In Tuesday’s (8/25) Philadelphia Inquirer, Peter Dobrin reports, “In place of its third free neighborhood concert of the outdoor season, the Philadelphia Orchestra will perform a fund-raiser to help replenish the Fraternal Order of Police Survivors’ Fund. The concert, on Sept. 20 at the Mann Center, is officially free, but through fund-raising and a suggested $20-per-person donation, the orchestra hopes to raise $500,000 for the fund. … The money raised will be used to assist families of officers who have been killed on duty, said John McNesby, president of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police lodge. … The concert echoes, but is not intended as a follow-up to, a performance last year at City Hall. The orchestra had long planned one of its free neighborhood concerts on the north side of City Hall, but about six hours before the concert, a police officer was killed, prompting the orchestra to consider canceling. The concert went ahead, after discussions, as a kind of civic solace, with Mayor Nutter giving a powerful speech before the music began.” The program, led by Associate Conductor Rossen Milanov, will include “America the Beautiful,” the “Nimrod” movement from Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36, “Enigma,” music from John Williams’s score to Superman, and Copland’s Lincoln Portrait.
Posted August 26, 2009
