“After three years of domestic-only performances, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is once again embarking on a European tour,” writes Jeremy Reynolds in Friday’s (6/17) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “It’s an opportunity for the PSO to strut its stuff and an essential status symbol of a top orchestra. In August, the orchestra will visit Cologne, Dresden, Dusseldorf, Essen, Hamburg, Ljubljana, Salzburg and other cities to perform music by, unsurprisingly, European composers including Beethoven, Dvořák, Mahler and Tchaikovsky. The orchestra’s first overseas performance is Aug. 18 at the Ljubljana Festival in Slovenia. The PSO is the only American orchestra to be invited to this year’s Salzburg Festival in Austria, a particularly impressive feat for the ensemble. These festival appearances are by invitation only, and an invitation indicates a certain quality of playing that the PSO has cultivated for years now. The final concert is Sept. 4 in Cologne, Germany. Coincidentally, the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras will also be on tour at the same time, even hitting some of the same halls within days of PSO concerts. So European audiences will experience a triple barrel dose of Midwest and East Coast American orchestral muscle. Music director Manfred Honeck will lead the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s concerts.”
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