On October 20, Pennsylvania’s Johnstown Symphony Orchestra will perform a free concert at the Cambria Iron Lower Works in Johnstown, which at the height of the steel industry era spread out over thirteen miles along the Conemaugh, Little Conemaugh, and Stonycreek rivers, before closing in 1992. The JSO will perform inside the machine shop, a 40,000-square-foot building once used to make parts for the rolling mill and blast furnaces. Music Director James Blachly will lead a program including Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, and Bernstein’s score to On the Waterfront, as the film is projected on the walls of the steel mill. The orchestra worked with the United Steelworkers Union to invite former employees of Bethlehem Steel—especially those who may have worked inside the machine shop—to be guests at the concert.
Posted October 20, 2017
