Academy Award-winning actor F. Murray Abraham returned to his birthplace of Pittsburgh for a collaboration with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and took time to share his admiration for the city.
“The thing about Pittsburgh that people don’t know too much is that it’s so comfortable; people are so nice,” he said in an interview with WQED. “You come from New York — and I like New York … I’ve been there for a long time — and I’m of the theater, so I need New York. Sometimes, it’s really hard.”
Abraham was in town to act as the narrator for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait,” speaking the words of Abraham Lincoln.
The June 12 and 14 shows featured American composers exclusively, as part of the American 250 observance. The other works in the program were by composed by Joan Tower, John Adams and Leonard Bernstein, whose “Chichester Psalms” was accompanied by the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh. This weekend’s show also feature American composers, including Copland’s “Appalachian Spring.”
Abraham, who was born in Pittsburgh and moved to Texas as a child, said when people step outside their doors in New York, you have to “put on your armor.”
“It’s so much more livable here in Pittsburgh,” he said. “And I don’t mean that in an offhand way. It’s like a generosity of spirit, which the country seems to be losing, and I’m so glad to come back.”
Abraham rose to prominence after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the 1984 film “Amadeus.”