Category: News || By Jason Togyer

A holiday concert full of family favorites --- ranging from Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite" to the "Jingle Bell Rock" --- opens the McKeesport Symphony Orchestra's 53rd season on Saturday night.

The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. at McKeesport Area High School, 1960 Eden Park Blvd. The concert will be recorded by Tube City Community Media Inc. for broadcast over Pittsburgh's WRCT-FM (88.3) at 3 p.m. Dec. 24.

This year's holiday concert comes as the McKeesport Symphony --- like other community orchestras --- are struggling to reach a wider audience. For the first time in recent memory, one of the MSO's regular slate of concerts this season will be played outside of McKeesport --- at Independence Middle School in Bethel Park.

"We're not at all trying to move out of McKeesport, but we are trying to expand into more of a regional orchestra, so that we can include more of the South Hills," says Bruce Lauffer, who is entering his eighth season as conductor and music director of the MSO. "We have to reach out and find new audiences and new areas."

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Members of the McKeesport Symphony are paid, professional musicians, many of whom play with other regional or community groups or serve as music educators at local schools and universities.

McKeesport's symphony isn't alone in struggling to woo younger fans at a time of cutbacks to arts and music funding across the country. The Philadelphia Orchestra --- considered one of the so-called "Big Five" symphony orchestras in America --- was recently forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

"All of the orchestras throughout the United States are having a difficult time," says Lauffer, a native of Jeannette and a graduate of West Virginia University and Baylor, also serves as conductor of Greensburg's Latshaw Pops Orchestra and will serve as a guest conductor this year of the Butler County Symphony.

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One of the most common misconceptions that younger people have, he says, is that symphonies only play well-worn classical selections from the 1700s and 1800s. "It's not true," Lauffer says. Symphonic music is "everywhere, all around us. It's in games, videos ... it's in all of our lives, in movies, in commercials."

Sometimes, when talking to a group of students, Lauffer will play a portion of a movie with the orchestral score removed. "They'll go, 'Hey, wait a minute, where's the sound?' I'll say, 'Oh, I thought you didn't like symphonic music.'" Imagine the movie "Jaws" without John Williams' "shark theme," he says. "To this day, as soon as you dip your toes in the water, someone will start humming 'da-daaa ... da-daaa ...'"

If March's concert in Bethel Park is successful, he says the MSO will consider looking for other future locations for performances in the wider Mon-Yough area. "Maybe there are people in Bethel Park who can't make it to McKeesport," Lauffer says. "If this works out, we'd like to include other areas in the South Hills of Allegheny County."

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The selections in Saturday's concert were suggested by members of the symphony and the audience, he says. "We are really going back to a lot of traditional Christmas songs and Christmas arrangements," Lauffer says, noting that Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker" is "25 minutes of some of the very favorite" orchestral music in the world.

The McKeesport Youth Symphony Orchestra --- comprised of 20 area music students --- will perform during the second half of the program. Other selections include pieces by Leroy Anderson (including "Sleigh Ride" and "Christmas Festival"), a medley of music from Vince Guaraldi's score for "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Fantasia on Greensleeves."

The Guaraldi music has become "one of the standards," Lauffer says. "It's a great score and he was an incredible composer."

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For more information on the symphony, including ticket information, visit its website or call (412) 664-2854.

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