musician is about practicing and improving every day — work that never stops. 

It's also, she says, about being part of a lineage. Throughout the CBC Radio interview, she references the teachers and mentors who have shaped her, and the students — many of them women — who she's taken under wing.

That idea of a craft being passed through generations resonates with Molly.

"Documentary film has a lineage as well. And I've studied with Ken Burns and Errol Morris and Alex Gibney and Barbara Kopple and the women who were pioneers in the field as well," she said.

Then, of course, there's family lineage.

"I think a lot of us have that auntie in our lives who really influenced us and who we lean on and rely on, and Orin is that for me," Molly said. "I think audiences are relating to that."