Little is known about her birth parents, Johannes and Antonia (Shaaken) Brico, who died when she was two. The cello is the largest member of the violin family. In 1907, she emigrated with them to Oakland, To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.Antonia Brico, 87, a Conductor; Fought Barriers to Women in 30's After a successful tour of Poland and the Balkans, she returned to New York, where she made her debut conducting the Musicians' Symphony Orchestra. She intended to be a pianist at first, but in 1919 she enrolled at the University of California, where she took a liberal arts degree in 1923. Her family moved to Oakland, Calif., when she was 6 years old. Brico moved from her native Netherlands to the United States with her parents … She was 87 years old and had lived at the Bella Vita Towers, a nursing home in Denver, since 1988.Miss Brico, who was the subject of the 1974 film ''Antonia: Portrait of a Conductor,'' made her way in the male-dominated musical world largely through the force of her personality as well as her unshakable determination and a facility with both the standard orchestral literature and contemporary American works.Those qualities helped her break many barriers. Seven years later she became the first woman to conduct an opera performance by a major New York company when she led the New York Hippodrome Opera production of Humperdinck's ''Hansel and Gretel.'' … History at your fingertips She held that post until she retired from conducting in 1985. Wilhelmina Wolthius. Moved to U.S. at 6Miss Brico was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on June 26, 1902. Antonia Brico dreams of becoming a conductor, but she isn't taken seriously because she is a woman. Antonia Brico, Dutch-born American conductor and pianist, the first woman to gain wide recognition and acceptance as a leader of world-class symphony orchestras. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Antonia Brico, a conductor who led her own orchestras in New York in the 1930's and who devoted her life to fighting prejudice against women in the orchestral world, died on Thursday after a long illness. Her last New York appearances were in 1977, when she performed with the Brooklyn Philharmonia.TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers.This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. When she returned to New York to conduct the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in 1975, her single scheduled concert sold out so quickly that a second was added. Early Life and Education. Antonia Louisa Brico was born in Rotterdam, Holland in 1902. In 1938, she became the first woman to stand on the podium and conduct the New York Philharmonic. Antonia Brico’s articulate recollections always link music to love, and this documentary, inspired by her former student Judy Collins and put together by Jill Godmilow, communicates from start to finish Antonia’s enormous capacity for both music and love. Though Antonia has a love story with concert organizer Frank Thomsen (Benjamin Wainwright), this romantic arc is still trumped by Antonia’s hunger to conduct. Mr. and Mrs. John Wolthuis (mother’s first name unknown) became her foster parents. Antonia Brico was a unique figure in classical music. The maestro was born Antonia Brico but raised as Wilhelmina Wolthius. Virtually any topic for the virtual learner. And in 1938 she made her debut with the New York Philharmonic, becoming the first woman to conduct that orchestra.She had mixed feelings about these distinctions, however. Later that year she conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic but failed to win a conducting post she sought there. ''I call myself a conductor who happens to be a woman.'' With Christanne de Bruijn, Benjamin Wainwright, Scott Turner Schofield, Seumas F. Sargent.