“What does Pittsburgh sound like? If you ask Manfred Honeck, music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, our hometown orchestra does a pretty convincing job of capturing the heart and soul of the city in sound,” write Jeremy Reynolds in Thursday’s (10/6) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “ ‘Life in Pittsburgh is full of friendly, spirited people, with such energy and enthusiasm and rawness, and the orchestra plays with those same qualities,’ Mr. Honeck said. ‘That’s the real power of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.’ … Mr. Honeck said, ‘When we went on tour in Europe this year, the reaction was enormous…. People came to me and said they were blown away.’ … On the administrative side of the equation, there’s the new strategic plan … as well as new concert formats, like PSO360, which seats the audience onstage for performances with soloists and smaller ensembles. (The first PSO360 concert is sold out.).” Says Honeck, “What happens if the symphony is not here? … Well, what happens if the Steelers are not here? The city would be poor. Of course the symphony can’t be compared with the Steelers in the amount of people that attend, but the PSO is one of the greatest orchestras in the world.”
Posted October 11, 2017
