Women Horn Players of Chicago, Part 2: Tennie Webster

Hello everyone! I beg your forgiveness for the over-a-year-long hiatus I took from writing, but I think we all know that the pandemic tended to disrupt normal productivity patterns! 

I’m picking up where I left off by turning the discussion to Tennie Webster (1915-2009) and the Woman’s Symphony Orchestra of Chicago. Celebrated from a young age by her teacher, renowned pedagogue Max Pottag, Webster began winning competitions – both in chamber music and as a soloist – while still in high school. In 1933, she became a member of The Woman’s Symphony; an ensemble which presents a fascinating study on the effects of World War II on women’s musical employment.

Tennie Webster: April 29, 1935. Martz, Richard J. “Tennie Webster Foreman.” Richard J Martz, 2011. http://rjmartz.com/hornplayers/webster/.

The Woman’s Symphony (not to be confused with the Chicago Woman’s Symphony Orchestra, its predecessor) was founded in 1924 by three other extraordinary instrumentalists; Lillian Poenisch, Adeline Schmidt, and Lois Bichl. Originally members of the earlier ensemble, these women wished to create a group which would be held to a higher musical standard, on par with the existing symphonies such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra which, at the time, did not allow female performers.

Outreach and education were major goals of the symphony, as Poenisch herself stated. She hoped that the ensemble would inspire more women to take on what she described as the “unusual” instruments of the orchestra, which, according to Poenisch, were primarily wind instruments, including the horn. 

Ten of the Original Members of the Woman’s Symphony Orchestra of Chicago, ca. 1942: Dempf, Linda. “The Woman's Symphony Orchestra of Chicago.” Notes 62, no. 4 (June 2006): 857–903. https://doi.org/10.1353/not.2006.0048. 

One major feature of The WSOC was that they insisted on hiring a female conductor, a move which would mark the orchestra as a “separate entity… pos[ing] no threat to the current musical establishment.”[1] In other words, no one could argue that these women were ‘stealing’ jobs from men. Poenisch, Schmidt and Bichl created their own space to make music, full of women percussionists, wind players, rarities in professional orchestras in the 1920s.

You may or may not recall from my first post (I would understand if you didn’t, it was posted in March 2020…) that Helen Kotas was also a member of this ensemble. She joined at the advanced age of fourteen years old as fourth horn and was moved up to principal by the next year. 

While other members of the horn section during this period have been lost to history – hopefully only for the moment – we do know that Tennie Webster joined Kotas as a member of the Women’s Symphony Orchestra of Chicago in 1933.[2] iIn 1934, Webster also joined the Chicago Civic Orchestra, which as many of you know was and is an extremely high-caliber training orchestra for the CSO, indicating the high level at which Webster was performing. She then became principal of the WSOC when Kotas left in 1935, where she continued to play for many years. 

Women’s Symphony Orchestra of Chicago: From left to right, unknown, Tennie Webster, unknown, Helen Kotas. Martz, Richard J. “Tennie Webster Foreman.” Richard J Martz, 2011. http://rjmartz.com/hornplayers/webster/. 

The Woman’s Symphony continued to perform until either 1948 or 1952 (there’s some disagreement as to the year it dissolved), when it went bankrupt due to the same issue facing all women’s orchestras in the United States: World War II. As thousands of men, including professional orchestral musicians, either volunteered or were drafted into the US Military, previously all-male ensembles were forced to open chairs to women to fill the empty spaces. Of course, some of this progress was reversed when the war ended; however, the intervening years proved that women were just as musically capable as their male counterparts, beginning the long march towards professional equality.  

[1] Linda Dempf, “The Woman's Symphony Orchestra of Chicago,” Notes 62, no. 4 (June 2006): 861.

[2] Other members of the horn section included Elsie Englemann Blank, Laura Sexton, and Florence Andrews. Richard J Martz, “Tennie Webster Foreman,” Richard J Martz, 2011, http://rjmartz.com/hornplayers/webster/.

Sources:

Dempf, Linda. “The Woman's Symphony Orchestra of Chicago.” Notes 62, no. 4 (June 2006): 857–903. https://doi.org/10.1353/not.2006.0048. 

“Helen Kotas (1916-2000).” IHS Online, July 25, 2012. https://www.hornsociety.org/zh-tw/ihs-people-tw/past-greats/28-people/past-greats/601-helen-kotas. 

Martz, Richard J. “Tennie Webster Foreman.” Richard J Martz, 2011. http://rjmartz.com/hornplayers/webster/.