March 2015

Dear Friends:

As spring begins to tease us with hopefully warmer weather, we look forward to two “big events” that are coming up on our calendar. On April 1 and 4 Yannick and the Orchestra perform Bach’s groundbreaking St. Matthew Passion in a beautifully minimalist staging by James Alexander first seen by our audiences in 2013. While the work calls for large-scale forces, a divided orchestra, and a double chorus, its intimacy is extraordinary. Even though it was written to be performed in a religious setting, it is inherently theatrical and full of drama.

Then, from April 30 to May 3 Yannick leads Bernstein’s MASS, a “theater piece for singers, players, and dancers.” This is one of the most original, eclectic pieces in the repertory and was far ahead of its time. Our performances will be staged in Verizon Hall by Kevin Newbury in a very surprising way, using a very large Orchestra, 16 “street singers,” multiple soloists and choirs, rock musicians, and a marching band. Bernstein not only drew upon his own unique compositional style, but added elements of blues and rock, incorporating quotations of Beethoven and outbursts of tone rows. It’s a thrilling and vibrant piece.

Both of these works exemplify what we call Theater of a Concert, adding theatrical elements to help bring the composer’s vision to life. These concert presentations, in collaboration with local and national cultural and community organizations, are an important part of the Orchestra’s artistic vision, and have succeeded in reinvigorating the experience many of our audiences have in the concert hall. These presentations continue in our 2015-16 season with stagings of Handel’s Messiah and Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale.

From March 2-7 the Orchestra presents a Collaborative Learning Week, with events that showcase collective music-making between Yannick, our musicians, and various community partners. This concentration of many of our educational activities includes participating in the All-City Music Festival, a side-by-side rehearsal with the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, a School Partnership Program Bridge Session, and Musicians in the Schools events (a complete list of activities can be found on pg. 46 of this Playbill). Our good friends at PECO sponsor additional Musicians in the Schools programs from March 9-20, as well as a lunchtime pop-up concert at Reading Terminal on the 9th. We are so grateful to PECO for its continued and longtime support of the Orchestra. From March 5-8 we welcome over 100 volunteers from across the U.S. and Canada for the 40th Association of Major Symphony Orchestra Volunteers Conference. We are thrilled that our Collaborative Learning Week and the AMSOV Conference coincide, so that these wonderful volunteers can return to their home orchestras and spread the news of the great work we are doing here, and of which we are all so justly proud.

Yours in Music,

Allison VulgamorePresident & CEO

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From the President

J.D. S

cott

6

Music DirectorMusic Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin continues his inspired leadership of The Philadelphia Orchestra, which began in the fall of 2012. His highly collaborative style, deeply rooted musical curiosity, and boundless enthusiasm, paired with a fresh approach to orchestral programming, have been heralded by critics and audiences alike. The New York Times has called Nézet-Séguin “phenomenal,” adding that under his baton, “the ensemble, famous for its glowing strings and homogenous richness, has never sounded better.” He has taken the Orchestra to new musical heights. Highlights of his third season as music director include an Art of the Pipe Organ festival; the 40/40 Project, in which 40 great compositions that haven’t been heard on subscription concerts in at least 40 years will be performed; and Bernstein’s MASS, the pinnacle of the Orchestra’s five-season requiem cycle.

Yannick has established himself as a musical leader of the highest caliber and one of the most exciting talents of his generation. He has been music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic since 2008 and artistic director and principal conductor of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain since 2000. He also continues to enjoy a close relationship with the London Philharmonic, of which he was principal guest conductor. He has made wildly successful appearances with the world’s most revered ensembles, and he has conducted critically acclaimed performances at many of the leading opera houses.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Deutsche Grammophon (DG) enjoy a long-term collaboration. Under his leadership The Philadelphia Orchestra returned to recording with a CD on that label of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Leopold Stokowski transcriptions. He continues a fruitful recording relationship with the Rotterdam Philharmonic on DG, EMI Classics, and BIS Records; the London Philharmonic and Choir for the LPO label; and the Orchestre Métropolitain for ATMA Classique.

A native of Montreal, Yannick Nézet-Séguin studied at that city’s Conservatory of Music and continued lessons with renowned conductor Carlo Maria Giulini and with Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster Choir College. Among Yannick’s honors are an appointment as Companion of the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honors; a Royal Philharmonic Society Award; Canada’s National Arts Centre Award; the Prix Denise-Pelletier, the highest distinction for the arts in Quebec; and honorary doctorates from the University of Quebec in Montreal and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

To read Yannick’s full bio, please visit www.philorch.org/conductor.

Chris Lee

The Philadelphia Orchestra2014–2015 SeasonYannick Nézet-SéguinMusic Director Walter and Leonore Annenberg Chair

Stéphane DenèvePrincipal Guest ConductorCristian MacelaruConductor-in-ResidenceLiu KuokmanAssistant ConductorCharles DutoitConductor Laureate

First ViolinsDavid Kim, ConcertmasterDr. Benjamin Rush ChairJuliette Kang, First Associate ConcertmasterJoseph and Marie Field ChairYing Fu, Associate ConcertmasterMarc Rovetti, Assistant Concertmaster Herbert Light Larry A. Grika ChairBarbara GovatosWilson H. and Barbara B. Taylor ChairJonathan BeilerHirono OkaRichard AmorosoRobert and Lynne Pollack ChairYayoi NumazawaJason DePueLisa-Beth LambertJennifer HaasMiyo CurnowElina KalendarovaDaniel HanYiying Li

Second ViolinsKimberly Fisher, PrincipalPeter A. Benoliel ChairPaul Roby, Associate PrincipalSandra and David Marshall ChairDara Morales, Assistant PrincipalAnne M. Buxton ChairPhilip KatesMitchell and Hilarie Morgan Family Foundation ChairBooker RoweDavyd BoothPaul ArnoldLorraine and David Popowich ChairYumi Ninomiya ScottDmitri LevinBoris BalterWilliam PolkAmy Oshiro-Morales

ViolasChoong-Jin Chang, PrincipalRuth and A. Morris Williams ChairKirsten Johnson, Associate PrincipalKerri Ryan, Assistant PrincipalJudy Geist Renard EdwardsAnna Marie Ahn PetersenPiasecki Family ChairDavid NicastroBurchard TangChe-Hung Chen Rachel KuMarvin Moon*

CellosHai-Ye Ni, PrincipalAlbert and Mildred Switky ChairYumi Kendall, Acting Associate PrincipalWendy and Derek Pew Foundation ChairJohn Koen, Acting Assistant PrincipalRichard HarlowGloria dePasqualeOrton P. and Noël S. Jackson ChairKathryn Picht ReadWinifred and Samuel Mayes ChairRobert CafaroVolunteer Committees ChairOhad Bar-DavidCatherine R. and Anthony A. Clifton ChairDerek BarnesMollie and Frank Slattery ChairAlex Veltman

BassesHarold Robinson, PrincipalCarole and Emilio Gravagno ChairMichael Shahan, Associate PrincipalJoseph Conyers, Assistant PrincipalJohn HoodHenry G. ScottDavid FayDuane RosengardRobert Kesselman

Some members of the string sections voluntarily rotate seating on a periodic basis.

FlutesJeffrey Khaner, PrincipalPaul and Barbara Henkels ChairDavid Cramer, Associate PrincipalRachelle and Ronald Kaiserman ChairLoren N. LindKazuo Tokito, Piccolo

OboesRichard Woodhams, PrincipalSamuel S. Fels ChairPeter Smith, Associate PrincipalJonathan BlumenfeldEdwin Tuttle ChairElizabeth Starr Masoudnia, English HornJoanne T. Greenspun Chair

ClarinetsRicardo Morales, PrincipalLeslie Miller and Richard Worley ChairSamuel Caviezel, Associate PrincipalSarah and Frank Coulson ChairPaul R. Demers, Bass ClarinetPeter M. Joseph and Susan Rittenhouse Joseph Chair

BassoonsDaniel Matsukawa, PrincipalRichard M. Klein ChairMark Gigliotti, Co-PrincipalAngela Anderson SmithHolly Blake, Contrabassoon

HornsJennifer Montone, PrincipalGray Charitable Trust ChairJeffrey Lang, Associate PrincipalDaniel WilliamsJeffry KirschenDenise TryonShelley Showers

TrumpetsDavid Bilger, PrincipalMarguerite and Gerry Lenfest ChairJeffrey Curnow, Associate PrincipalGary and Ruthanne Schlarbaum ChairAnthony PriskRobert W. Earley

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RosteR continues on pg. 10

TrombonesNitzan Haroz, PrincipalNeubauer Family Foundation ChairMatthew Vaughn, Co-PrincipalEric CarlsonBlair Bollinger, Bass TromboneDrs. Bong and Mi Wha Lee Chair

TubaCarol Jantsch, PrincipalLyn and George M. Ross Chair

TimpaniDon S. Liuzzi, PrincipalDwight V. Dowley ChairAngela Zator Nelson, Associate PrincipalPatrick and Evelyn Gage Chair

PercussionChristopher Deviney, PrincipalMrs. Francis W. De Serio ChairAnthony Orlando, Associate PrincipalAnn R. and Harold A. Sorgenti ChairAngela Zator Nelson

Piano and CelestaKiyoko Takeuti

KeyboardsDavyd BoothMichael Stairs, Organ**

HarpElizabeth Hainen, PrincipalPatricia and John Imbesi Chair

LibrariansRobert M. Grossman, PrincipalSteven K. Glanzmann

Stage PersonnelEdward Barnes, ManagerJames J. Sweeney, Jr.James P. Barnes

*On leave**Regularly engaged musician

Where were you born? In Lorain, Ohio.What is your most treasured possession? Do cats count? Oreo and Milkshake would probably take issue with that wording, and debate on exactly who is in possession of whom.What’s your favorite Philadelphia restaurant? But there are so many great ones! If I had to pick, I’d probably have to say Barbuzzo. The caramel budino is probably the best non-ice cream dessert in the city. For ice cream it has to be Franklin Fountain—the Mt. Vesuvius sundae nourishes not only your sweet tooth but your soul.Tell us about your instrument. I have two that I play regularly. The smaller one is called a bass tuba, and it’s in the key of F. It’s pitched higher and is more agile, and it’s the one I play for solos. I have a special belt strap that allows me to play it standing up. The bigger one is called a contrabass tuba, and that one is in the key of C. It plays lower notes with a bigger sound and takes even more air to play. This is the one I play in the orchestra most of the time.What’s in your instrument case? My cases go largely unused since I practice mainly at the Kimmel Center. This is lucky for me, as I know many tuba players with long careers who have ended up with back/neck/shoulder problems just from lugging the instrument around all those years!If you could ask one composer one question what would it be? My question would be for Antonín Dvořák, regarding the tuba part in “New World” Symphony, which has exactly 14 notes in the entire 45-minute piece, and the question would be: WHY?!!? I would probably also have to shake him a little bit while yelling that.

To read the full set of questions, please visit www.philorch.org/jantsch.

Musicians Behind the ScenesCarol Jantsch Principal Tuba

Christopher K

adish

10 The Philadelphia Orchestra 2014–2015 Season

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A Kaleidoscopic Mix of Music, Dance, and Theater

Musical works, like the composers who create them, often take on lives of their own, rising and falling in popularity, with works scorned by one generation being celebrated by the next—and vice versa. The vicissitudes of taste, and the social and historical circumstances that influence it, over long stretches of time, make predicating a musical work’s ultimate stature a fool’s game, but it was not for nothing that Gustav Mahler famously predicted, “my time will come.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Leonard Bernstein at the premiere of MASS.

By Allan Kozinn

The Philadelphia Orchestra Prepares for Bernstein’s MASS

Leonard Bernstein O

ffice

14 A Kaleidoscopic Mix of Music, Dance, and Theater

Leonard Bernstein’s MASS, commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy as the work that would inaugurate the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., was a mixed success at its world premiere, on September 8, 1971. It was, on one hand, as extravagant a spectacle as one could want for the opening of a major arts center: Its soloists, choruses, and ensembles moved around a set by Oliver Smith, in costumes by Frank Thompson, with Gordon Davidson directing, and Alvin Ailey as the choreographer. And much of the first-night audience went wild, giving MASS, according to some reports, a 20-minute ovation.

But even before that applause faded away, critics were second-guessing the work, debating the subjects it touched on—Bernstein’s setting goes far beyond the traditional bounds of the Roman Catholic Mass—and dissecting Bernstein’s music. And though the score was recorded shortly after the premiere, and was performed several times in the 1970s and ’80s, it mostly slipped into the oblivion that is the fate of so many contemporary works, laying nearly untouched until its 40th anniversary approached and a generation of younger

Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the Orchestra and numerous soloists, choruses, and ensembles in MASS, April 30-May 3.

The Philadelphia O

rchestra Association

16 A Kaleidoscopic Mix of Music, Dance, and Theater

musicians gave it a fresh look, and recognized it as a milestone in Bernstein’s catalogue. Still, even critics who admired the work from the start recognize that it remains, as Peter G. Davis put it in a 2008 New York Times article, “possibly [Bernstein’s] most flamboyant and controversial creation.”

Philadelphians will have an opportunity to reconsider the work for themselves when Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Westminster Symphonic Choir, the Temple University Concert Choir, and the American Boychoir and soloists in a production of the work, with staging by Kevin Newbury, April 30 through May 3. The performances, part of the Orchestra’s Requiem series (on the grounds that the work was written as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy, even though it is not a Requiem as such), will be The Philadelphia Orchestra’s first encounter with the full score. But the ensemble has performed excerpts from MASS over the years, and concertgoers with long memories will recall that a touring version of the Kennedy Center production visited the Academy of Music in June 1972.

There can be little doubt that Bernstein knew the work would have both its partisans and its detractors. MASS is, after all, packed with dualities and conflicts, and was intended to make people respond. And responding meant taking sides, not only about the issues MASS raises, but about the work itself, since as settings of the Roman Catholic Mass go, Bernstein’s is unusually eclectic, philosophically as well as musically.

The issues that MASS raised, and the nerves it touched, were plentiful and varied, and though time has given the work a patina that makes it seem less abrasive than it did in 1971, the issues are no less vital. A central one is religious. Bernstein drew on the traditional text of the Mass, as a tribute to Kennedy, the nation’s first Catholic president. But as a man who grappled all his life with questions of faith and its meaning, he could not help but fill MASS with meditations

Photos from the original 1971 production

18 A Kaleidoscopic Mix of Music, Dance, and Theater

on those very issues. The tension between the acceptance, questioning, and even the outright denial of faith fills this piece. At its climactic moment, the Celebrant throws the cross and chalice to the floor, smashing them in frustration.

Bernstein’s thoughts about these tensions are incorporated in some of the notes he made while working on the piece.

Some religion necessary to every man—belief in something greater than random/systematic biological existence. Existentialism fails for this reason (in its chic aspect of post-war French philosophy)—Religion(s) of peace, militancy, social progress, self-discovery, love-dependency, other-identification. Altruism is a kind of religion. So is anarchy. God=idea=elan vital. COMMITMENT.

It also touches on Bernstein’s peace activism. American soldiers were still fighting and dying in Vietnam when MASS had its premiere, although public opinion had turned against the war, and against the government for continuing to fight it. Bernstein used the piece to put a spotlight on the plea for peace—“Dona nobis pacem”—that has always been part of the Mass text, amplifying it through insistent repetition, and filling it out with ideas from Father Daniel Berrigan, a Roman Catholic priest who was a prominent anti-war protester, and who Bernstein visited in prison while he was writing the work. The FBI, which had maintained a file on Bernstein since the early days of his conducting career, alerted the White House that the composer might use MASS as an anti-war protest—actually, Bernstein had hardly made a secret of this—and President Nixon’s advisors suggested that he avoid the premiere and any embarrassment it would cause. In the end Nixon stayed away, saying that the evening was rightly Jacqueline Kennedy’s, and that he did not want to steal the spotlight.

If the work’s meditations on faith and pacifism were flashpoints, so was Bernstein’s music. Any listener familiar with Bernstein’s symphonic works will hear the melodic thumbprints of his style here. The hallmarks of his popular theater style are here as well; indeed, the brassy verve of West Side Story is heard clearly at several points.

But Bernstein did not confine himself to those two styles already associated with him. His scoring includes not only an orchestra and a “formal choir,” but also a “street choir,” a blues band and a rock band (each with a synthesizer), and a quadrophonic tape containing brief but central elements of the work, musical and spoken. Almost immediately, after the angular, ritualized “Kyrie” and “Christe,” Bernstein injects a note of contemporary folksiness in “A Simple Song,” a tuneful hymn sung by the Celebrant. And later—after we’ve heard from the blues and rock bands in their own idioms—we hear a touch of jazz, in the smooth style of the Swingle Singers, in Bernstein’s setting of the “Alleluia.”

There can be little doubt that Bernstein knew the work would

have both its partisans and its detractors.

MASS is, after all, packed

with dualities and conflicts,

and was intended to make

people respond.

20 A Kaleidoscopic Mix of Music, Dance, and Theater

Photo from the original 1971 production

A musical populist at heart, Bernstein had long championed rock music in interviews and in his Young People’s Concerts television broadcasts, and he clearly welcomed the nascent “rock musical” style that had yielded Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) and Godspell (1971).

MASS, in fact, is more clearly in the tradition of those theater works than part of the line of classical Mass settings from Machaut onward. Bernstein described the work as “A Theater Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers,” and when he needed extra lyrics, he turned to Stephen Schwartz, one of the creators of Godspell. Naturally, he saw the value of couching the social issues he wanted to raise in a theatrical setting. But he also recognized the inherent theatricality of the Roman Catholic Mass, with its ancient roots in the Jewish Temple service—a point he alluded to by setting the “Sanctus” in English (“Holy! Holy! Holy!”), Latin (“Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus”), and Hebrew (“Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh”).

22 A Kaleidoscopic Mix of Music, Dance, and Theater

This combination of styles Bernstein drew on, and the restlessness with which he moved among them, spoke volumes about his goals—what he wanted to say, who he wanted to reach—but in 1971, it left some critics confused, even angry. Harold C. Schonberg, then the chief critic of the New York Times, paid Bernstein a backhanded compliment by saying that “Bernstein at his best has always been a sophisticate, a composer of skillful lightweight music who can turn out a snappy tune or a sweet-flowing ballad,” and calculating that about two-thirds of MASS fit that bill.

But then he took off the gloves, noting that Bernstein’s serious works have always “tended to sound derivative” and that in MASS, the musically serious sections are “as thin as the watery liberalism that dominates the message of the work.” And it got worse: “At times, the ‘Mass’ is little more than fashionable kitsch,” Schonberg wrote. “It is a pseudo- serious effort at rethinking the Mass that basically is, I think, cheap and vulgar. It is a show-biz Mass, the work of a musician who desperately wants to be with it. So this ‘Mass’ is with it—this week. But what about next year?”

Interestingly, the musical eclecticism that Bernstein fostered here, and that Schonberg found so objectionable, is now more firmly in style that it was in Bernstein’s day, although today’s version blends the influences of jazz, rock, and symphonic music more seamlessly than Bernstein did. Still, here it is, 44 years later, and MASS is singing again, having been taken up by a new generation of musicians and projecting its message to a new generation of listeners.

“In the end,” Yannick Nézet-Séguin said in a recent interview, “the message of this piece, which I believe Bernstein wanted to convey, is a very ecumenical message, which is that all the human beings, whether or not we have our own personal beliefs, we all come together, striving for a certain harmony and a certain common goal.” P

Allan Kozinn writes frequently about music and musicians.

Leonard Bernstein in 1971

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Beyond the Baton

Why is Haydn so important? As a young student, before I was allowed even to touch a Mozart piano sonata, my teacher made me play a lot of Haydn sonatas. They’re lesser known—it still is the case. And it’s the same for the symphonies—we know Mozart better than we know Haydn. But Haydn is actually the “father” in a way of Mozart. And he is precisely the “father” of the symphony, the “father” of the symphonic repertoire that we play all the way through the 21st century. It all originates in Haydn’s music.

Is there a reason you’d like to conduct more Haydn here? His 104 symphonies would be a fascinating journey to do. We can’t do all of those 104 symphonies in one season but I think doing more Haydn with this orchestra serves many purposes. The first is to go back to a more intimate way of writing. To play Haydn means to listen to each other a lot so it helps understanding even playing Beethoven better, it helps understanding playing Brahms better, and the list goes on. It’s also I think a fascinating journey for an audience, because Haydn has a lot of humor. His music is not about being only very proper. The way we understand the word Classical nowadays is slightly wrong because we think it’s something perfect and ideal that is difficult to touch. But it’s rather the opposite. It’s something that’s full of life, full of spirit. To play Haydn is finding with little means, orchestration-wise, a lot of different colors because of the meaning and the spirit. This is why I believe that the virtuosity, which is one of the great qualities of the Philadelphia Sound, is especially well-suited to Haydn.

Why did you pair this work with ones by Beethoven and Vaughan Williams? In one of my very early programs with the Orchestra I combined a Haydn symphony, No. 100, with Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. So I think this time, because Haydn was very popular in London, and in England in general, he dedicated this symphony to Oxford (its name is “Oxford”), and because we are having Vaughan Williams on that program, we thought it interesting to see how the English native composers were influenced by Haydn’s music—the Austrian—and by extension another Viennese-oriented German composer, Beethoven, on the same program.

Haydn’s “Oxford” Symphony will be performed March 5-7.

To read previous Beyond the Batons, please visit www.philorch.org/baton.

Chris Lee

This Month Yannick Talks about Haydn’s Symphony No. 92 (“Oxford”).

As President and CEO of Sands China Ltd., Edward Tracy runs one of the largest integrated resorts in the world—the Venetian Macao—and sees a lot of big-name entertainment, from movie premieres to sporting events to rock concerts. And out there, amidst all that glitter and glitz of the “Las Vegas of the East,” what is he especially looking forward to? “Seeing The Philadelphia Orchestra again,” says Tracy, who was recently named one of the “Best-Performing CEOs in the World” by the Harvard Business Review.

Sands China has been a major sponsor of The Philadelphia Orchestra’s multi-year people-to-people cultural exchange and China Residency since the program began in 2012. The company’s millions in support underwrite performances, community outreach activities, and side-by-side concerts with Chinese musicians, including the Macao Orchestra last May. “It’s always been important for Sands China to bring a diversity of entertainment to Macao,” says Tracy. “So in addition to having events featuring pop-culture superstars and celebrities from the worlds of sport, film, and music, we also look at ways to bring in entertainment that has an impact on the creative and cultural landscape of Macao.”

Tracy adds, “With The Philadelphia Orchestra, working together was a natural fit because of the Orchestra’s own significant history with China, and because it’s one of the world’s finest orchestras. We wanted to offer people in Macao—locals and visitors—a chance to experience the benefits of seeing an orchestra of this caliber live. And we also are very pleased that we’re able to make use of the Orchestra’s visits for additional community events and cultural exchanges.”

The musicians of the Orchestra themselves have superstar status in China—as Tracy learned when the Venetian Macao presented the Rolling Stones to a sell-out crowd of more than 10,000. “When we surveyed our team, more knew the story about Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger sending The Philadelphia Orchestra to China as cultural ambassadors than knew about the Stones,” he says.

With that kind of popularity, it’s a winning combination for everyone. “The Philadelphia Orchestra is a group of incredibly talented musicians, and beyond that, the administration and organization behind the scenes is equally professional. Sands China’s partnership with the Orchestra has been very fruitful, and I hope our collaboration can continue to bring benefits to Macao’s cultural, creative, and entertainment landscape.”

For more on Edward Tracy’s story visit www/philorch.org/tracy.

In the SpotlightA Monthly Profile of Orchestra Fans and Family

(left to right) Ambassador Nicholas Platt, who helped facilitate the Orchestra’s historic 1973 Tour of China; Sands China Ltd. President and CEO Edward Tracy; his wife, Janet; Yannick Nézet-Séguin; and Orchestra President and CEO Allison Vulgamore in Macao during the Orchestra’s 2014 China Residency.

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Jan Regan

One of the most important priorities for The Philadelphia Orchestra and Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin is spreading the love of music, and sharing their expertise and talent with communities at home and throughout the world. From March 2-7 the Orchestra holds a Collaborative Learning Week, a series of music education and collective music-making activities for students and musicians throughout the region.

Yannick demonstrates his commitment to the community and music education by participating in a number of the events. As the finale of a March 2 concert at Verizon Hall, part of the All-City High School Music Festival, he conducts approximately 400 students from the All-City High School Orchestra and Choir in works by Verdi and Rossini. On March 5 more than 700 high school and college students from 16 area schools have the opportunity to see first-hand how Yannick works with the world-class musicians of the Orchestra at an Open Rehearsal for Students. That evening

Yannick joins cellists on the stage of Verizon Hall at our Cello PlayIN, the next in the Orchestra’s highly successful series, where musicians of all ages and abilities sit side-by-side with members of The Philadelphia Orchestra. Yannick also leads an open Side-by-Side rehearsal of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony with the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra (PYO) on March 7 in Verizon Hall, part of the PYO’s 75th anniversary season.

For younger music lovers (ages 3-5), the next concert in the Orchestra’s Sound All Around series, presented by PNC Grow Up Great and winner of the Best of Philly 2014—Best Music for Kids, takes place March 2 in the Academy of Music Ballroom. Associate Principal Clarinet Samuel Caviezel and host/storyteller Charlotte Blake Alston lead the 45-minute interactive program, which nurtures children’s passion for music. Also on March 2 Principal Tuba Carol Jantsch is joined by brass teaching artists Ryan Seay and Daniel Wright to lead a School Partnership Program (SPP) LiveConnections Bridge Session at World Cafe Live with students from one of the 2014-15 SPP schools, John Moffet Elementary. The Orchestra’s SPP was established a decade ago to provide ongoing, in-depth relationships with schools in the Philadelphia region.

Making our impact even greater, PECO sponsors numerous Musicians in the Schools events from March 9-20, with Orchestra musicians visiting various schools in the Greater Philadelphia region. These activities allow musicians to share their passion for music with area students in hopes of developing in them a lifelong love of the art form. In addition, PECO sponsors a free lunchtime pop-up performance at the Reading Terminal on the 9th.

A Focus on Collaborative Learning

Yannick leads the All-City Orchestra of the School District of Philadelphia in rehearsal this past January in preparation for their March 2 concert during The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Collaborative Learning Week.

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Jessica Griffin