Mary Byrd Daniels This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. www.ashevillesymphony.org

   www.ashevillesymphony.org/cont - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/17/2007   Last Visited: 3/17/2007

   Mary Byrd Daniels Concertmaster

2. 2. Hooked on the classics / Mountain Xpress / mountainx.com

   www.mountainx.com/ae/1998/0916 - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/16/1998   Last Visited: 4/2/2004

   ASO concertmaster Mary Daniels, on the other hand, has been studying and playing classical violin for 48 years (though, judging by her youthful looks, she must have started in the womb). "I was very young, but we're not going to get into that," she says firmly. Trained at the Brevard Music Center, East Carolina University and the Cincinnati Conservatory, Daniels has played with orchestras in Greenville, Charleston, Greensboro and Winston-Salem, among many others.
   
   She came home to Asheville in the late '70s and has been with the ASO since 1980. "The Asheville Symphony is unique," she observes, "because it's so good for an orchestra in a town this size. Most smaller orchestras incorporate mostly community players. But here, most orchestra members are professional musicians with really great credentials. ... And we're viable: We have sell-out concerts. It's wonderful."
   
   As a woman in a traditionally male bastion, Daniels has met her share of sexism. One conductor told her, "Audiences just want to see a man sitting in [the concertmaster] position"; another insisted on calling her "sweetheart"; and then there's the orchestra that paid her significantly less than her male counterpart.