Harpist May Hogan Cambern; First Woman in Philharmonic

May Hogan Cambern, an accomplished harpist who was the first woman to play in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, died of heart failure last month. She was 87 years old.

Mrs. Cambern was still in high school when she joined the Philharmonic as second harp when the orchestra began in 1919. She was then the youngest musician and the only woman in the Philharmonic.

Over the course of her career, she performed with such conductors as Leopold Stokowski and Bruno Walter, and played for George Gershwin, Mary Pickford, Roy Rogers and Walt Disney. During the 1930s and ‘40s, she appeared on “Lux Radio Theater” with Cecil B. DeMille and on “Hit Parade” with Frank Sinatra.

Mrs. Cambern resigned from the symphony in 1938 to work for recording companies, television networks and movie studios. “It was very different, but equally interesting and demanding,” she recalled in an interview with the Arizona Republic last year. “We did the background music as Roy Rogers chased the bad guys.”

Sound-Track Music

Mrs. Cambern also contributed sound-track music for several Fred Astaire movies, for “Citizen Kane” and for the Disney classic “Fantasia,” among others.

She was an officer in the Los Angeles chapter of the American Harp Society and an honorary life-member of the Dominant Club, as association of women musicians.

Mrs. Cambern left Los Angeles in the early 1980s to live with her daughter, Patricia Blair, in Phoenix, Ariz. She died in Phoenix on June 25.

Mrs. Cambern drew her inspiration from a Victorian statuette of a harpist that her mother owned. “It had a great sentimental value to her and really caused her to play the harp,” her daughter-in-law, Pat Cambern, said Wednesday.

She is also survived by her son, Donn, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Carroll Cambern, her husband of 42 years, died in 1967.

A memorial service will be held July 18 at the Wee Kirk o’ the Heather, Forest Lawn, Glendale, at 3 p.m.