Antonia Brico, (born June 26, 1902, Rotterdam, Netherlands died August 3, 1989, Denver, Colorado, U.S.), Dutch-born American conductor and pianist, the first woman to gain wide recognition and acceptance as a leader of world-class symphony orchestras. Brico moved from her native Netherlands to the United States with her parents in 1908 and settled in California. She graduated from high school in Oakland in 1919, by which time she had become an accomplished pianist and had made a small beginning toward her conducting career. In 1923 she graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, having been an assistant to the director of