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Sunday, January 19, 2003

When the seats in the chilly old auditorium squawked in protest at being folded down and plopped into, some faces frowned. Those squawks, after all, occasionally masked the lovely sounds coming from the stage.

But others of us turned to share quick smiles with anyone -- even latecomers -- who would devote a Sunday afternoon to so worthy a cause.

Not that it was a sacrifice. It was one of the most pleasant ways I've ever spent an afternoon, and it turned out to be one of the most instructive, too.

An expert had months ago given Grainne Hope a prognosis on her cello: It was terminal.

"The bottom of it was just turning to dust," said Phillip Injeian, a master violinmaker who recently moved to Pittsburgh from New York. Injeian encouraged Grainne (pronounced GRAW-nyuh) to try fund-raising through family and friends, then broaden her efforts to encompass larger communities.

That's how some 200 of us ended up last Sunday in the wintery gloom of the Carnegie Music Hall in Munhall to listen to classical standards and Irish anthems and to affirm the concert's title: "Hope's Faith in Charity."

Grainne Hope has won just about every honor and competition available to young cellists in her native Ireland. She now studies at Duquesne University with Anne Martindale Williams, principal cellist for the Pittsburgh Symphony. You wouldn't be surprised to know that the musicians' community has rallied 'round Grainne, but you might be surprised that a young woman of 26 could compel dozens of her fellow students, several teachers, six members of the Pittsburgh Symphony and a university dean to fiddle for her cause.

Over the Christmas break she joined the Irish National Symphony in Dublin for "Grainne's Gala." The stature of these fund-raisers is pretty astonishing, but you have to realize that young string players with brilliant futures buy instruments instead of houses or cars.

My colleague Dennis Roddy wrote a delightful column about Grainne's predicament in December. I clipped it, stuffed it in my daily planner and brought my sister to the event. Dennis sat front and center. I encountered another friend in the aisle. She was there with her teenage daughter and the daughter's best friend because both young girls study the cello.

The web of connections kept growing -- social, musical, business and Irish connections. At the reception afterward I met Phillip, the master violinmaker, and Peg, who first met Grainne at the airport and offered her a ride. Peg told us that we Dailey sisters ought to drop by Tuesday nights at The Harp and Fiddle in the Strip to connect with our Irish heritage and learn some ceili steps. Peg's son John knew where I could take my daughter Emma to study traditional Irish dance. Phillip advised my sister about repairing her old violin.

Seemingly every Irish group in Pittsburgh bought advertising space in Grainne's concert program -- but so did a New York record label, a local Orthodox artist, the City Theatre and the Bulgarian Macedonian National Education and Cultural Center where the reception was held.

The "few treats" Dennis had predicted for the reception turned out to be three tables groaning under the weight of roast beef, shrimp dip, marinated mushrooms, feta cheese and spinach pastries, Asian chicken, cheese-and-grape skewers and all manner of pastries and Irish breads, all donated by Grainne's many friends.

The richness of this event reminded me of something I read a couple of years ago. Not only are we all connected by the famous "Six Degrees of Separation," but at pivotal points in life's complex web are a few special "connectors" -- individuals who meet and remember many more people than your average human and who hold all those friends and acquaintances together in an invisible embrace. Grainne -- or someone very close to her -- is a connector.

It also occurred to me, at some point during the concert, that any number of rich Pittsburghers could write a single check for Grainne's new cello and never feel the pinch. But that single act of charity wouldn't be nearly as fun -- or as fulfilling -- as the way Grainne and her friends are going about it. And the point of charity isn't just what it procures, but what it produces in the lives of those who practice it.

Organizers say that "Hope's Faith in Charity" and the Dublin event together have raised enough for a healthy down payment on a $50,000 instrument.

This might be a nice time for someone with deep pockets to step forward. If not, Grainne will have the opportunity to draw yet more people into her circle. And we'll still have faith in charity.