Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) has been an essential part of cultural life in Pittsburgh for more than 125 years. It is considered one of the world’s leading orchestras. The PSO has achieved its current high level of artistry through work with conductors such as William Steinberg, André Previn, Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons, Andrew Davis, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Marek Janowski. In the 2008/09 season Manfred Honeck took over the directorship of the orchestra. In September 2021 he extended his contract with the PSO until the end of the 2027/28 season.
The PSO has given the premieres of a wide range of American works, among them Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1, ‘Jeremiah’ (1944), John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine (1986) and Mason Bates’s Resurrexit (2018), performed to mark Manfred Honeck’s 60th birthday. In the 2021/22 season Manfred Honeck conducted five world premieres, including works by Michael Daugherty and David Ludwig.
Numerous tours have taken the PSO to Europe, Asia and South America. In 2002 they made their first appearances in Kuala Lumpur and Australia. In 2004 the PSO became the first American orchestra to perform for Pope John Paul II in the Vatican. Debut concerts in Shanghai, China and Kaohsiung (Taiwan) followed in May 2009.
Between 2010 and 2019 the PSO and Manfred Honeck made seven European tours, most recently with performances at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Cité de la musique in Paris, the Düsseldorf Tonhalle, BOZAR in Brussels, the Kuppelsaal in Hanover, the Munich Philharmonie and the Vienna Musikverein. The PSO has also performed in all of America’s most prestigious concert halls, among them Carnegie Hall in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington.
Since 2013 the PSO’s successful collaboration with Manfred Honeck has been documented on 12 recordings, released in the series PittsburghLive! by Reference Recordings. Among them are recordings of Richard Strauss’s tone poems and suites, Beethoven’s Third, Fifth, Seventh and Ninth symphonies, Bruckner’s Fourth and Ninth symphonies and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth and Sixth symphonies.
Along with several nominations the PSO was awarded two Grammy Awards for its recording of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony and Barber’s Adagio for Strings in 2018. In October 2021 the PSO released its most recent recording, of Brahms’s Fourth Symphony and James MacMillan’s Larghetto for Orchestra.
In 2021/22 the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra celebrated the 50th anniversary of Heinz Hall, where the orchestra makes its home in Pittsburgh.