Witness to History: Mimi O’Malley and Her Nearly Four Decades on Staff

By Judith Kurnick

Mary (“Mimi”) Read O’Malley started at The Philadelphia Orchestra Association in 1958, as an assistant bookkeeper. She soon moved up to become the secretary to Assistant Manager Joseph H. Santarlasci. Now a spry 90 years old, Mimi vividly remembers those early days. “It was like a family, very Mom and Pop,” she says. “There were 15 of us who did everything: We sold tickets, put out press releases, you name it. Everything was done by hand.

There was a file card for each subscriber, and we stuffed each renewal envelope ourselves.” The performances were also meticulously recorded—also on file cards, by hand. Mimi often went to concerts. “Listening to the music was such a treat,” she recalls.” I lived very close to a train station, so I could go to the evening concerts, get off the train, and be home. It was harder after I got married, but when our offices moved to the Academy House, they set up a PA system where anything being played on stage in the Academy came into the office, which was really neat. One year I heard 16 performances of The Nutcracker!”

Santarlasci was “a lovely man who took care of his people,” Mimi recalls. One day an angry subscriber became abusive to the staff member responsible for ticket sales. “Get out,” he told her. “And she left.” Santarlasci’s regular bridge games with musicians came in handy on tour, Mimi says. “In those days the Orchestra traveled by train, in sleeper cars. There were upper and lower bunks, and not everyone was happy with their assignments. But when they came after him to complain, the other bridge players said ‘Go away. He’s busy.’ They protected him.”

Part of Mimi’s job was to take minutes at meetings of The Philadelphia Orchestra Association’s Board of Directors. In the early days “everyone was afraid of the 3 Bs,” she remembers. Orville Bullitt, Charles G. Berwind, and C. Wanton Balis were tough and imperious. “But at the end of the year, if the finances were a few thousand dollars short, one of them would write a check.”

After Eugene Ormandy’s secretary died, Mimi was asked to handle his correspondence. Every morning, she would go to his home in the Barclay Hotel and take his dictation. “Then when I got it all typed up, I would take it back up to him because he always wanted to sign it himself.” At first, she had a manual typewriter and was thrilled when they gave her an IBM Selectric, and eventually an Executive typewriter. “But because of the proportional spacing, if you made a mistake you had to start all over again.”

In Ormandy’s later years, he sometimes wasn’t well. “He called me all the time,” Mimi remembers. “My number was 1911, but he would dial 911 and get the emergency response operators. They would say, ‘No, Mr. Ormandy, this is not the right number.’ They knew him well.”

Mimi left the organization in 1968 but returned a decade later at Mr. Santarlasci’s request. When he retired, she worked for Executive Directors Seymour Rosen and Stephen Sell. By then, her title was assistant to the executive director and music director.

Riccardo Muti became music director in 1980. “Maestro Muti is a wonderful, wonderful man. Extremely kind. It was a pleasure to work with him. When he first came in the 1970s, he was always sure of himself in music, but he spoke very little English. Esther Klein, the wife of Orchestra Board member Philip Klein, took him around and showed him the nice places to eat, things like that,” Mimi remembers. “When his third child was born, his wife was in Italy, and he was here conducting. That was a hard time for him.” She remembers shopping for a crib when the young family came to visit.

A high point for Mimi was when Muti was given an award in New Jersey. “He invited my husband, Frank, and me to go with him in the car. It was very laid back, not a formal occasion by any stretch, and it was fun, a lovely time.”

She notes that, as executive director, Steve Sell “was very good at what he did and knew exactly what he wanted. He wasn’t afraid of anything. Steve was his own man, and he did a wonderful job. It was a shame he got sick (with cancer). He came into the office until two weeks before he died in 1989.” General Manager Joseph H. Kluger became executive director, and later president, and Mimi’s boss until she retired in 2004.

Meanwhile, Wolfgang Sawallisch had succeeded Muti as music director. Once again, Mimi had a front-row seat. “I worked with him for a long time,” she says. “He was a fabulous musician, a fabulous pianist, and a wonderful man. He was very business-like, very Germanic, as makes sense. He and his wife were the perfect husband and wife, and when she died, he really took it hard. Every death is sad, of course, but he really suffered.”

When Mimi retired, she received the Philadelphia Orchestra Award, given to a Board member, volunteer, musician, employee, “friend,” or organization for extraordinary service to the Association. “It was a big honor, but I had to get up and make a speech. That didn’t please me at all. But it was very nice.”

The best part, says Mimi, was when “people would ask, ‘What do you do?’ And they would go, ‘Oh, you work for the Orchestra!!’ That was something I could be proud of. They say if you like your work, you never work a day in your life. I think that’s very true.”