Striking photos

And speaking of Pittsburgh (see two posts earlier), the Symphony has marvelous photos of its musicians, which is uses, in effect, to brand the orchestra. They're all in a delightful book, posed in groups by sections, and individually. And then they're used on the cover of the program book, on posters outside Heinz Hall, where the Symphony plays, and in cutouts standing in various places inside the hall.

Here's one of them, showing the oboists, from a program book cover a few months ago. It's friendly, human, inviting, easily the best cover I've ever seen on any orchestra's program book. And this is one of the less lively photos the Symphony uses!

There's some planning behind this. As the Symphony looks toward a future with three co-conductors, it wants to feature its musicians, to be the face of the orchestra in place of the single music director whom they've chosen not to have. Or you can turn this around: They chose not to have a music director in part because they wanted the musicians to be their public face.

Seems like a good choice to me. You see the musicians; you want to hear them play. Of course, it helps that the photographs are really good. Credit goes to Alicia Photography, the Pittsburgh company that took them.