Coming up in Philly music: A symphony from the voices of the city

In 2012, Orchestra 2001 presented a John Cage piece that combined live music with recorded sounds and created a Whitmanesque picture of our sprawling continental democracy. Composer Tod Machover has been doing something similar with individual cities. This week, the Philadelphia Orchestra will premiere his portrait of the city that gave the world cheesesteaks, the Declaration of Independence, and some of the most rabid sports fans on the planet.

Philadelphia Voices is Machover’s seventh city piece and his most ambitious. The Philadelphia Orchestra will collaborate with three choirs that represent the size and breadth of the city’s pool of talent — Commonwealth Youth Choirs, Sister Cities Girlchoir, and the Westminster Symphonic Choir. The choral texts are taken from thousands of statements Machover collected from personal interviews and the 8,000 entries Philadelphians contributed to a Philadelphia Orchestra app. The sound effects include traffic noises, bird cries at the Philadelphia Zoo, and sizzling cheesesteaks.

Machover’s vision goes beyond superficial sounds. His massive collection of Philadelphia attitudes convinced him Philadelphians value their city’s heritage as the birthplace of American democracy. In the Orchestra’s essay on the premiere, he says Philadelphia Voices should leave people valuing “a place where we feel what it’s like to hear other voices.”

“That’s a value that is central to Philadelphia,” he says, “and to me.”

The Orchestra has paired Philadelphia Voices, fittingly, with a companion that includes some of the most rousing orchestration in the repertory, Pictures at an Exhibition. A premiere that ends with a “hymn to brotherly and sisterly love” will be followed by a piece that ends with Ravel and Mussorgsky’s evocation of the bells that glorify the Great Gate of Kiev.

The Philadelphia Orchestra will present Philadelphia Voices on Thursday, April 5, at 7:30pm; on Friday, April 6, at 2pm, and on Saturday, April 7, at 8pm at the Kimmel’s Verizon Hall. For tickets and more info, visit online.