Gifts in Action
Your gift can make great things happen.
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is committed to Pittsburgh and our community, presenting programs which engage, enrich, and inspire audiences of all ages. But it takes gifts like yours to make this happen.
Your support makes our world better.
You can never underestimate what will light the spark of imagination and encourage a lifelong curiosity for learning and a love of music and the arts. Over the 2024-2025 season, more than 30,000 kids and adults attended the PSO’s Schooltime programs at Heinz Hall, in the community and virtually free of charge. Your endowment gift helps to bring the joy of live music to all, but most especially our youngest and first-time concertgoers—providing what for many is their earliest exposure to classical music and the shared experience of being part of a concert audience.
Endowment gifts also sustain world-class symphonic music for Pittsburgh, contributing to the rich cultural life of our city and region. From Pittsburgh’s storied history as an industrial hub through its current placement as a recognized leader in education and healthcare, the arts, including your Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, take their rightful place next to our Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates in contributing to the quality of life for our community.
Your donations make our world better.
“Thank you for making these Schooltime concerts such fantastic and memorable educational opportunities. The best part? The students were happily talking about how awesome it was too! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
—Anonymous Teacher Evaluation, 2025 Schooltime
“When I first heard Beethoven’s Ninth and Strauss’ Alpine Symphony, they showed me how music can build entire worlds and bring people together. These classics were just as important to me as film and video scores whose soundtracks shaped my imagination and showed me the power of musical storytelling to define a character, a landscape, or an emotion.”
—Landon Young, a Paul J. Ross Fellow, 2024/2025 and 2025/2026 Seasons
Your support matters.
How? When you make a gift to us, your valuable donation may go to any of the following areas:
Artistic/Programming:
- To attract and retain top-tier musicians who live, teach, and work within our community.
- By continuing to attract and build long-standing creative relationships with internationally recognized guest artists and conductors (established and emerging), cementing their relationship with Pittsburgh audiences.
- To curate programs which resonate with patrons and reflect our ever-changing world, including the performance and commission of new works which shape the future of symphonic music.
Learning and Community:
- Presenting programs which foster curiosity, skill-building, and knowledge about music.
- To provoke new ideas and perspectives, nurture excitement, and enhance young people’s aptitude for imaginative learning.
- By helping to make learning programs accessible to all—providing free or nominal fee concerts and transportation underwriting, and expanding digital programming and learning resources for classrooms, teachers, and families.
Heinz Hall:
- Providing maintenance and ongoing improvements to Heinz Hall to better accommodate and reflect the needs of our audiences.
Make your gift more meaningful.
- A dedicated gift. You can make your contribution in honor or memory of someone special by naming an orchestra chair or a space within Heinz Hall.
- A directed gift. You can choose to put your donation toward a particular learning program or community initiative that resonates with you.
- An enduring gift. You can leave a powerful legacy by contributing to the PSO’s general endowment fund to support your area of greatest interest in perpetuity. Read more about endowment gifts.
Make a gift, make a difference.
“Concerts at Heinz Hall are so uplifting, and all our cares seem to evaporate when the orchestra plays! All this was lost to us during the pandemic, and at that pivotal moment, I realized just how important live music was.”
“The Pittsburgh Symphony contributes so much to life in our city, and I wanted to help in some way—dividing my bequest equally between friends, family, and the orchestra will positively impact a greater number of people than my own immediate circle alone.”
—Shelley Crannell, Steinberg Society Member
“Some people may not believe that the arts are critical to our lives in the same way as health and social services, but they truly are—just in a different way. I see my planned gift as a way to make a difference for many years to come.”
—Ron Smutny, Steinberg Society Member
“The PSO has done so much for our community and in our region. In (our) opinion, it is one of the best assets or amenities that make life pleasant in Pittsburgh.”
—Al and Barb Biglan, Steinberg Society Members