The Philadelphia Orchestra “is instituting a new social-impact program, increasing others, and packaging them under an umbrella acronym: HEAR, which stands for health, education, access, and research,” writes Peter Dobrin in Thursday’s (4/7) Philadelphia Inquirer. “Under the heading of health, the orchestra is sending its musicians into Broad Street Ministry as music therapists to work with victims of trauma. Temple University is providing training of orchestra musicians, as well as research that tracks outcomes. In the area of education, the orchestra says it will increase its mentoring, coaching, and side-by-side rehearsals with students of All-City Orchestra…. To help increase access, the orchestra will expand its LiveNote app program next season and will add a new track for children. It has instituted a new TeenTix program that sells $10 tickets to middle and high school students. The orchestra is also undertaking research—an information-mapping project that will survey all the existing music education programs in the city…. Orchestra president Allison B. Vulgamore said … the full scope of the orchestra’s ambitions in education and social work would ‘take an investment that isn’t here today.’ … The initiatives are part of a changing institutional direction, she said, taking the orchestra more heavily into social-mission work.”
Posted April 7, 2016
Pictured: Philadelphia Orchestra musicians during a March 2015 pop-up concert at Reading Terminal Market. Photo by Pete Checchia
