May 31, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Orchestra to play Pastorius
by PETE MAZZACCARO

Yes, it is happening. The Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the best-known and accomplished groups of concert musicians in the world, is coming to Chestnut Hill this summer.

And they’re not playing an exclusive location. When they take the stage on the evening of Monday, July 2 it will be at Pastorius Park. The admission is free to all who come. It is the second of three free neighborhood concerts the orchestra will perform this summer.

Tia Burke, a board member of the Chestnut Hill Community Association in her fourth year as an organizer of the Pastorius Park Concert Series (which begins its 59th season on June 13 with The Allentown Band), said all it took to get the orchestra to come was to ask them. Though they didn’t say yes right away.

“I reached out to them about two years ago, “ Burke said. “At the time they couldn’t do it. Then, this past December, two orchestra folks came out to look at the park and liked it. This year, they said it was a go.”

Putting the concert on, however, is not going to be easy. Burke is the co-chair of a steering committee of 14 Hillers working to help the orchestra with everything from securing a stage and parking to hosting special events, including a “backstage” picnic and a private, after-concert house party for major donors at the home of Ed and Christine Stainton, with desserts by Georges Perrier.

The committee, Burke said, is currently working on raising $50,000 to rent, transport and construct a stage for the event. With the orchestra’s more than 100 members, the regular Pastorius Park stage is far too small for the orchestra.

For perspective, Burke said the orchestra estimates its own costs at putting on neighborhood concerts to be $350,000.

Local fundraising, Burke said, is already halfway completed, thanks in large part to a generous donation from the Chestnut Hill Health Care Foundation, which agreed to sponsor the concert.

Shirley Hansen, director of the foundation said a major factor in deciding to sponsor the event was the good it would have for the community’s public health.

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for people in this area to hear the full orchestra,” she said. “We’re inviting our grantees, many of which are representative of a vulnerable population that may never have this chance again.”

Foundation board member Walter Tsou, former president of the American Public Health Association, said that the orchestra concert would offer more than just entertainment:

“Health is more than just our physical well being. It’s multi-dimensional and includes our social and psychological well being, and concerts such as these create a sense of community and belonging. They add to a community’s health.”

Perhaps the largest potential headache, parking, is being handled by Bob Previdi, executive director of the Chestnut Hill Business Association and a member of the steering committee. The Orchestra expects about 5,000 people, so local parking resources are sure to be strained.

“The key to the plan is not to send people directly to the park, because there are no parking spaces there,” Previdi said.

Instead, marketing literature distributed by the orchestra will direct people to Chestnut Hill Parking Foundation lots along Germantown Avenue and to the nearby SEPTA lots at St. Martins and Highland stations. Chestnut Hill Hospital is offering about 600 spaces in its parking garage. Trolley Works has donated a trolley shuttle and Magarity’s Ford in Chestnut Hill donated the use of two passenger vans to help shuttle people between parking lots and the park.

Burke said she believes many in Chestnut Hill will simply walk or take a short ride on public transportation.

Above all, the concert, Burke said, is not simply a nice event for Chestnut Hill but a real opportunity for people in the neighborhood who may not have the ability to commit to a concert downtown.

“I have a 7-year-old daughter and I’m not going to take her to Verizon Hall [the orchestra’s Center City home at the Kimmel Center]. But now I can take her to see one of the world’s finest orchestra’s in our collective backyards. We can walk here and see it.”

Additional reporting for this story by staff writer Kristin Pazulski.