Woman tuba player is a rarity

A 20-year-old woman has made it big with the Philadelphia Orchestra: She’s been hired to be its tuba player, a job normally held by men in major orchestras.

Carol Jantsch, a senior at the University of Michigan, beat out 194 others for the vacant tuba seat in Philadelphia.

Orchestra officials said that, based on their research, she may be the first female tuba player in a major full-time American orchestra.

Fritz Kaenzig, her university tuba teacher, said tuba playing has been a man’s world because women don’t generally have as large a lung capacity. Jantsch is an exception, he said.

Jantsch won three international competitions in 2004. She has performed as a substitute tuba player in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.