PSO reaches out with Hill House concert

A celebration of local culture and talent

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Orchestras around the country are trying to embed themselves deeper in their communities for humanitarian as well as financial reasons. Most every orchestra that has experienced financial difficulty and survived the struggle has announced a rededication to local efforts and communities.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has made an effort to ignite partnerships with three neighborhoods: the North Side, Wilkinsburg and the Hill District.

On Tuesday, members of the PSO performed in the Hill House’s Elsie H. Hillman Auditorium, sharing the stage with musicians, poets and artists from the Hill District in a celebration of the neighborhood’s culture and talent. PSO associate conductor Andres Franco led the performance.

The evening featured music interwoven with a slideshow as well as poetry readings by members of the Ujamaa Collective, an organization devoted to promoting the works of female AfricanAmerican entrepreneurs and arts. Guest soloist Monica Ellis, bassoonist for the internationally renowned wind quintet Imani Winds, and a Hill District native, delivered a poised interpretation of the first movement of Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto, backed by members of the PSO.

Other works on the program included music by Florence Price, the first African-American woman to have work performed by a major orchestra, in 1933; Jennifer Higdon, a Philadelphia-based Pulitzer Prizewinning composer; Tommaso Giordani; and others. Local singer Anqwenique Wingfield performed music by Daniel B. Roumain with strings and percussion.

This concert marked the second time the PSO had partnered with Hill artists this year. The first concert was in Heinz Hall in January and included a world premiere of the August Wilson Symphony by composer Kathryn Bostic.

The orchestra has been working to specifically build relationships with the Hill and the city’s African-American community, said Suzanne Perrino, the PSO’s senior vice president of learning and community engagement. She said that the symphony created an 18-member community advisory council comprising community leaders from the three targeted neighborhoods about three years ago.

One council member is Terri Baltimore, director of community engagement at the Hill House. “This is a historically rich neighborhood,” she said. “It makes sense for the symphony to be here. It’s not that far a leap from Heinz Hall.”

Kendra Ross, co-chair of the community advisory council, went to church and took music lessons in the Hill District while growing up here. Now based in New York, Ms. Ross described the council’s conversations with the symphony as difficult but promising.

“I do appreciate that they seem to be in it for the long term and that they take criticism well,” she said. “Do I think the advisory council is where it needs to be? No. But I think it’s moving in the right direction. The right people are at the table now.”

Orchestras around the country are undergoing deep introspection about the lack of diversity onstage and off. Midsize to large institutions are finding it easier to