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By a secret poll, tenure has been denied to first timpanist Elayne Jones and first bassoonist Ryohei Nakagawa, two of the eight probationers on the San Francisco Symphony, by a seven-member committee composed of the symphony's tenured musicians.
Nakagawa appears to have bowed to this as a democratically arrived at decision. Miss Jones who is Black has not.
In looking back to last year when the same thing happened to Miles Anderson, a Caucasian, she feels with some resentment that he may have been judged less for his musicianship as first trombone than for his rehearsal appearances in jeans or for his long hair and beard, in an orchestra which tends to be conservative.
Anderson chose to reaudition and did not make it. He later told Elayne Jones that under the stress and pressure he had not played well in that second trial.
The choice of reauditioning next year is extended to Miss Jones, but she says, "Why should I? It's like serving a sentence twice for the same crime."
She won the audition in early 1972 for the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, over 40 male tipmanists and was scheduled to make her formal bow in November of that year as a probationer under...