Opening
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
Ryan Murphy, current Fellow in the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Orchestra Training Program for African American Musicians, demonstrates the cello for students at McKnight Elementary School in McCandless, a suburb just north of Pittsburgh, April 24, 2012.
Doors by Andrew Druckenbrod
“If we want to see more AfricanAmericans in orchestras, it starts with socioeconomic factors and exposure at a young enough age,” says bass trombonist Chris Davis, a former Fellow in the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Orchestra Training Program for African American Musicians.
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Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
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lack of access and exposure to classical music are major factors hindering musicians of color from seeking or developing orchestral careers. But sitting on the stage of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Heinz Hall one weekday in 2009, the then 27-year-old bass trombonist Chris Davis could have done with a bit less proximity. Davis was about to take part in his first rehearsal with the Pittsburgh Symphony’s Orchestra Training Program for African American Musicians, a two-year mentoring program begun in 2007. He arrived at the hall early, giving himself an hour to warm up and to calm his nerves. What he saw was enough to make anyone nervous: two no-nonsense section leaders in the PSO— Concertmaster Andrés Cárdenes and Principal Trumpet George Vosburgh—were already onstage preparing for the rehearsal. Davis, who was no stranger to high-level rehearsals as an alumnus of the New World Symphony, recalls thinking, “The two most powerful people on the stage are warming up. No way I’m going out there.”