Evangeline Benedetti (b. February 22, 1941) is an American cellist who was first woman cello player to play in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
[1] She was also able to take free cello lessons at the University of Texas String Project,[2][1] and her childhood teachers were Walter Coleman[3]: xv and Phyllis Young.
Her performance earned rave reviews, with the New York Times calling her approach to playing as “strikingly similar to Casals” and praising her "technical capacity," her "big, vibrant tone" and her "enormous communicativeness".
[5] Benedetti's career with the New York Philharmonic began in 1967 after winning her audition during Leonard Bernstein's[6] tenure as the orchestra's music director.
[1] As one of the first female members in the New York Philharmonic, she became a subject of the 1969 Human Rights Commission's case investigating the orchestra's hiring practices for membership.