A Concert for Peace: Humanitarian Relief for Ukraine (Sat. April 2, 2022)

A CONCERT F

R PEACE

HUMANITARIAN RELIEF FOR UKRAINE

SUPPORTED BY

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

S AT U R DAY A P R I L 2 , 2 0 2 2

HEINZ HALL

A Concert

for Peace

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Manfred Honeck

ENDOWED BY THE VIRA I. HEINZ ENDOWMENT

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Byron Stripling

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Moon Doh Jacob Joyce

FIRST VIOLIN

Mark Huggins

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Erina LarabyGoldwasser Stephanie Tretick Andrew Wickesberg MR. & MRS. MARTIN G. McGUINN CHAIR

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Marylène Gingras-Roy L Laura Fuller

Marta Krechkovsky Jennifer Orchard

FLUTE

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DONALD I. & JANET MORITZ AND EQUITABLE RESOURCES, INC. CHAIR

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PITTSBURGHSYMPHONY.ORG 2021-2022 SEASON

A CONCERT FOR PEACE: HUMANITARIAN RELIEF FOR UKRAINE | HEINZ HALL SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 2022 AT 7:30 P.M.

Manfred Honeck, conductor Marta Krechkovsky, violin Duquesne University Voices of Spirit, Caron Daley, Director Leif Ove Andsnes, piano Pittsburgh Youth Chorus, Shawn Funk, Director Pittsburgh Opera's Resident Artists, Christopher Hahn, General Director Speakers Dr. Stephen Benham Madeline Ehlinger Andrew Turner Véronique Filloux Yazid Gray Jeremy Harr Arvo Pärt

Silouan's Song

Myroslav Skoryk

Melody

Halyna Vasylivna Kukharyshyn

Don’t take me to the basement, mommy” Dr. Stephen Benham

(arr. Alexander Levkovich) Ms. Krechkovsky

(Translated by Dr. Stephen Benham)

Dmitri Shostakovich

Largo from Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Opus 47

Simon Armitage “Resistance”

Madeline Ehlinger Josef Rheinberger Abendlied from “Drei geistliche Gesänge”

Duquesne University Voices of Spirit James MacMillan

Larghetto for Orchestra

Kim Stafford

“Sunflower Seeds”

Andrew Turner

Traditional Spiritual

We Shall Walk Through the Valley In Peace

Valentin Silvestrov

"Prayer for Ukraine"

(arr. Undine Smith Moore) Duquesne University Voices of Spirit (arr. Eduard Resatsch)

Lesya Ukrayinka

“Contra spem spero!” (Hope against hope) from the

(Translated by collection On the wings of songs Dr. Stephen Benham) Véronique Filloux

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Valentin Silvestrov

III. Moderato from Three Bagatelles, Opus 1 Mr. Andsnes

Navajo Prayer (arr. Gregg Smith)

"Now I Walk in Beauty" Pittsburgh Youth Chorus

Marta Keen

"Homeward Bound"

(arr. Jay Althouse) Pittsburgh Youth Chorus

Satish Kumar “Prayer for Peace”

Yazid Gray Antonin Dvořák

Largo from Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Opus 95,

"From the New World"

Oleksandr Oles

“Live, O Ukraine, Live for Beauty!”

(Translated by Dr. Stephen Benham) Jeremy Harr

Mykhailo Verbytsky

"Shche ne vmerla Ukrainy" (Ukrainian National Anthem) Duquesne University Voices of Spirit Pittsburgh Youth Chorus Pittsburgh Opera's Resident Artists (arr. Kim Hartquist)

Jonathan Crow, Guest Concertmaster (Concertmaster, Toronto Symphony Orchestra)

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HOW TO GIVE To make your gift supporting the United Way's humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, text ConcertForPeace to 41444 or scan the code below.

SPECIAL THANKS Bobbi Watt Geer, Ph.D. President and CEO United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania Diane P. Holder President and CEO UPMC Health Plan Many involved in the production of the performance this evening have most graciously donated their services for this concert. We are grateful for their generosity.

Music Director Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra American Federation of Musicians, Local 60-471 Leif Ove Andsnes Marta Krechkovsky Duquesne University Voices of Spirit Caron Daley, Director

Pittsburgh Youth Choir Shawn Funk, Artistic Director and Conductor Lee Saville-Iksic, Executive Director and Pianist Carly Black, Chorus Manager Pittsburgh Opera's Resident Artist Program Christopher Hahn, General Director Robert Boldin, Director of Artistic Operations Jonathan Crow Habib Azar KünstlerSekretariat am Gasteig IMG Artists WQED-FM 89.3 Dr. Richard Rodda Dr. Stephen Benham Lulu's Threadwork Reweaving and Reknitting Local No. 3, I.A.T.S.E. Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts

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ARVO PÄRT (b. 1935)

Silouans Song (“My Soul Yearns after the Lord ...”)

(1991)

Arvo Pärt, born in 1935 in Paide, Estonia, fifty miles southeast of Tallinn, graduated from the Tallinn Conservatory in 1963 while working as a recording director in the music division of the Estonian Radio. A year before leaving the Conservatory, he won first prize in the All-Union Young Composers’ Competition for a children’s cantata and an oratorio. In 1980, he emigrated to Vienna, where he took Austrian citizenship; he moved to Berlin in 1982 and recently returned to Tallinn. Pärt’s many distinctions include the Artistic Award of the Estonian Society in Stockholm, honorary memberships in the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Belgium’s Royal Academy of Arts, seven Grammy nominations, and recognition as a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République Française. In his early works, Pärt explored the influences of the Soviet music of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, the serial principles of Schoenberg, and the techniques of collage and quotation, but in the late 1960s he abandoned creative work for several years to devote himself to the study of such Medieval and Renaissance composers as Machaut, Ockeghem, Obrecht, and Josquin. Guided by the spirit and method of those ancient masters, Pärt developed a distinctive idiom that utilizes quiet dynamics, rhythmic stasis, and open-interval and triadic harmonies to create a thoughtful mood of mystical introspection reflecting the composer’s personal piety.

Silouans Song of 1991 drew its inspiration from the writings of Silouan (18661938), a “Staretz,” or elder monk of the Russian Orthodox Church, who lived much of his life in the monastery of St. Panteleimon on Mt. Athos. Silouan’s mysticism resonated deeply with Pärt, and he was drawn to transform a passage from Silouan’s writings into the brief but profoundly expressive Silouans Song: “My soul yearns after the Lord and I seek Him in tears.” The work is arranged as a series of slowly moving phrases in chordal texture separated by silences, each of which corresponds to a phrase in the original Russian text — the stress of a syllable determines the pitch change; polysyllabic words produce reiterated pitches.

MYROSLAV SKORYK

(1938-2020)

Melody (1981)

Myroslav Skoryk, one of Ukraine’s most important musical figures, was born in 1938 in Lviv, near the border with southern Poland, and began studying in the local music school when he was eight, but his education and life were disrupted when the family was deported to Siberia two years later.

When the Skoryks were permitted to return home, in 1955, Myroslav was accepted by the Lviv Conservatory as a composition student. In 1960, he entered the Moscow Conservatory to study with Dmitri Kabalevsky, and joined the faculty of the Lviv Conservatory in 1964 after completing his doctoral degree in Moscow. In 1967, Skoryk was named Professor of Composition at the Kyiv Conservatory, and the following year he was selected to be Secretary of the Ukrainian Union of Composers; upon leaving the Kyiv Conservatory in 1988, he became head of the Lviv branch of that organization. In 1996, Skoryk moved to Australia and obtained Australian citizenship, but later returned to Ukraine, where he was co-chair of the National Union of Composers of Ukraine from 2004 to 2010. In 2011, he was appointed as Artistic Director of the Kyiv Opera, and served in that position until 2016. He died in Kyiv on June 1, 2020. Myroslav Skoryk, holder of the Shevchenko Prize and the title “People’s Artist of Ukraine,” composed ballets, orchestral works, concertos, chamber pieces, film music, popular and classical songs, choral numbers and film scores in a style that is at once contemporary yet deeply imbued with the spirit and sound of Ukrainian folk song and dance. Skoryk’s Melody, written for the 1981 film The High Mountain Pass, is so wellknown in Ukraine that many believe it to be a folksong.

PROGRAM NOTES 2021-2022 SEASON

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POEM - “Don’t take me to the basement, mommy” (March 17, 2022)

By Halyna Vasylivna Kukharyshyn Translated by Dr. Stephen Benham (2022)

Halyna Vasylivna Kukharyshyn began writing as a young student in her native Ukraine.

Her poems and life stories have been repeatedly published in poetic journals across Ukraine. Не веди мене, мамо, в підвал.

Don’t take me to the basement, mommy.

Бо там темно і зимно в ніжки…

Because it’s dark and cold down there…

І поки не лунає сигнал, And until the alarm is heard, можна, я ще у ліжку, трішки Can I just stay in bed…take a little nap? подрімаю. Тут тепло так I’m warm here and we don’t need to light a candle. і не треба палити свічку. Чуєш, мамо, гудить літак.

Mommy, do you hear it, the planes are coming.

Будуть знову бомбити всю нічку. They will bomb us all night again. Йдемо,мам, вже сирена гуде!

We need to go now, mommy, the alarm is already ringing!

Біжимо! Я не хочу спати!

Run now! I don’t want to sleep anymore!

Мам, а бомба на нас не впаде?

Mommy, did the bomb not land on us?

Мам, а ми дочекаємось тата?

Mommy, will we stay and wait for Dad?

Він прийде, а нас вже нема.

If he comes back and doesn’t find us, Де ж він буде за нами шукати? how will he know where to look for us. Мати втерла сльозу крадькома. І понесла дитину з хати.

Mama wiped away her tears furtively.

And she carried her child out of the house.

Не веди мене, мамо, в підвал.

“Don’t take me to the basement, Mom.”

Бо там темно і зимно в ніжки…

Because it’s dark and cold down there…

І лунає сирени сигнал. І летить штукатурка на ліжко…

And the alarm sounds.

And plaster lands on the bed…

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

(1906-1975)

Largo from Symphony No. 5, Opus 47 (1937)

“COMPOSER REGAINS HIS PLACE IN SOVIET,” read a headline in The New York Times on November 22, 1937. “Dmitri Shostakovich, who fell from grace, on the way to rehabilitation. His new symphony hailed. Audience cheers as Leningrad Philharmonic presents work.” A year before, Shostakovich’s gritty, modernistic opera Lady Macbeth of the Mzensk District had been excoriated in the Soviet press and he was denounced as a “formalist” (“Muddle Instead of Music” was the article’s title in Pravda), and the Fifth Symphony was reportedly intended as “A Soviet composer’s reply to just criticism” — a phrase attributed to Shostakovich by the press, though it does not appear in the score — and presented to an enthusiastic public. Shostakovich had apparently returned to the Soviet fold, and in such manner that in 1940 he was awarded the Stalin Prize, 6

the highest achievement then possible for a Russian composer. But those years were the height of Joseph Stalin’s ruthless rule (his “exterminations” outnumbered those of Hitler) and Shostakovich developed an almost protean musical language whose surface mollified Soviet officialdom but whose expressive heart concealed the tragedy, hopelessness and bitter irony that gripped everyday life. He is purported to have said about the Symphony’s boisterous finale, for example, “I think it is clear to everyone what happens. The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov.

It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, ‘Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing,’ and you rise, shaky, and go marching off muttering, ‘Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.’ What kind of apotheosis is that? You have to be a complete oaf not to hear that. People who came to the premiere in the best of moods wept.”

The Fifth Symphony’s deepest pathos is reserved for the third movement. It is dominated by string sonorities, with woodwinds and percussion providing limited timbral contrast. The heavy brass is silent. This movement is best heard not in a specific formal context but as an extended soliloquy embracing the most deeply felt emotions. For much of its length, the expression is subdued, but twice the music gathers enough strength to send forth a mighty, despairing cry. The disembodied sound of celesta and harp closes this gripping Largo, which the eminent Russian-American conductor Sergei Koussevitzky thought to be the greatest symphonic slow movement since Beethoven.

POEM - “Resistance” (March 2022)

By Simon Armitage

Simon Armitage is the current national Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. He wrote this poem in March 2022 about the invasion of Ukraine, written in solidarity with those under fire.

It’s war again: a family carries its family out of a pranged house under a burning thatch.

The next scene smacks of archive newsreel: platforms and trains (never again, never again), toddlers passed over heads and shoulders, lifetimes stowed in luggage racks.

It’s war again: unmistakable smoke on the near horizon mistaken for thick fog. Fingers crossed.

An old blue tractor tows an armoured tank into no-man’s land.

It’s the ceasefire hour: godspeed the columns of winter coats and fur-lined hoods, the high-wire walk

over buckled bridges managing cases and bags, balancing west and east - godspeed.

It’s war again: the woman in black gives sunflower seeds to the soldier, insists his marrow will nourish the national flower. In dreams let bullets be birds, let cluster bombs burst into flocks.

False news is news with the pity edited out. It’s war again: an air-raid siren can’t fully mute the cathedral bells let’s call that hope.

PROGRAM NOTES 2021-2022 SEASON

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JOSEPH RHEINBERGER (1839-1901)

“Abendlied” (“Evening Song”) from Drei geistliche Gesänge (“Three Sacred Songs”) (1855, revised 1863)

Joseph Rheinberger, Liechtenstein’s greatest composer, was born in 1839 in Vaduz, capital of the tiny principality situated between Switzerland and the Austrian Tyrol, and admitted to the Munich Conservatory when he was twelve. He taught music privately and served as organist at a number of churches in the city before being appointed royal organist in 1857. Two years later he was named to the faculty of the Munich Conservatory, a position he held until his death, in 1901. He also directed the Munich Choral Society and worked as a coach at the Bavarian Court Opera, where he helped Wagner prepare the premiere of Tristan und Isolde in 1865. In 1877 Rheinberger was named Hofkapellmeister by King Ludwig II, in 1894 he was given the title of privy councilor, and in 1899 the University of Munich awarded him an honorary doctorate. He was also a member of the Berlin Royal Academy and of the Academies of Paris and Florence, and received the Knighthood of St. Gregory from Pope Leo XIII. Rheinberger composed the first version of the lovely Abendlied (“Evening Song”) in March 1855, two weeks before his sixteenth birthday. He revised the motet eight years later and published it in 1873 as the last of the Drei geistliche Gesänge für gemischten Chor, Op. 69 (“Three Sacred Songs for Mixed Choir”), which he dedicated to a choral society in Berlin that had requested a work from him. The text is taken from Luke 24:29.

Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, und der Tag hat sich geneiget.

Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.

JAMES MacMILLAN (b. 1959)

Larghetto for Orchestra

(2009 for chorus, orchestrated in 2017) Scottish composer James MacMillan, was educated at the University of Edinburgh (B.Mus., 1981) and University of Durham (Ph.D., 1987), where his principal teacher was John Casken.

After working as a lecturer at Manchester University from 1986 to 1988, MacMillan returned to Scotland, where he has since fulfilled numerous important commissions and taught at the University of Edinburgh and Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. In 1993, MacMillan won both the Gramophone Contemporary Music Record of the Year Award and the Classic CD Award for Contemporary Music; he was made a CBE in 2004, given the 2008 British Composer Award for Liturgical Music, and named an Honorary Patron of the London Chamber Orchestra in 2008. In October 2014, MacMillan inaugurated the Cumnock Tryst, a festival of international scope that he organized in his boyhood home in southern Scotland. Many of Macmillan’s compositions incorporate traditional Scottish elements and bear the stamp of either his religion (Catholicism) or his politics (socialism).

Larghetto for Orchestra is MacMillan’s instrumental version of the Miserere for unaccompanied chorus he composed for the London-based choral ensemble The Sixteen in 2009. The text for the choral work, the penitential Psalm 51 — Miserere mei, Deus: Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness. According to the multitude of Thy mercies, do away mine offences. Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my faults … — is taken from the Matins service of Tenebrae (“darkness”), which encompasses the most solemn moment of Holy Week, during which fifteen candles signifying the ebbing life of Christ are extinguished one-by-one after 8

the singing of the obligatory Psalms. The service closes “in tenebris.” MacMillan’s Miserere and its Larghetto for Orchestra analogue not only plumb the images and emotions of the individual verses, but also trace a slowly swelling optimism, from the recognition and repentance of the opening lines to hope of forgiveness at the close.

POEM - “Sunflower Seeds” (March 2022)

By Kim Stafford

Kim Robert Stafford is an American poet and essayist who served as the 9th Oregon Poet Laureate from 2018-2020.

How many do you have? Enough to line the roads? Enough to give to others so they can fill the fields?

Enough to plant in every bomb crater, bullet hole? That would be too many.

If you have just one, one can spiral into a thousand in a halo of gold.

Where will you hide it in the earth so every seed may declare peace for a survivor’s knees at a brother’s grave?

We Shall Walk Through the Valley in Peace (Traditional Spiritual) (1977) Arranged by Undine Smith Moore

Undine Smith Moore, the granddaughter of slaves, was born in 1904 in rural Jarratt, Virginia, fifty miles south of Richmond, and began piano lessons at age seven. She went on to study music at Fisk University in Nashville and was appointed supervisor of music for the Goldsboro, North Carolina public schools upon her graduation (cum laude) in 1926. The following year she joined the faculty of Virginia State University in Petersburg and taught there until her retirement in 1972; she thereafter held visiting professorships and residencies at Carleton College, College of Saint Benedict, St. John’s University and Virginia Union University. Moore earned her master’s degree from Columbia University Teachers College in 1931, and also studied at the Manhattan School of Music and the Eastman School in Rochester. She taught piano, organ and music theory, directed the college choir and co-founded the Black Music Center at Virginia State University, served as an Advisor to the Afro-American Arts Institute at Indiana University, worked with rural schoolchildren and church music ministries, and composed for chamber ensembles, piano and chorus, including the 1982 oratorio Scenes from the Life of a Martyr, inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Among her many other distinctions are the Governor’s Award in the Arts (Virginia), National Association of Negro Musicians Distinguished Achievement Award and honorary doctorates from Virginia State and Indiana universities; in 1977 she was named Music Laureate of Virginia. In February 1989, soon after completing a residency at the University of Michigan, Undine Smith Moore succumbed to a stroke.

Moore was raised in the tradition of the spiritual (when she was a child, she notated the melodies her mother and father had learned from their parents), and both its technical elements and its direct emotion appeal imbued not just such choral arrangements as We Shall Walk Through the Valley in Peace but her original compositions as well.

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We shall walk through the valley in peace.

If Jesus, himself, will be our leader, We shall walk through the valley in peace.

There will be no sorrow there, If Jesus, himself, will be our leader, We shall walk through the valley in peace.

VALENTIN SILVESTROV

(b. 1937)

"Prayer for Ukraine"

Arranged by Eduard Resatsch (2014) “It seems to me that music is song in spite of everything, even when it is unable to sing in a literal sense. Not a philosophy, not a system of beliefs, but the song of the world about itself, and at the same time a musical testament to existence.” With those visionary words, Valentin Silvestrov — “one of the greatest composers of our time,” according to both the late Russian composer Alfred Schnittke and his esteemed Estonian colleague Arvo Pärt — distilled his belief in the interrelatedness of music’s lyrical thread and our sense of our own time-bound lives. Silvestrov, born in Kyiv, Ukraine in 1937, did not develop an interest in music until he was a teenager. He took some evening courses at a music school in Kyiv from 1955 to 1958, when he was training to become a civil engineer, and he was influenced deeply enough by them that he changed his career path and entered the Kyiv Conservatory to study composition. Silvestrov taught privately for a halfdozen years after graduating from the school in 1964, but thereafter lived in Kyiv as a free-lance composer.

Early in his career, Silvestrov took advantage of the cultural thaw that swept the Soviet Union following the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 by composing works in decidedly modernistic idioms.

Those compositions were little heard at home, but he did have a number of performances in Russia and the West (to which he was not then allowed to travel), and in 1967 he won a prize from the Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress. Silvestrov’s avant-gardism earned him little favor in Kyiv, however, and in 1974 he was threatened with expulsion from the Composers’ Union for defying the government bureaucracy’s established norms. Rather than renounce his modernist style, he withdrew for an extended period of reflection on the nature and intent of his work. His compositions since — symphonies, tone poems, concerted works, chamber music, piano sonatas, cantatas and songs — have become “impregnated with a slow expressive confidence and exhibit greatly prolonged melodic lines in a post romantic climate that is often reminiscent of Gustav Mahler,” according to Frans C. Lemaire, the Belgian musicologist who has specialized in the music of Eastern Europe. Many of Silvestrov’s works are contemplative responses to earlier music, sometimes in style, mood or sonority but not infrequently in actual quotation.

Schott, Silvestrov’s publisher, provided the following information about his Prayer for Ukraine: “‘Euromaidan’ and ‘Revolution of Dignity’ were the names given to the Ukrainian citizens’ protests that began in November 2013 and reached their bloody peak in February 2014, with eighty deaths.

Again and again during this period of turmoil, Valentin Silvestrov went to Maidan Square in Kyiv, where he heard the prayers and songs of the peaceful demonstrators, and then the shots. Almost in the eye of the storm, he wrote numerous choruses — hymns, elegies, prayers, Requiem movements — in this way fighting with musical means for his country, and manifesting his resistance as unshakeable faith in the roots of its culture and religion. Later, Silvestrov grouped fifteen choruses into four cycles, which he combined into in a ‘Majdan Cycle of Cycles.’ The Prayer for Ukraine was the first of the choruses to reach publication.” The orchestral arrangement is by cellist, composer and arranger Eduard Resatsch, who studied in his home city of Lviv, Ukraine and is now a member of Germany’s Bamberg Symphony.

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God protect Ukraine.

Give us strength, faith and hope.

God protect Ukraine, Our Father, our Father.

Valentin Silvestrov was among the millions who were driven from Ukraine by the barbaric Russian invasion of 2022. He made his way to Berlin, where he said in response to a interviewer’s question on March 17, 2022 over Deutsche Welle (DW, i.e., German Radio), “Could you tell us your impressions of what is going on in Ukraine right now?”

“I have to go further back in time, to the Maidan uprising of 2014. What is happening now is a thousand times bigger, I mean the shelling of the Maidan on the last day. Young people were killed there, both Russians and Ukrainians, all unarmed. And now the whole of Ukraine and the whole world is turning into the Maidan. Maidan was a chamber version, a kind of trio or duet. And now it’s an orchestral version.” [A transcript of the full interview is available at: https://www.dw.com/en/ ukrainian-composer-valentin-silvestrov-what-are-you-kremlin-devils-doing/a-61158308.]

POEM - Excerpt from “Contra spem spero!” (Hope against hope) from the collection On the wings of songs (May 1890)

By Lesya Ukrayinka Translated by Dr. Stephen Benham (2022)

Lesya Ukrayinka was one of Ukrainian literature’s foremost writers, best known for her poems and plays. She was also a political, civil and feminist activist. Гетьте, думи, ви, хмари осінні! То ж тепера весна золота! Чи то так у жалю, в голосінні Проминуть молодії літа?

Away, you thoughts as dark as autumn clouds!

Now is the time of golden spring!

Must my youthful years pass away In regret and lamentation?

Ні, я хочу крізь сльози сміятись, Серед лиха співати пісні, Без надії таки сподіватись, Жити хочу! Геть думи сумні!

No—I will smile in spite of my tears, I will sing a song in the midst of disaster, Where there is no hope, I will still hope, I want to live! Away, you thoughts of sorrow!

Я на вбогім сумнім перелозі Буду сіять барвисті квітки, Буду сіять квітки на морозі, Буду лить на них сльози гіркі.

I will sow elegant flowers, On this poor, fallow ground, I will sow flowers even where there is frost, I will water them with tears of bitterness.

І від сліз тих гарячих розтане Та кора льодовая, міцна, Може, квіти зійдуть – і настане Ще й для мене весела весна.

And the heat of my tears will melt That solid icy crust May the flowers still arrive And maybe a joyful spring will still happen for me

Я на гору круту крем’яную Буду камінь важкий підіймать І, несучи вагу ту страшную, Буду пісню веселу співать.

On a mountain of flint I will raise a heavy stone And while bearing its terrible weight I will sing a merry song

PROGRAM NOTES 2021-2022 SEASON

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VALENTIN SILVESTROV

(b. 1937)

Moderato from Three Bagatelles for Piano, Opus 1, No. 3 (2005)

Silvestrov, an excellent pianist who often sketches and works out details of his compositions at the keyboard, is particularly fond, as was Schubert, of improvising small, melodic pieces — waltzes, lullabies, nocturnes, postludes, serenades — and polishing them before committing them to paper, a process he described as the “materialization of the immaterial.” In 2005-2006, Silvestrov grouped a selection of these Bagatelles into five books he published as his Op. 1-5.

He called them, half-jokingly, “sublime insignificances,” but Swedish arts journalist, novelist, broadcaster, lecturer and concert soprano Sofia Nyblom, found in them a deeper significance for a man who had lived most of his life under a Russian Communist regime: “Silvestrov’s dreamy, floating Bagatelles are representative of his rebellion late in life against the pompous inhumanity and heroism of Soviet aesthetics.”

Now I Walk in Beauty (Navajo Prayer) Arranged by Gregg Smith

The Blessingway is a Navajo ceremony meant to invoke positive blessings and to avert misfortune.

The closing prayer — Now I Walk in Beauty — was intended to restore equilibrium to the cosmos and those living within it. Composer and choral conductor Gregg Smith preserved the profound simplicity and sacred aura of the chant in his arrangement of Now I Walk in Beauty for chorus.

Now I walk in beauty Beauty is before me Beauty is behind me Above and below me

MARTA KEEN

(b. 1951)

"Homeward Bound" (1991)

Composer and educator Marta Keen studied English and music at Texas Christian University, and completed her K-12 vocal music certification at Portland State University in Oregon; she later studied choral composition and earned a master’s degree in educational media. Keen taught elementary music and English for sixteen years while also writing and directing children’s musicals and performing as a pianist and singer throughout the Seattle and Portland areas. In 1996, she moved to Las Vegas, where she began a second career as an elementary school librarian. She continues to arrange for and accompany church and community choral groups in the Las Vegas area, believing in the power of music to integrate and enhance all disciplines and inspire the whole child. Keen wrote of her poignant, folk-like Homeward Bound (1991), “I composed this song for a loved one who was embarking upon a new phase of life’s journey, to express the soul’s yearning to grow and change. It was premiered by a Seattle Irish tenor, but soon after was beautifully arranged

by Jay Althouse. It has been performed by choirs of all ages throughout the English-speaking world and many Asian countries.”

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In the quiet misty morning When the moon has gone to bed When the sparrows stop their singing And the sky is clear and red When the summer’s ceased its gleaming When the corn is past its prime When adventure’s lost its meaning I’ll be homeward bound in time Bind me not to the pasture Chain me not to the plow Set me free to find my calling And I’ll return to you somehow If you find it’s me you’re missing If you’re hoping I’ll return To your thoughts I’ll soon be list’ning And in the road I’ll stop and turn Then the wind will set me racing As my journey nears its end And the path I’ll be retracing When I’m homeward bound again Bind me not to the pasture Chain me not to the plow Set me free to find my calling And I’ll return to you somehow

POEM - “Prayer for Peace”

By Satish Kumar

Satish Kumar is an Indian British activist and speaker. He has been a Jain monk, nuclear disarmament advocate and pacifist. His most notable accomplishment is the completion of a peace walk of over 8,000 miles in 1973-4 from New Delhi to Moscow, Paris, London and Washington D.C. This text is taken from the sermon given in the Oslo Cathedral by the vice-chairman of the Nobel Committee following the presentation to Mother Theresa of the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth; Lead me from despair to hope, from fear to trust; Lead me from hate to love, from war to peace; Let peace fill our heart, our world, Our universe.

PROGRAM NOTES 2021-2022 SEASON

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ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK

(1841-1904)

Largo from Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Opus 95, “From the New World” (1892)

When Antonín Dvořák arrived in New York City in September 1892 to direct the new National Conservatory of Music, both he and the institution’s founder, Mrs. Jeanette Thurber, expected he would to foster an American school of composition. He said, “I am convinced the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. They can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition in the United States.” The “New World” Symphony was not only Dvořák’s way of pointing toward a truly American musical idiom but also a reflection of his own feelings about the country. “I should never have written the Symphony as I have,” he said, “if I hadn’t seen America.”

The “New World” Symphony scored an enormous success at its premiere, on December 16, 1893 in Carnegie Hall (the box where the composer sat that evening is marked with a commemorative plaque) and immediately entered the international repertory; it became Dvořák’s most popular work. Especially beloved is the English horn theme from the second movement (Largo), an original but perfect analogue of an American spiritual. In 1922, William Arms Fisher (18611948), a composition student of Dvořák at the National Conservatory, eventually a teacher at the school, and later president of both the Music Teachers National Association and Music Publishers’ National Association, added text to the poignant melody to create the hymn Goin’ Home: Goin’ home, goin’ home,/I’m just goin’ home,/Quiet like some still day,/I’m just goin’ home./Mother’s there ‘spectin’ me,/And father’s waitin’ too,/Lots of folk are gathered there,/With the friends I knew.

POEM - “Live, O Ukraine, Live for Beauty!” (1917)

By Oleksandr Oles Translated by Dr. Stephen Benham (2020)

Oleksandr Ivanovych Oles was a prominent Ukrainian writer and poet. He is the father of another Ukrainian poet and political activist, Oleh Olzhych, who perished in the Nazi labor camps in 1944.

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Живи, Україно, живи для краси, Для сили, для правди, для волі!.. Шуми, Україно, як рідні ліси, Як вітер в широкому полі.

Live, O Ukraine, live for beauty, For strength, for truth, for freedom!

Clamor, O Ukraine, like your native forests, Like the wind on a sweeping field.

До суду тебе не скують ланцюги, І руки не скрутять ворожі: Стоять твої вірні сини навкруги З шаблями в руках на сторожі.

You are not chained to judgment, And the enemy shall not bind your hands Your faithful sons stand guard around you With their hands ready at the sword.

Стоять, присягають тобі на шаблях І жити і вмерти з тобою, І прапори рідні в кривавих боях Ніколи не вкрити ганьбою!

With hands on their swords, They stand ready to live and die with you Flags held high in midst of the bloody battle, Never be ashamed!

“Shche ne vmerla Ukrainy,” Ukrainian National Anthem, (Ukraine’s Glory Has Not Perished) (1862-1863) Music by Mykhailo Verbytsky (1815-1870) Lyrics by Pavlo Chubynsky (1839-1884) Translation by Dr. Stephen Benham

Ще не вмерла України і слава, і воля, The glory and freedom of Ukraine have not yet perished, Ще нам, браття молодії, усміхнеться доля.

Fate still smiles upon us, young brothers.

Згинуть наші воріженьки, як роса на сонці,

Our puny enemies will fade away, like dew in sunlight,

Запануєм і ми браття, у своїй сторонці.

And we, brothers, shall still rule our land!

Душу й тіло ми положим за нашу свободу,

We will lay down our souls and our lives for our freedom,

І покажем, що ми, браття, козацького роду.

And we will show, brothers, that we are of the Kozak lineage

Ukraine in the late 19th century was, like much of Eastern Europe, swept by a wave of nationalism that sought independence from the surrounding powers which had dominated it for centuries. In 1862, the Ukrainian poet and ethnographer Pavlo Chubynsky wrote the verse above to express the longing of many for freedom from Russia and circulated it among his countrymen. The poem was published the following year in a nationalistic journal in Lviv and came to the attention of Mykhailo Verbytsky, a Greek Catholic priest and composer whose many works for chorus, orchestra, chamber ensembles and stage were important in the development of modern Ukrainian concert and sacred music, and he set it to music. The song was first performed publicly by a chorus in Lviv in 1864 and quickly taken up by the Ukrainian nationalist movement. The Russian imperial government decided Chubynsky was “negatively influencing peasants’ minds” and tried to bury his influence by assigning him to low-level clerical work in Arkangel and St. Petersburg; Verbytsky was moved to a parish just across the border in Poland, and served there until his death. Ukraine’s Glory Has Not Perished continued as a symbol of the country’s patriotic spirit, however, and it gained prominence during the nation’s brief independence following World War I, but the song was suppressed when Ukraine was made part of the Soviet Union in 1920. The Soviets imposed a politically motived anthem on the country (with such lines as “Russia is our freedom and glory that united our nation and our land bloomed”), but when the USSR collapsed in 1989, Ukraine’s Glory Has Not Perished was again embraced by Ukrainians and it was officially adopted as country’s national anthem in January 1992. In 2022, it has become the expression of Ukrainian bravery and perseverance to the world.

PROGRAM NOTES BY DR. RICHARD E. RODDA

PROGRAM NOTES 2021-2022 SEASON

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MANFRED HONECK Manfred Honeck has firmly established himself as one of the world’s leading conductors, whose unmistakable, distinctive and revelatory interpretations receive great international acclaim. He is currently in his 14th season as Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In September 2021, the orchestra announced a six- year extension of his contract, which now runs through the 2027-2028 season. Celebrated both at home and abroad, Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, one of the most frequently toured North American orchestras, serve as cultural ambassadors for the city of Pittsburgh. Guest appearances regularly include Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, as well as the major venues of Europe and festivals such as the BBC Proms, Salzburg Festival, Musikfest Berlin, Lucerne Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, and Grafenegg Festival.

Manfred Honeck’s successful work in Pittsburgh is extensively documented by recordings on the Reference Recordings label.

All SACDs, these recordings feature works

by Strauss, Beethoven, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky and others, and have received a multitude of outstanding reviews and awards, including a number of GRAMMY® nominations. The recording of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5/Barber Adagio won the GRAMMY® for “Best Orchestral Performance” in 2018. In February of 2021, Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony released a new recording of Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in celebration of the orchestra’s 125th anniversary season. Their most recent release is a recording of Brahms No. 4/MacMillan Larghetto for Orchestra.

Born in Austria, Manfred Honeck completed his musical training at the University of Music in Vienna. His many years of experience as a member of the viola section in the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera Orchestra have had a lasting influence on his work as a conductor. His art of interpretation is based on his determination to venture deep beneath the surface of the music.

He began his conducting career as assistant to Claudio Abbado and as director of the Vienna Jeunesse Orchestra. Subsequently, he was 16

Photo credit: George Lange

engaged by the Zurich Opera House, where he was awarded the European Conducting Prize in 1993. He has since served as one of three principal conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig, as Music Director of the Norwegian National Opera, Principal Guest Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm.

From 2007 to 2011, Manfred Honeck was Music Director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart, where he led premieres of Berlioz’s Les Troyens, Mozart’s Idomeneo, Verdi’s Aida, Richard Strauss’s Rosenkavalier, Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites and Wagner’s Lohengrin and Parsifal. Guest performances in opera led him to Semperoper Dresden, Komische Oper Berlin, Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Royal Opera of Copenhagen, the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg and the Salzburg Festival. In Beethoven’s anniversary year of 2020, he conducted a new staging of Fidelio (1806 version) at the Theater an der Wien.

Beyond the podium, Manfred Honeck has designed a series of symphonic suites, including Janáček’s Jenůfa, Strauss’s Elektra and Dvořák’s Rusalka. He recorded all of these arrangements with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and

As a guest conductor, Manfred Honeck has been at the podium of all leading international orchestras including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Staatskapelle Dresden, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome and the Vienna Philharmonic. In the United States, he has conducted all major US orchestras, including New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic,

Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony. He has also been Artistic Director of the International Concerts Wolfegg in Germany for more than twenty-five years.

Manfred Honeck holds honorary doctorates from several universities in the United States and also was awarded the honorary title of Professor by the Austrian Federal President. In 2018, the jury of the International Classical Music Awards declared him “Artist of the Year.”

MARTA KRECHKOVSKY Ukrainian violinist Marta Krechkovsky joined the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the 2014-2015 season. An experienced performer of orchestral and chamber music, she has participated in numerous music festivals such as Pacific Music Festival and Verbier Festival where she has served as a concertmaster. She is currently a violinist with the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

A few recent chamber music highlights include performances with Yo-Yo Ma and Julian Rachlin at the Grand Teton Music Festival and this season with Benjamin Grosvenor and Pablo Sáinz-Villegas at Heinz Hall.

Marta is a member of the Clarion Quartet, a quartet formed by members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra that specializes in Entartete Photo credit: Todd Rosenberg Musik. Clarion Quartet’s debut album, Breaking the Silence, was released in February of 2018 on tour and most recently performed Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto with the Pittsburgh Symphony the TYE/Naxos label.

Orchestra.

She became a prizewinner at Kocian International Violin Competition in Czech Republic at the age Krechkovsky began studying violin at the age of 10 and was a top-prize winner at Canadian of six with her father, Orest Krechkovsky. She Music Competition. As a soloist, Krechkovsky holds a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music has appeared with numerous orchestras in degrees from The Juilliard School where she her native Ukraine, including the Lviv State studied with Glenn Dicterow and a Professional Symphony Orchestra. She performed Bach's Studies degree in Orchestral Performance Double concerto with Joshua Bell and Verbier from Manhattan School of Music with Glenn Festival Chamber Orchestra during their Asia Dicterow and Lisa Kim. BIOGRAPHY 2021-2022 SEASON

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DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY VOICES OF SPIRIT

Duquesne University’s premier choral ensemble, Voices of Spirit, is composed of undergraduate students in music education, performance, therapy, and technology at the Mary Pappert School of Music. Under the leadership of Caron Daley since 2015, the choir has appeared on Pittsburgh’s most prestigious concert series, presented concerts in Johnstown, Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo, and Philadelphia, and performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

In 2019, the choir was invited to perform at the National Collegiate Choral Organization Conference in College Park, Maryland.

Committed to community outreach, the choir frequently partners with arts organizations and performs in schools and choral workshops, including the 2018 American Choral Directors Association Eastern Division Conference conducting masterclasses. In 2023, Voices of Spirit will tour to Puerto Rico.

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Caron Daley Director FEATURED SINGERS Kelsey Armstrong Isabel Barton Olivia Bigler Maria Constantine Katelyn Denman Giulia Galante Golinelli Aaron Gibelius Julianna Grabowski Matthew Guadagnino Abigail Hill Paris Holmes Ryan Long Eamonn Mailey

Luke Ponce Sarah Putz Logan Raymond Sariah Seare Nathan Sekela Kaleb Shaw Ryleigh Shoff Miah Sirianni Rosemarie Spollen Natalie St. Hill Kiersten Stauffer Ashley Voight

LEIF OVE ANDSNES “A pianist of magisterial elegance, power, and insight” (New York Times), Leif Ove Andsnes is “one of the most gifted musicians of his generation” (Wall Street Journal). With his commanding technique and searching interpretations, the celebrated Norwegian pianist has won acclaim worldwide, playing concertos and recitals in the world’s leading concert halls and with its foremost orchestras, while building an esteemed, extensive discography. He is the founding director of the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival, was co-artistic director of the Risør Festival of Chamber Music for nearly two decades, and has served as music director of California’s Ojai Music Festival. A Gramophone Hall of Fame inductee, he holds honorary doctorates from Norway’s University of Bergen and New York’s Juilliard School.

Andsnes is currently partnered with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra on “Mozart Momentum 1785/86.” A major multi-season project exploring one of the most creative and seminal periods of the composer’s career, this sees him lead the ensemble in Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 20–24 at key European venues, besides recording them for Sony Classical. The project marks his second artistic partnership with the orchestra, following “The Beethoven Journey.” An epic four-season focus on the composer’s music for piano and orchestra, this saw Andsnes give more than 230 performances in 108 cities across 27 countries, as chronicled in the documentary Concerto – A Beethoven Journey and captured on an award-winning Sony Classical series. Now recording exclusively for that label, the pianist recently received his eleventh Grammy nomination and has been recognized with six Gramophone Awards.

Recent releases include Chopin: Ballades & Nocturnes, the Billboard best-selling Sibelius, and collaborations with Marc-André Hamelin, Matthias Goerne, the Danish National Symphony and the Bergen Philharmonic.

Photo credit: Helge Hansen

Andsnes’s previous discography comprises more than 30 EMI Classics recordings, many of them bestsellers, spanning repertoire from the Baroque to the present day. His accolades include the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist Award, the Gilmore Artist Award, and Norway’s Peer Gynt Prize and Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. He was the first Scandinavian to curate Carnegie Hall’s “Perspectives” series and has been Pianist-in-Residence of the Berlin Philharmonic, Artist-in-Residence of the New York Philharmonic, and the subject of a London Symphony Orchestra Artist Portrait Series.

Leif Ove Andsnes was born in Karmøy, Norway in 1970, and studied at the Bergen Music Conservatory. He is currently an Artistic Adviser for the Prof. Jirí Hlinka Piano Academy in Bergen, where he lives with his partner and their three children.

Leif Ove Andsnes last performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony in November 2011.

BIOGRAPHY 2021-2022 SEASON

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PITTSBURGH YOUTH CHORUS

Pittsburgh Youth Chorus (PYC) is a collective of young people who have been empowered and inspired by the joy of singing. Led by a dedicated staff of choral professionals who specialize in the young voice, PYC is Pittsburgh's premier youth choral education organization serving the region through exceptional choral music education and artistry since 1983. With opportunities for singers ages 6 through 18 — and with a focus on personal development, community engagement, travel, and cultural exchange — PYC's multi-faceted programming is celebrated for its ability to nurture the potential of its participants while fostering confidence, dedication, and a sense of belonging.

Shawn Funk Artistic Director and Conductor Lee Saville-Iksic Executive Director and Pianist FEATURED SINGERS Ella Boehmer Michael Cassata Lucas Cormier Noah Eaton Ida Epshteyn Jordan Fowler Mia Greiner Sam Greiner Majesta Johnson Eve Kilgore

Evelyn Maiman Opal Miller Maia Ramirez Olivia Seibert Robert Shiner Jenea Tomblin Avani Venkat Sruthi Yerram Delaney Zagger

in The Magic Flute, The Elf in The Rose Elf, and Young Woman/Old Woman in In A Grove.

Véronique Filloux is a second-year Resident Artist whose roles this season include Papagena in The Magic Flute, The Girl (Luna) in The Rose Elf, and Frasquita in Carmen. Yazid Gray is a third-year Resident Artist whose roles this season include Second Priest in The Magic Flute, the Woodcutter/ Outlaw in In A Grove, and Dancäire in Carmen.

Jeremy Harr is a second-year Resident Artists whose roles this season include Speaker in The Magic Flute, The Brother in The Rose Elf, and Zuniga in Carmen. Andrew Turner is a first-year Resident Artists performing in tonight’s concert Resident Artist whose roles this season include are Madeline Ehlinger, soprano, Véronique First Priest/First Armored Man in The Magic Filloux, soprano, Yazid Gray, baritone, Flute, The Beloved in The Rose Elf, Policeman/The Jeremy Harr, bass, and Andrew Turner, tenor. Man in In a Grove, Ramendado in Carmen, and Madeline Ehlinger is a second-year Resident Policeman/Buddy in Blue.

Artist whose roles this season include First Lady Pittsburgh Opera’s Resident Artist Program is hailed as one of the country’s leading training programs for young singers. Every year, exceptional singers from around the world are selected by audition from more than 500 applicants. After completing advanced education, Resident Artists advance their careers under the guidance of the opera world’s leaders and innovators, including master classes with opera legends. The program has fostered the careers of countless singers who go on to perform at the world’s most prestigious opera houses.

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DR. STEPHEN BENHAM

Dr. Stephen Benham is Professor of Music Education and Chair of Music Performance at Duquesne University. For more than 25 years, Dr. Benham has been the President of Music in World Cultures, a Pittsburgh-based mission working in Ukraine. Since 1997, Dr. Benham has made nearly 60 trips to the country. His work there focuses on leadership development, training music educators, and guiding the development of children’s music camps around the country.

Though not Ukrainian, Dr. Benham has been closely tied to Ukrainian immigrants in the US for 30 years. His doctoral research at the Eastman School of Music focused on music education as a form of identity construction within Ukraine. He received the inaugural award for outstanding foreign language scholar from the University of Buffalo in 2000 for achievements in the study of Ukrainian language and contributions to Ukrainian cultural study.

Thursday, April 21 7:00 p.m.

Chatham University Campbell Memorial Chapel

kraine Conc U h t i w d n er t to support Sta humanitarian relief for Ukraine Donations will go to Brother’s Brother Foundation (brothersbrother.org)

FEATURING from the Pittsburgh Symphony Mark Huggins Jeremy Black Marta Krechkovsky Dennis O’Boyle Jennifer Orchard Tatjana Mead Chamis Marylène Gingras-Roy

Lorna McGhee Bronwyn Banerdt Will Chow Michael Lipman Charlie Powers Mikhail Istomin Max Blair

Chatham University faculty Pauline Rovkah BIOGRAPHY 2021-2022 SEASON

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HABIB AZAR A seven-time Emmy Award-winning producer and director, Habib Azar’s career is distinguished by its wide aesthetic range and energetic style. He directed his first network television broadcast at age 22 and has contributed in fields as diverse as feature film, contemporary opera and live multi-camera broadcasts. His first feature film, “Armless,” was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival and his second feature film, “Saint Janet,” stars Tony-winner Kelly Bishop, and was distributed by IndieRights.

As one of the leading multi-camera performing arts directors and producers working today, Habib Azar regularly films the world’s greatest musical artists. He is a series regular director for the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series, Live from Lincoln Center and The All Star Orchestra. He was also the executive producer of the New York Philharmonic’s live broadcast series in 2016-2019, scripting and directing shows with hosts Alec Baldwin and Terrence McKnight. Habib also regularly directs webcasts from Carnegie Hall for Medici.TV. On the stage Habib has lately focused on contemporary opera. His recent stage production of Georg Friedrich Haas’ “Atthis” was called “mesmerizing” and “one of the most revealing operatic performances in recent times” by the New York Times. He directed the world premiere of Du Yun’s “Angel’s Bone,” an opera that went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He has directed productions and performances

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Photo credit: Sarah Sloboda

for many of the leading contemporary music ensembles of today, including the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) and Opera Cabal.

A native of Philadelphia and a graduate of Carnegie Mellon, where he earned degrees in directing (from the School of Drama) and musical composition (from the School of Music), Habib Azar lives in New York City.

Habib Azar is the director of the livestream production of the performance of this program.

JIM CUNNINGHAM WQED-FM’s Artistic Director, Jim Cunningham hosts the WQED-FM Morning Show weekday mornings from 6-10 am, and the nationally syndicated Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) broadcasts which air Sundays at 8pm.

Jim hosted his first radio show at age 13 in Warren, PA, and was station manager of the Thiel College station, where he earned degrees in English and Business Administration. He holds a Certificate from CPB’s Executive Management Institute at the University of Wisconsin. He has enjoyed a long career at WQED-FM, beginning as an intern in college, was station manager for many years, and is currently an award-winning Executive Producer and Artistic Director.

Jim hosted the Pittsburgh Speakers Series for 10 years, served as Classical Music Critic for Pittsburgh Magazine for 15 years, has presented pre-concert and outreach lectures for the Pittsburgh Symphony for 25 years, and currently teaches Music and Art for lifelong learners at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. Jim has won multiple Golden Quill awards, the Gabriel Award and been recognized for community service with awards from the Pittsburgh Symphony including the Paul J Ross Award for Excellence in Education and Community Engagement and a 40th anniversary distinguished service award presented by Manfred Honeck and the orchestra members

onstage June 7, 2019 following Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as well as awards from Pittsburgh Festival Opera, Pittsburgh Concert Society, Chatham Baroque and many others.

Jim has traveled as a correspondent with the PSO on more than 25 world tours to Europe, Asia, North America, South America, and Australia.

During his career at WQED-FM, Jim has interviewed everyone in the classical music world from Itzhak Perlman to Leonard Bernstein, but some of his favorite interviews were with Benny Goodman, Wynton Marsalis, Mercer Ellington, and Fred Rogers.

BIOGRAPHY 2021-2022 SEASON

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THE PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Now in its 126th season, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is credited with a rich history of engaging the world’s finest conductors and musicians and demonstrates a genuine commitment to the Pittsburgh region and its citizens. Known for its artistic excellence for more than a century, the Pittsburgh Symphony has been led by its worldwide acclaimed Music Director Manfred Honeck since 2008; past music directors have included Fritz Reiner (1938-1948), William Steinberg (1952-1976), André Previn (1976-1984), Lorin Maazel (1984-1996) and Mariss Jansons (1997-2004).

broadcasts. Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra have received multiple GRAMMY® nominations for Best Orchestral Performance, taking home the award in 2018 for their recording of Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5; Barber: Adagio. As early as 1936, the Pittsburgh Symphony has been broadcast on the radio. The orchestra has received increased attention since 1982 through national network radio broadcasts on Public Radio International, produced by Classical WQED-FM 89.3, made possible by the musicians of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

The Pittsburgh Symphony is continually at the forefront of championing new American works.

The Orchestra premiered Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 “Jeremiah” in 1944, John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine in 1986, and Mason Bates’ Resurrexit in 2018 to celebrate Manfred Honeck’s 60th birthday.

Lauded as the Pittsburgh region’s international cultural ambassador, the orchestra began regular touring in 1896 and has embarked on scores of domestic and international tours. In 2019, Music Director Manfred Honeck led the orchestra on an extensive tour of Europe, the 25th in orchestra history.

The two-time 2018 GRAMMY® Award- In the 2021-2022 season, the Pittsburgh winning orchestra has a long and illustrious Symphony will celebrate the 50th anniversary history in the areas of recordings and live radio of Heinz Hall as the home of the orchestra.

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