“As riots and demonstrations ravaged parts of Baltimore, business-as-usual came to a stop for practically everyone in the city, including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra,” writes Andrew Balio, principal trumpet at the Baltimore Symphony, in a recent post at his Future Symphony Institute website. “The orchestra’s members were left wondering, like so many of their neighbors, what we could do in the face of the upheaval and heartbreak of a city in turmoil.… The BSO musicians decided that our best response to such dismal darkness would be for us to turn on our brightest light—to perform an impromptu concert, and to do so as soon as possible. It did not take long for us to reach the conclusion that the best way we could help was to do essentially what we do every week.… We decided simply to perform in the driveway of the [concert] hall in the middle of the day and to spread the word via social media.… The very next day at noon we assembled outside, surrounded by roughly a thousand eager listeners … all eager for a glimpse of something that could transcend the very tense situation we found ourselves in.”
Posted May 14, 2015
