Helen Kotas played principal French horn in the Chicago Symphony during the 1940s. She started playing with the Woman’s Symphony Orchestra of Chicago while she was still in high school, and continued to play as first horn for them while Kotas attended the University of Chicago, from which she got a degree in psychology. She also played with the Chicago Civic Orchestra, where she played first horn. She met CSO conductor Frederick Stock through the early Grant Park Concerts, several of which were joint concerts between the Woman’s Symphony, the CSO and the Civic Opera orchestra (a forerunner of Chicago Lyric), which Stock conducted. Stock was a great champion of women musicians and was, I think, instrumental in getting Kotas into the orchestra. Prior to that, though, Stock recommended her to Stokowski for his All-American Youth Orchestra, which she played in for a while. She also played as a ringer for the CSO a number of times before getting a contract (in an interview she says she thinks this was around 1938), filling in for absences and playing sixth horn as needed. In an interview with my friend, musicologist Mark Clague, she said that the principal horn was frequently ill and when she was playing 6th horn, she was often called in to fill in on the principal part. She also played with Stokowski’s young people’s orchestra. At the time she was offered the CSO gig in 1941, she had just accepted the position of third horn in the Pittsburgh Symphony. They allowed her to get out of her contract and take the Chicago job. If I remember correctly, she was ultimately fired, in 1947, from the CSO when a new conductor came on the scene, probably because she was female (although that is, of course, speculation — but she wasn’t the only woman let go at the time). In interviews, at least later in her life, Kotas herself was pretty adamant that her gender had little affect on her career, even when events would seem to suggest otherwise. After leaving the CSO, Kotas continued to play as a soloist and was a well-respected horn teacher until late in her life. She died in 2000, the victim of a car accident.
