The saxophone has long been a favorite instrument of musicians and audiences alike. As the great jazz saxophonist Stan Getz once said: “If you like an instrument that sings, play the saxophone.”
But, despite its present-day popularity, saxophone was met with a lot of disdain following its patent in 1846, particularly in the classical world. Considered shrill and difficult to blend with other mainstay orchestral instruments, saxophones were largely excluded or relegated to secondary roles in classical ensembles. To this day, saxophones still aren’t considered permanent fixtures in symphony orchestra instrumentation.
Enter Elise Hall, a French-born socialite in Boston at the turn of the 19th century. Widowed and left a sizable fortune, Hall invested her time into playing saxophone, which was unheard of for women in her era, and used her fortune to commission classical pieces for solo saxophone that she could play. She went on to become the first woman to play with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1910.
In honor of this trailblazing woman saxophonist on the 100th anniversary of her death, Barbara Hubers-Drake, a local saxophonist and member of eclectic saxophone quartet Bamboo and Brass LTD, has put together A Saxophone Celebration, Honoring Elise Hall.
Taking place at the Royal Room in Seattle on Nov. 17, the show is part of a series of commemorative events for the saxophonist happening around the world between Oct. 15 and Dec. 15.
Hall’s history
This musical tribute to Hall will span a variety of genres. A piece of music Hall commissioned, Debussy’s “Rapsodie for alto saxophone and piano,” will be performed by Evan Takle on alto sax and Seth Ahnert on piano. Local musicians, including women saxophonists Hubers-Drake, Ann Nordling, and clarinetist Lauren Hall-Stigerts, will perform classical, jazz, and Latin works largely composed by or for women.
In between musical performances, local author of the novel Always Gardenia, Betsy Hanson, will be acting as Hall in full costume. Hanson based the script she wrote for the event on the exhaustive research she’s done on Hall’s life.
“I'm going to be reenacting her, becoming her. So, I'm trying to really understand who she was, the historical milieu in which she lived, the things that might have influenced her ability to do such bold things in her life,” Hanson said.
Hall was born in Paris in 1853 to a prominent Boston family. Back in Boston, she ended up marrying an American doctor, Robert Hall, who was notable for performing the first appendectomy in the U.S. He first suggested she take up saxophone after a bout of Typhoid fever left her with hearing loss.
In 1897, Robert died an ironic death from appendicitis. Now a wealthy widow, Hall plunged herself into the world of saxophone and orchestral music, eventually forming the Boston Orchestral Club, an amateur ensemble within which Hall was able to perform fresh works she commissioned for the saxophone.
“In the late 1800s, probably the most empowered situation for a woman was to be a fairly young, rich widow,” Hanson said. She added later, “But there are lots of ways she could have used her affluence.”
A trailblazer
Indeed, it was a bold move for Hall, who lived her life at a time when women were still fighting for the vote, to support music and to play the saxophone. As Hanson noted, it would’ve been considered unladylike, even absurd, for women to play an instrument that “touched their mouths” during this time.
Even so, Hall used her position to become a trailblazer for women saxophonists everywhere, and to commission remarkable works from prominent composers like Debussy, D'Indy, Florent Schmitt, and André Caplet. These commissions are still foundational pieces in classical saxophone repertoire today. But, unfortunately, sexism meant she wouldn’t get widespread credit for these contributions, particularly her own playing, until much later.
"I think what happened over the years was there was a lot of misogynistic writing about her,” Hubers-Drake said. “When she got written about in history, a lot of male writers only talked about the fact that she was basically an impresario that produced concerts and that she was a person who had a lot of money and hired composers to write for the saxophone.”
Hall was a player, too, though there are no recordings of her performances and newspaper reviews from the day are mixed. Hubers-Drake and Hanson, considering the second-class position of women at the time, suspect she was probably better than the papers let on. Yet, her portrayal in the historical record led to the obscuring of her contributions for the better part of a century.
The status of the saxophone at the time also contributed to the suppression of Hall’s influence, according to Dr. Paul Cohen, an accomplished classical saxophonist, educator, and researcher.
“Right around the time that she passed away, jazz was only beginning to become more popular. It hadn’t solidified yet, and the saxophone was not an integral part of jazz as it quickly became. The idea of having a solo saxophone recital was still somewhat novel... so there was really no place for [Hall’s legacy] to be picked up at the time,” he said, in an interview published by Rutgers University.
Picking up Hall’s mantle
One hundred years later, it appears to finally be time to revisit Hall and correct the record.
Hubers-Drake, who’s been playing saxophone for decades, first discovered Hall last year when she attended the North American Saxophone Alliance Conference.
At this biennial gathering of saxophone players, scholars, and enthusiasts, Hubers-Drake noticed that many attendees were talking about Hall. Saxophone scholars Kurt Bertels and Adrianna Honnold had also just authored a new book about her, The Legacy of Elise Hall: Contemporary Perspectives on Gender and the Saxophone.
A little while later, Hubers-Drake noticed on Facebook that one of her favorite classical saxophonists, Nicolas Prost, was organizing concerts around the world in tribute to Elise Hall on the anniversary of her death.
Prost, a lauded French classical saxophonist, organizes international events dedicated to the saxophone every year and enjoys paying tribute to French pioneers of the instrument. His chief interest in Hall is that her contributions as an impresario and commissioner helped to establish saxophone as a viable classical instrument in an era when it was used primarily for vaudeville and other pre-jazz musical forms.
“Most of the [classical] history of our instrument has been built around the French works that Elise Hall requested...,” Prost said in an email to KNKX. “She was a woman of culture and French origin, and appreciated the refined taste of the artists of France. Debussy, Caplet, Schmitt, D'Indy, Gaubert, were composers so well-known that it allowed the saxophone to deviate from the path that jazz was tracing.”
After seeing Prost’s Facebook post, Hubers-Drake quickly ordered Bertels and Honnolds’ book and eventually decided to join in Prost’s efforts by organizing this tribute event for Hall in Seattle. Prost’s initiative has inspired at least 44 other Elise Hall events throughout the world this year.
A bold inspiration
While conditions for women saxophonists have improved considerably since 1900, the sexism and prejudice faced by women saxophonists across genres persists—making Hall ever-relevant today.
Lauren Hall-Stigerts, a Seattle woodwindist who will perform several pieces during the upcoming tribute show, noted that while most of her experiences as a clarinetist and saxophonist have been positive, she has endured instances of sexism that were “discouraging.”
“As a saxophonist, I was playing in a jazz band in college and the director, the way he spoke with me.... he definitely did not take me seriously,” Stigerts-Hall said. “He would often use words like, ‘oh, sweetheart,’ or diminutive terms.”
In a 2021 opinion piece for Cut Common, Jazmin Ealden observed that a promotional campaign for saxophone maker Selmer, which included a list of testimonials and endorsements from saxophonists, did not represent a single woman saxophonist.
“Unfortunately for women who play saxophone, the list is about as inclusive as the industry we’ve come to know and exist in. Not a single woman is showcased among the saxophonists. Not one,” she wrote.
Hubers-Drake founded Seattle Women Jazz Orchestra in 2000 to combat women’s underrepresentation and unequal opportunity in jazz. SWOJO’s mission is to promote and encourage the musical, educational, and artistic growth of women and girls, specifically in the areas of jazz performance and composition.
“When I started SWOJO, I wanted to find places for women to play. And so, I thought, wow, here’s someone who was doing this in the late 1800s,” she said. “How amazing is that?”
With their shared passion for creating more opportunity for women saxophonists, Hubers-Drake relates to Hall, and looks forward to celebrating and introducing more people to Hall’s music and legacy during the event.
“I think it’s really a positive thing for young girls and women to see the contribution she made,” she said. “It’s just inspiring.”
