The Arion Trio, 1916-1919

Josephine Holub (1919), Joyce (Holloway) Barthelson (1918), Margaret (Avery) Rowell
(1919), and Wilhelmina Wolthius (1918) all began musical careers at Tech where Holub,
Holloway, and Avery formed a chamber music ensemble called “The Arion Trio.” In the 20s
and 30s, they performed live on Pacific Coast radio networks. All three and their friend and
classmate Wilhelmina Wolthius (who later changed her name to Antonia Brico) went on to
illustrious careers in music.

Josephine Holub played violin with the Arion Trio until 1932. Her name appears frequently
in local press in the twenties and thirties in connection with concerts in the East Bay.

Joyce (Holloway) Barthelson became a noted arranger, pianist, conductor, and piano teacher.
She was a staff pianist for several local radio stations, taught piano, and co-founded in 1944
the Hoff-Barthelson Music School in Scarsdale, NY. The school still exists under the same
name. Barthelson wrote operas, piano pieces, concertos, and songs.

Margaret (Avery) Rowell was described in her obituary in the New York Times in 1995 as
one of the country’s best-known teachers of the cello. She taught cello at the San Francisco
Conservatory of Music for 14 years and was on the faculties of the University of California at
Berkeley, Stanford University, Mills College and San Francisco State University. She
developed a unique technique for playing the cello using one’s “whole body” which has come
to be known as the Rowell Method and is used around the world.

Wilhelmina Wolthius (aka Antonia Brico) became one of the first female symphonic
conductors. She was the first woman to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic and the first to
conduct the New York Philharmonic. Her obituary in The New York Times in 1989 quotes her
as saying, ”I do not call myself a woman conductor… I call myself a conductor who happens
to be a woman.” She founded the Women’s Symphony Orchestra in New York City and
conducted the Denver Businessmen’s Symphony until 1985. Both were renamed in her honor.
Judy Collins (a 1960s folksinger) directed a film in 1974 honoring her former teacher’s life
entitled Antonia: Portrait of a Conductor.