Harlem Bash

Philharmonic goes uptown

There were 2,000 of them, laughing and waving their programs in the humid evening air. They overflowed from the pews onto folding chairs; they stood on windowsills, squeezed into doorways and gathered in the street outside. Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church had not seen such a festive crowd since the days when Adam Clayton Powell Jr. sounded forth from the pulpit. Last week the pulpit had given way to a specially built wooden stage, and what sounded forth was the New York Philharmonic.

"The orchestra had been to South Korea, the Soviet Union, every place in the world, and not to Harlem," says Conductor Zubin Mehta. "It was scandalous." Mehta has long championed the idea of special programming for minority audiences. During his years as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he took the orchestra out of the concert hall to such locations as the all-black Trinity Baptist Church and the federal prison on Terminal Island. The Abyssinian Church, a social and cultural landmark of Harlem, seemed an appropriate starting point for a similar effort in New York. The Philharmonic's director of educational activities, Leon Thompson, certainly approved: he also happens to be music director at the church.

Exuberantly conducted by Mehta, 90 of the orchestra's usual 106 musicians --all that would fit on the church stage --played an expansive, brassy program well suited to the occasion. To show off the 125-voice chorus (65 from the church's own choir, the rest from other Harlem groups), there were several selections from Handel's Messiah, two of them featuring Tenor Seth McCoy. To give the church's five-manual, 4,000-pipe organ a workout, Organist Leonard Raver and the orchestra galloped through the finale of Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 3.

Soprano Leontyne Price, who was married at the Abyssinian in 1952, got standing ovations before, between and after her splendid performances of Pace, pace from Verdi's La Forza del Destino and He's Got the Whole World in His Hands. Price knew her audience, and knew it was not to be patronized. Announcing her encore, Vissi d'arte from Puccini's Tosca, she was engulfed by cheers of recognition. The program then moved from Tosca to toe-tapping, as Gospel Superstar Betty Perkins swept onstage and picked up a microphone. The Philharmonic percussion section laid down a heavy beat, and Perkins brought the evening to a bluesy, rousing finale with three gospel songs by Joe K. Westmoreland.

Mehta and the church originally planned to make admission to the event free. But hoped-for corporate contributions were not forthcoming. Extra money had to be raised, and the church was forced to charge from $5 to $25 for tickets. Despite the financial obstacles, Mehta is eager to go into other neighborhoods, especially in the city's large Puerto Rican community. "One thing we know," he says. "We are going back to Harlem next year, that's for sure." As one enthusiast shouted from the Abyssinian balcony after the Hallelujah Chorus, "A-men!"

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