Sandra Stark - First Violin Section
April 2008 - Nicole Laidler

Sandra Stark's father told her that music was no profession for a woman. As a member of the Minneapolis Symphony for 22 years, he worried that his daughter would have difficulty finding a job. They didn't like women in orchestras back then, explains Stark.

Luckily, his mind was changed when Stark was chosen to play a solo with the Minneapolis Symphony at the age of 16. And today — thanks largely to the introduction of screened auditions that keep a player's identity hidden — women make up close to half of all American orchestral players, according to the Symphony Orchestra Institute. It has absolutely reversed, confirms Stark. I was watching the New York Philharmonic on New Year's Eve and almost all the violinists are women.

Stark went on to win a scholarship to study at the University of Minnesota. She completed graduate studies at the University of Western Ontario and joined Orchestra London's first violin section in 1972 under the baton of Clifford Evens. He was a wonderful person, recalls Stark. He was like a teacher as well as a conductor. Evens also transformed the orchestra into a fully professional ensemble in 1975
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Stark says she has enjoyed many performances with Orchestra London over the years, but prefers the classical series to the more popular ones. We've done some great works, from Mahler to Stravinsky to Beethoven, she says.

And this year, Stark is delighted to be the first member of Orchestra London to have her chair sponsored by a business, Sifton Properties' Richmond Woods Retirement Residence.

Sandra is easy to talk to and our residents really warmed up to her, says Richmond Woods marketing and community relations manager, Jan Cottle. She's a great match for us. Many residents already attend Orchestra London concerts, says Cottle, so it's nice for them to have a special relationship with a player.

Stark and two of her students visited the residence at the end of January to perform trios and duets at a special reception, and the residence is planning an outing to see her perform with Orchestra London later this season.

After enjoying a lengthy career playing with Orchestra London and as concertmaster with Sarnia's Clairion and International Symphony Orchestras, the London Community Orchestra and the Woodstock Strings, Stark respectfully disagrees with her father's initial advice. I think music is a very good profession for a woman, she says. You get such a reward from it; not a financial reward, but the reward of producing great music and of teaching. Today there are a lot of women in music and I think we have been accepted.