But as it was, after being introduced to the instrumental love of her life, the harp, at Girls High and the deepening of her studies at Settlement Music School, Pilot left Philadelphia for the Cleveland Institute of Music.
She substituted for the Pittsburgh Symphony, and became principal harpist of the National Symphony. But the chief beneficiary of her talent was the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which she joined in 1969.
Now retired from the BSO, Pilot - who returns to Philadelphia Sunday for a Settlement Music School recital with violinist Tai Murray - looks back on her time in the famed Boston ensemble as remarkable in several ways.
"I was with the BSO for 40 years - with Seiji [Ozawa] there, we had fabulous tours all over the world. Some of the most memorable concerts took place in Japan or European concert halls, and Seiji used to have fabulous parties in ryokans," traditional inns, "in Japan or beer houses in Austria. That was the golden era of the BSO, and I think it's something that won't be duplicated any time soon. Everything is so different now."
Some things happily so.
In 1969, Pilot was the BSO's only African American member, a distinction she would hold for 20 years. When appointed, she was one of only three African American musicians playing in leading U.S. orchestras, a BSO spokeswoman said. There is just one black BSO musician today, and the slow pace of change surprises Pilot. "I would have thought by the time I left they would have several more," she said.
But the field is a far cry from what it was in the late 1950s, when the orchestra teacher at Girls High offered Pilot the harp after she found that the violin and flute slots were already taken.
"When I was coming along in Girls High and Philly, I was the only African American harpist that I knew. Harp was considered, first of all, a feminine instrument. It was for women with blond hair and long flowing gowns."
Still, in those days strong public-school music instruction was commonplace, its net cast wide enough to catch anyone with talent.
"When I discovered the harp in Girls High and then met [Philadelphia Orchestra harpist] Edna Phillips Rosenbaum, the teacher at Settlement, it opened up a whole new world. It was something I wanted to do and was supported to do, and my career just took off. I have Girls High and Settlement to thank for that."
The "blond hair and long flowing gown" concept of the harp, it turns out, was a recent embellishment to its image. The more relevant cultural marker became apparent to Pilot only in 1997 or so, when she took a sabbatical from the BSO to travel to Africa. After ethnomusicologist Sue Carole DeVale suggested to her that the origins of the harp were in Africa, she and her husband decided to go not as tourists, but as researchers.
"It can be traced back to the bow and arrow, so we're talking the beginning of man almost," she said. "The very first harps looked like a bow and arrow with a few more strings, and then they expanded the strings and found the triangular shape made the instrument stronger and added more strings. It went from Africa to Mesopotamia and Greece to Europe, and of course it took much more time for it to get to the U.S."
Her discoveries were woven into a documentary, Ann Hobson Pilot - A Musical Journey, which has aired nationwide on PBS stations.
Pilot's playing in the BSO was deeply admired. "Anyone who has played Mahler's Fifth Symphony in the BSO knows that it was not the guys with the batons who conducted the 'Adagietto,' it was Ann," said bass player James Orleans on the harpist's retirement. "Her sense of rhythmic proportion and pacing is unparalleled."
Though she modestly turns aside the notion that her tenure - first as assistant principal harpist, then, from 1980 until her retirement in 2009, principal - has inspired the next generation, her visibility is part of an emerging presence for African Americans in classical music.
"Now I even have an African American male student who is a graduate student at Boston University, and have had several African American students."
For her, the knowledge that the harp has its earliest ancestors in Africa carries great significance. "It did make a difference to me. It made me think I wasn't such an unusual occurrence after all."
Ann Hobson Pilot
and violinist Tai Murray perform works of Debussy, Donizetti, Saint-Saens, and others Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Settlement Music School Germantown branch, 6128 Germantown Ave. Tickets: $20, free for Settlement students. Information: 215-320-2610 or www.smsmusic.org.
Contact music critic Peter Dobrin at pdobrin@phillynews.com or 215-854-5611. Read his blog at www.philly.com/philly/blogs/artswatch.
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