Medicine and Music: Boston's Longwood Symphony Orchestra

Adding to the unique nature of the LSO is the fact that every concert in their history has been a benefit concert for a medical-associated nonprofit. They sell their tickets to the "beneficiary" (their term for the partner organization) at a low price and let the organization sell them at a higher price and keep the difference. Often they have worked with relatively small organizations, and have mentored them in the art of using a gala event as a fundraiser. They almost always surround the concert with symposia about the medical issue that the beneficiary organization deals with, trying where possible to relate it to music, or the power of music to heal. The concert I attended on Saturday, December 1, 2007 benefited three organizations: the Seven Hills Foundation on Behavioral Health; The Global Health Initiative at Boston University; and Classical Action: Performing Arts Against Aids. The LSO and Boston University organized a community conversation at BU called "Aids: Connecting the Local and the Global". The concert was at Jordan Hall, and was close to sold out. This model has been consistent from the LSO's beginning. The concert that I saw would challenge any professional orchestra:

REVUELTAS: Sensemayá
MUSSORGSKY: Coronation Scene from Boris Godunov
JANÁČEK: Glagolitic Mass

The concert was astonishing. The string writing in the Janáček, and the tricky rhythms of the Revueltas, are not easy for professional orchestras, let alone one made up largely of people who practice medicine for a living. But there was no sense of this being a volunteer orchestra - and Jonathan McPhee conducted with both clarity and intensity. The New World Chorale was a terrific chorus, and the four soloists provided by Classical Action - Marjorie Elinor Dix, Mary Phillips, John Bellemer, and Gustav Andreassen - could have graced the performance of any international-level orchestra, despite the difficulty of the solo writing, particularly for the soprano and tenor. This was one of the few fully volunteer orchestras I have heard in recent years (except for youth orchestras), and the only one where most of the musicians practiced a demanding other profession - and I was not at all prepared for the high quality of the playing. The fact that this concert attracted a full house - and a cheering audience - in a city where there are plenty of good and great alternative orchestras, is yet one more demonstration of the fact that there is indeed a vital and meaningful life for symphonic music, a life that occurs in many shapes and forms in this country.

Also indicative of their growth is a planned tour to London in June; they will keep their pattern, with St. Bartholomew Hospital in London as their beneficiary. The symposium will be "The Healing Art of Music" - and there will be symposia with the doctor/musicians focused on cancer care, as well as two concerts. The LSO hopes in the future to travel to Africa or to countries in other under-developed areas. The twin missions of bringing a large number of doctor-musicians to under-developed countries, both to counsel local medical centers and to make music can only be called inspiring. The deep connection that the Longwood Symphony Orchestra makes between community health and music is, if I may be excused for being sappy, uplifting.