Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

What’s not to love about having one of the top orchestras in the U.S. located in Pittsburgh?
I probably attend the Pittsburgh Symphony performances 10+ times per year. In the last year, I have seen the BNY Grand Mellon Classics concert, POPs, and a few performances that I cannot categorize. The Symphony always sounds great, though some of their programming I enjoy more than others.
My favorite concerts are the Grand Classics. They are usually pretty empty, which is disappointing, but the Symphony always does a great job. Any concerts with Concertmaster Noah Bendix-​Bagley are always amazing, but he is sadly moving on in his career. Also, I really enjoyed the West Side Story movie with live music a few weeks ago as well. And kudos to the conductor for using that crazy system to keep the orchestra with the movie.
While I am in the right demographic for POPs, I have despised these concerts since childhood. I don’t enjoy them. The last one I saw was Sci-​Fi themed. The orchestra was great, but the tacky lighting and bringing in George Takei (while cool) was too gimmicky for my tastes.
Overall, a great way to spend an afternoon or an evening! The tickets aren’t as inexpensive as the opera, but it is still much less expensive to go to the Symphony than a Steelers game.

I am a complete fan of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and I attend many of their concerts. I was lucky to take a tour of their building, and on one of the walls backstage I saw a picture of Richard Strauss with the PSO from when he appeared with them as a guest conductor. That’s just one example of the rich history and tradition of the Orchestra. But the Symphony continues to make history and remains one of the top 10 orchestras in the United States.
If you are attending a concert, the sound is excellent particularly up in the balcony. If you are sitting underneath the balcony, I don’t feel you are getting the complete richness of sound that you get elsewhere in the hall. So you best bet is about row N and forward downstairs or anywhere up top.

So I may not be 100% in love with their main venue, but I can promise that I’ll never speak a bad word against the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, or PSO as I’ll be calling them for this review. This orchestra was founded in 1895 and it’s one of our city’s greatest sources of pride and joy. It’s also a world-​renowned performance group, meaning that any show of theirs you see will be excellent. And boy, does the PSO offer show options! Whether you want to enjoy a classical music performance or see the music from your favorite video game performed live, chances are that you can buy tickets for that show thanks to the PSO. Just a few of their performance options include their regular holiday pops show, a variety of live musical movies (where the orchestra accompanies the movie playing on a screen above them), and a range of special concerts that include a lot of non-​classical period cultural items (including Pokemon, video games, Disney, etc.).
The PSO also does educational and community engagement shows throughout the year, both at Heinz Hall and in the community; I’ve seen some of the artists at the Carnegie Science Center during 21+ Nights, for example. But really, you need to see at least one show at Heinz Hall; even I go back to this venue despite the fact that it’s not my favorite, all for the PSO. There are really no words to describe how excellent the PSO is — they just have to be experienced. So seriously: go check out their calendar and grab a ticket, and don’t forget to enjoy a concert prelude workshop if you can (which begins one hour prior to certain concerts). And if you don’t love them, the citizens of Pittsburgh reserve the right to ask you to move elsewhere. ;)

I had a really unique experience seeing the PSO with Ben Folds back in June. he did many of his regular hits and his new piano concerto. he was able to have the PSO do a rendition of his concert classic «Rock this b*tch”-which was just so awesome to see a classical orchestra playing along with him. I’d recommend looking for what other unique shows the PSO has throughout the year like this one. It provides for a different experience than a typical performance.

We are very fortunate in Pittsburgh to have one of the best symphonies in the country here in our hometown! My wife and I subscribe to the Pops series and enjoy the talented musicians and performers they bring in. Subscribing has been a great benefit, as they are very flexible allowing us to change concert dates either to another night in a concert weekend, or changing to another show altogether. We enjoyed the support Marvin Hamlisch gave the symphony and look forward to what his legacy holds in the future!

On Valentine’s Day my husband and I attended the TREY ANASTASIO show at Heniz Hall. The PSO accompanied him, as he sang and played the electric and acoustic guitar. It was amazing. Aside from the fact that it is not every day you get to hear your favorite songs set to classical music, the symphony was fantastic. From the first note, my husband and I were speechless! Clearly the music was arranged to feature the symphony… and we loved every second. Very modern feel to the entire experience at Heinz Hall.

Cheers!
The PSO Pops can be fun and they do different themes and have different artists that make it more interesting. You can pick a theme and artist that is of your interest.
Dave Koz performance was wonderful. Gregg Karukas was assisting. Get night, lots of foot tapping. For those that like jazz, this was a fun night.
Also had a choir made up of some of the better voices from about 8 local colleges and universities. They were great.

When I was kid, we would go to the symphony on almost a monthly basis. They have really great guests that rotate through fairly regularly.
The hall itself is simply beautiful and very comfortable, its certainly a great aspect of the city and worthwhile thing to make a point to experience.

I’m more of an enthusiast than an expert but the PSO was one of my favorite things about Pittsburgh in winter.
Despite the fact that they were between music directors and had a series of guest conductors (or maybe because they were in transition) every performance I went to (except maybe one) was very exciting. The whole hall vibrates with a cozy intensity and the seasons have been very varied — classics, modern stuff, interesting guests — so we always found one or two performances that we really wanted to hear.
The cheap last minute tickets are a great deal, and if you look presentable, they’ll put you in the dress-​circle.