Frances Blaisdell was a pathbreaking flautist.

She began her advanced flute studies with George Barrère at what is now the Juilliard School of Music. Later she studied with Marcel Moyse

Marcel Moyse

Marcel Moyse was a famous French flutist. Many works were composed for Moyse including the 1934 Flute Concerto by Jacques Ibert...

 and William Kincaid

William Kincaid

William Kincaid was formerly known nationally in the entertainment trade as a costume designer, and after leaving the costume business in 1990, has been working to become locally known as an artist creating pet paintings in brilliant colors on large canvases...

.

In the 1930s she was first flute of the National Orchestral Association, the New Opera Company, and the New Friends of Music.

One of the first women to play in the woodwind section of the New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

, her first appearance with the orchestra was in 1932, when she soloed in a children's concert. After being refused an audition in 1937 because of her sex, she played with the orchestra in 1962 in a piece that required extra flutes.

In 1941 she took over Barrère's chair in the Barrère Trio after her former teacher suffered a stroke.

While in New York she taught at the Manhattan School of Music

Manhattan School of Music

The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...

 and accompanied soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 Lily Pons

Lily Pons

Lily Pons was a French-American operatic soprano and actress who had an active career from the late 1920s through the early 1970s. As an opera singer she specialized in the coloratura soprano repertoire and was particularly associated with the title roles in Léo Delibes' Lakmé and Gaetano...

. In 1973, she moved to California to teach at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, where she taught for 35 years.