 
|
|||||||||||||||||
              
|
Pittsburgh Symphony may find a home away from home in Poconos
Wednesday, January 20, 1999 By Caroline Abels, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Seeking to raise its profile on the East Coast, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has chosen to establish a summer home on the grounds of an ambitious new music and arts center being planned for Pike County, Pa., in the heart of the Pocono Mountains.
The Keystone Center of Music and the Arts would feature a variety of cultural programming by Pennsylvania and New York arts groups, including the New York Pops, the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic and the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. The PSO, which has been without a summer home for almost a decade, would be the spotlight orchestra, playing about a dozen classical concerts over three or four weeks.
The 675-acre site, which borders a lake and was formerly a retreat for members of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, features a handful of existing buildings, including a theater, cottages and a boat house. Plans for the Keystone Center, which is expected to open in May 2000, include the addition of parking lots and a 4,000-seat, open-air pavilion where the PSO would play.
The $35 million project is being led by a New York City violinist, Elliot Rosoff, who said yesterday he has raised some initial money from donors, though he declined to disclose an amount. He said the project also will be funded by an anticipated bond sale in Pike County as well as additional money raised through patron and foundation contributions.
Pike County also has requested $7.5 million in state money. Rosoff said the request is linked to the fate of Gov. Ridge's legislation to fund new sports stadiums and other projects by raising the state's debt ceiling by at least $500 million. That legislation stalled in the statehouse late last year, putting the construction of new stadiums for the Pirates and Steelers in jeopardy.
If the legislation passes, it would be up to Ridge to decide which projects, including the Keystone Center, are funded. Tim Reeves, the governor's press secretary, said yesterday that Ridge, who is pushing for a February vote on the debt ceiling, has ruled out commitments to specific projects in exchange for votes on the legislation.
The PSO chose the Keystone Center for its proximity to New York City, said Gideon Toeplitz, the symphony's managing director. Toeplitz said being 11/2 to 2 hours from New York and Philadelphia will not only enhance the symphony's image but guarantee it audiences that it can't find at home.
"We cannot survive being only in the Pittsburgh market," Toeplitz said. "Because we are a large orchestra serving a small community, we have to spend part of the year going to other markets."
Since 1991, when it stopped spending summers at the Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts in Mansfield, Mass., the PSO has spent the summer performing as the Pittsburgh Pops. But because tours are often arranged at the last minute, Toeplitz wants the security of a summer home.
At Keystone, the New York Pops and the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic would perform in addition to the PSO. Students from the Tisch School of the Arts would stage musicals and cabaret acts would perform in the boat house. Rosoff said he also envisions jazz, pop, folk and opera being performed on the site.
"I love all kinds of music except hard rock and rap - that's out," said Rosoff, who has played in a number of orchestras and Broadway shows, recorded some CDs and run his own recording studio.
The Keystone site would include:
Of those facilities, the pavilion, parking lots and promenade do not yet exist. The existing buildings, Rosoff said, need extensive renovation.
Rosoff, 64, who lives in Manhattan, had initially sought to establish an arts center in Sullivan County, N.Y., with a friend. But the two had a falling out, at which point Pike County officials, who knew Rosoff's friend, approached Rosoff about an arts center in their neck of the woods.
Pike County officials suggested a few sites to Rosoff, but only the former union property, located in Bushkill Township, had existing buildings.
"We rode into this place and it was like a dream come true," Rosoff said. "It's a magnificent site, like walking into another world."
Rosoff said the center would feed off Pike County's reputation as a tourist destination for people from the New York metropolitan area. The center borders a handful of big hotels that could house Keystone patrons.
Howard Grossman, executive director of the Economic Development Council of Northeastern Pennsylvania, said the Keystone Center has become part of the region's economic development strategy.
"Tourism is the No. 1 industry in the Poconos," Grossman said. "We're already getting tons of folks from New York and New Jersey and this facility will be attractive to those people."
Toeplitz said the PSO is expecting to net between $400,000 and $500,000 each summer at Keystone. The center will pay for the symphony's expenses in addition to fees, he said.
Toeplitz said he does not anticipate that the agreement will affect the symphony musicians' 52-week contract. PSO cellist and musicians' union member Hampton Mallory, whom Toeplitz said has visited the Keystone site, could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Toeplitz added that the symphony has not, and will not, invest any money in the center. In the early 1990s, he said, the PSO lost about $1.5 million pursuing a summer home in Bedford County. The project was dropped after the state failed to come through with funding in time, but the PSO had already spent money on legal advice and engineering studies.
Further distancing the PSO financially from the Keystone project, Toeplitz said he stipulated that the Keystone board of directors not seek any money for the center from foundations or individuals that have demonstrated financial support for the PSO.
The PSO's commitment to the Keystone project was outlined in a letter of intent approved by the symphony board of directors last week. Yesterday, the Keystone board of directors approved the letter, which prevents them from signing on another orchestra and also prevents the PSO from seeking another summer home.
For the past few months, Westminster College in Lawrence County has been lobbying to become the PSO's summer home. Toeplitz, who pointed out that a number of places have sought the same designation, said it was "simply a conversation" he'd had with the college. But Westminster went so far as to apply for $4.2 million from the state to help finance an $8.4 million plan to establish a summer music festival and a music outreach program designed to lure the symphony.
Toeplitz said the area around Westminster lacks the critical mass needed to draw summer audiences. Mark Meighen, Westminster's communications director, said yesterday he had not heard of the PSO's decision to head to Pike County, but said Westminster's plans for a summer festival and outreach program might proceed anyway.
Many large symphonies have summer homes. The Boston Symphony Orchestra spends the warmer months at Tanglewood, its 500-acre compound 120 miles west of Boston. The Cleveland Symphony heads to the Blossom Music Center in the summer, 25 miles from Cleveland, just north of Akron.
The PSO spent summers at Great Woods from 1986 to 1991. In the early 1980s it performed in Point State Park, Downtown, during the summer. And from 1969 to 1980, it spent summers at a venue 25 miles outside of Philadelphia.
|
||||||||||||||||
A cultural arts center housing a 1,200-seat theater, art gallery and large dining room.