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To many non-Bostonians, orchestral music in Beantown means one thing: the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the city's musical calling card for well over a century.

In March, I drove up to Boston through a blizzard for a concert not at venerable Symphony Hall, however, but across the street at the equally venerable New England Conservatory of Music. There, beneath the magnificent gilt and walnut organ of Jordan Hall, I heard a challenging orchestral program: From the treacherous opening horn passage of Andrzej Panufnik's "Heroic Overture" (1969) to the joyous beauties of Beethoven's Triple Concerto (notable for the exceptional playing of cellist Alisa Weilerstein), and finally the primal orgy of Prokofiev's early "Scythian Suite," I was impressed by the breadth and creativity of the program (which also included Sibelius's dreamlike "Pohjola's Daughter"). I was even more impressed by the confidence and often astonishing finesse with which it was played. This was neither the BSO nor even the New England Conservatory Orchestra. It was the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, made up primarily of doctors and medical professionals representing nearly 20 hospitals and medical schools in greater Boston.

The musical and professional backgrounds of these LSO players are extraordinarily varied. Concertmaster Robert Fortunato, chief of radiology at Winchester Hospital, not only has played the violin since receiving his first lessons at age seven, but now makes violins as a hobby. Athanasios Michos, a 34-year-old specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at Children's Hospital, affiliated with Harvard Medical School, received a diploma in violin from the Athens Conservatory while in his third year of medical school in his native Greece. Hematologist/oncologist Leonard Zon, 47, considered playing trumpet professionally while studying at Moravian College in Pennsylvania. An LSO member for 21 years, he is a central figure in stem-cell research. Susan P. Pauker, 59, chief of medical genetics at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates and the Longwood's current board chairwoman, stopped playing for many years after taking childhood violin lessons. She came back to it when her teenage son, studying double bass, said, "Let's jam."

"While having my ancient violin restored," says Dr. Pauker, "I was referred to Janice Tucker, a teacher specializing in adult retreads." Ms. Tucker started Dr. Pauker on the first book of the Suzuki method, widely used to train young children. To prepare to audition for the LSO, Dr. Pauker "blasted through four books of Suzuki in one year, practicing from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. most every night."

The LSO was formed in 1982 by a group of musically trained Harvard medical students who wanted to play together. Its current music director, nonphysician Jonathan McPhee, 50, is also music director of the Boston Ballet, and a frequent guest conductor of both ballet and symphony orchestras internationally. He is a prominent arranger of ballet scores, as well, including the official reduced-instrumentation versions of "The Rite of Spring" and "The Firebird," which he made under the auspices of the Stravinsky Trust.

Before accepting the LSO post last year, Mr. McPhee occasionally guest-conducted the ensemble. "When I first led the orchestra 14 years ago, people basically came in and sight-read whatever was on the music stands," he recalls. "One night you'd have eight trumpets and one cello; another you'd have full brass and three violins." Today, attendance at weekly rehearsals still hinges on professional obligations -- beepers constantly go off, he says, and sometimes a player is late because it took an extra 45 minutes to close up a patient -- but the organization holds itself as close to professional standards as possible: Membership is determined by audition, and players are expected to learn their parts before the first rehearsal.

Nevertheless, Mr. McPhee has gently ironed out more subtle wrinkles, including just who's in charge. "When I first came on board, stopping to work out a tricky passage could almost start a kind of football scrimmage," he chuckles. "Many players are medical department heads, so each was ready to take charge and tell their colleagues how to resolve the issue. Now, regardless of their daytime medical stature, every player looks to the podium when a musical question arises."

Mr. McPhee is also fascinated by the contrasts between these gifted amateur players and the pros in the Boston Ballet pit. "Professional musicians come to rehearsal ready to go from the first bar," he says. "But the LSO players need at least 10 minutes to adjust themselves to the rehearsal situation after dealing all day with life-and-death issues far removed from music." The conductor observes that while professional musicians are trained to respond emotionally from the first downbeat, physicians are trained to avoid personal expression on duty. "So my hardest task in those first 10 minutes of rehearsal is to put these players back in touch with their emotions so they can direct them toward the music."

Principal clarinet Mark C. Gebhardt, 55, chief of orthopedic surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, cares for patients with bone and soft-tissue cancers, and often contends with the emotional stress related to these cases. "I use music as a 'defense mechanism' against this, and it works both ways," he says. "I used to get very nervous before playing a solo, until I realized, one day, that the worst that could come of a flubbed note or missed entrance would be a few moments' embarrassment. But no one would lose a limb or die. Although I always want to do my best in concert, that thought put it all into perspective."

Apart from its performances, the LSO has distinguished itself as a benefactor of medical causes, raising more than half a million dollars through its Healing Art of Music Program, inaugurated in 1991. Each concert is organized to benefit a specific medical group. Violinist and violist Lisa Wong, 47, a pediatrician and the orchestra's president, spearheaded this move, having played community outreach concerts since her college days.

"Because I am a pediatrician," notes Dr. Wong, "many of the Longwood's beneficiaries help children." Among them are the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, March of Dimes, Children of Chernobyl, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. "Our performances give these organizations the opportunity to raise money and also to spotlight their work for the evening." And the connections also come from the players and soloists: Ms. Weilerstein, a diabetic since age nine, was contributing her solo cello performance to that evening's beneficiary, the Joslin Diabetes Center.

Mr. McPhee says that this altruistic mandate helped persuade him to add the Longwood post to his already heavy conducting duties. But he also feels that as a community orchestra, the LSO helps tremendously to bolster classical music in an often indifferent world. "There is often a disconnect today between the modern American symphony orchestra and the general public," he observes, "an invisible wall preventing many people from buying a ticket to a professional symphony orchestra. Yet community music centers are booming. So a high-quality amateur orchestra closely tied to the community can actually provide professional orchestras with useful pointers about outreach."

The benefit of classical music to the community motivates all the musicians I interviewed. Violist Andrea Spencer, 23, who joined the orchestra in September, holds a B.A. in music from Yale and is in her first year at Harvard Medical School. "My aspirations to perform music and practice medicine stem from the same impetus," she says, "to combine my talents with the talents of others to serve people." Intending to pursue psychiatry, she has often pondered "the meaning of personal health and how important mental health and happiness are to that definition." Music, she says, "elicits emotions essential to life and vitality. To play for people and make them feel that vitality is a service, and our wonderful evenings of music-making offer that service and celebrate it at the same time."

Click here to view this video program from the WGBH Greater Boston web site.

Jonathan McPhee took a night off from the Boston Ballet's "Nutcracker" Saturday night to make an auspicious debut as music director of the Longwood Symphony Orchestra. Most of the members of this unusual ensemble are full-time workers in the health care professions -- physicians, nurses, researchers, administrators. For them, making music is not a hobby but a passion; this is something you can hear in their playing and see in the expressions on their faces.

The group is well known within the medical community but has not enjoyed a high profile among concertgoers, a situation McPhee is determined to change. In artistic standards the group is at least competitive with the other prominent amateur orchestras in Boston and in the surrounding suburbs.

McPhee led off with Walton's "Crown Imperial," a noble Elgarian march composed for the coronation of George VI (father of the present Queen of England) in 1937, and closed with Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony. There was a touch of scrambling in the strings during all of the rustling in the third movement from which the stirring march theme emerges, but this was a very well-played performance -- secure, solid, and resounding.

It was also quite well planned by McPhee, who must have enjoyed conducting music by Tchaikovsky that is not "Nutcracker," "Swan Lake," or "The Sleeping Beauty." He chose moderate tempos, perhaps out of choice, or perhaps to stay within a safety zone, but everything was clear, tasteful, proportionate, and orderly. Tchaikovsky benefits from these unassuming but rarely heard qualities. And they didn't get in the way of expressing the composer's passionate emotions. The strings really dug into the finale, and most of the solos were nicely done. The audience listened attentively and seemed to know the work -- there was no burst of applause at the end of the march, as there almost always is in Symphony Hall; people knew it wasn't over.

The Longwood Symphony Orchestra has a tradition of promoting young soloists with local connections. Friday night's guest was violinist Ayano Ninomiya, alumna of the New England Conservatory and Harvard University who recently finished her master's degree at Juilliard and took second prize in last year's Naumburg Competition. Ninomiya offered Wieniawski's Second Concerto, an unusual choice, and she played it splendidly, with bold tone and accents, a sumptuously singing line, and stupendous virtuosity throughout, especially in the gypsy-style rondo-finale, which she delivered with abandon and elan.

Ninomiya lacked nothing musically or technically, but part of the fun of music like this comes from the audience's sense that the performer is having fun, too, just tossing off all these dazzling effects like an aerialist whirling through a triple somersault. The violinist was a little grim-browed for this piece, and we didn't see or feel her smile much until she was safely off the flying trapeze. McPhee and the orchestra caught her every time.

This event, like all Longwood Symphony presentations, was a benefit for a worthy medical cause, this time the Massachusetts Consortium for Children with Special Health Care Needs. It was also a good concert.

Jonathan McPhee has held one of the city's most important musical jobs since 1988, music director of the Boston Ballet. But by definition it's also a low-profile job: He works in the pit, and the audience gets to see him full-length only when he comes onstage at evening's end.

McPhee also holds a big position on the North Shore, where he serves as music director of Symphony by the Sea in Marblehead. And now he's taken on a third local job as leader of the Longwood Symphony Orchestra; he makes his debut as its music director Saturday night in Jordan Hall.

The Longwood Symphony, founded in 1982, is a remarkable institution that isn't as well known as it ought to be, and that's something McPhee wants to change. It is an amateur orchestra, and most of the players are members of Boston's large healthcare community: doctors, nurses, researchers, technicians, administrators. McPhee is struck by the paradox that the Longwood Symphony may be the only place where many of the area's hospitals have representatives who meet and work together on a regular basis.

The organization has a unique business model. "The doctors have always paid dues to be part of the orchestra," McPhee said, "and the institution has performed miracles on no money at all. One of its primary purposes is to generate funds for other organizations."

All four Longwood concerts in Jordan Hall each season are benefits for health-related nonprofits, and over the last dozen years the orchestra has raised more than $500,000 for 25 worthy causes and underserved populations. Saturday night's concert, for example, is a benefit for the Massachusetts Consortium for Children With Special Health Care Needs.

This business model has some consequences for artistic development. "This gives the group some interesting musical options," McPhee said. "Most organizations have to balance concerns about fund-raising and building an audience and playing what people want to hear with what the performers want to play or should be playing. As a result, the same pieces keep turning up on programs over and over again."

The Longwood Symphony doesn't sell most of the tickets to its concerts itself; marketing becomes the job of the organization for which each concert is a benefit. The orchestra is therefore in a position "to explore repertory as unique as its mission," McPhee said. "This season, for example, we will play Prokofiev's 'Scythian Suite,' a wonderful piece I have been dying to do for years but which is a hard sell in other circumstances because nobody knows it." McPhee's program Saturday does have Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony, but it also has Walton's less-often-played "Crown Imperial." The orchestra also often features young locally based soloists. Saturday's choice is violinist Ayano Ninomiya, who plays Wieniawski's dazzling Second Concerto instead of one of the more familiar standards.

McPhee has worked in the background with the Longwood Symphony for about a dozen years, guest conducting for predecessor Francisco Noya and consulting. "I accepted the invitation as music director because I am sold on the group and its mission," he said.

Dr. Lisa Wong is president of the symphony and a violinist in the orchestra. "I have also played viola," she said, "but this year we had a bumper crop of 17 violists, so I am a violinist again." She says there was not much of a search process; everyone wanted McPhee, and the offer lined up with a time in his life when he wants to travel less.

"Jonathan's musical mind has already taken us to a different level," said Wong, a Massachusetts General Hospital pediatrician with a private office in Milton. She said the orchestra is at the point that players are taking lessons again, buying new instruments, practicing at home. Five of the new members this seasons are interns, who are on call constantly but who make time for the orchestra "because they have to."

An unexpected benefit for the orchestra has been McPhee's administrative expertise; he was the human glue that held the Boston Ballet together in more than one period of crisis. Wong believes McPhee can help take the Longwood Symphony from its adolescence to "a more adult state."

"Nonprofits begin in someone's kitchen where people lick and stamp envelopes," she said. "Then you have to move on to strategic planning, to creating an office and hiring an administrator, then launching an annual appeal. In that sense, the Longwood Symphony is still a virtual organization, and its office is e-mail."

The new music director has no qualms about the quality of the orchestra. He called it "100 percent amateur, in the best sense of the word," but said some of the players could very well have become professional musicians.

"My hope is that the qualitative line between amateur and professional will become increasingly blurred, and that music lovers will want to come and buy the seats in the house that have not been allocated to the benefit simply because of the chance to hear music they won't hear anyplace else," he said. "The stronger we get, the more we can do for the causes we want to support."

Take two violinists, and call me in the morning. Wednesday evening's WCRB Classical Concert Series presentation, part of a summer-long program of free concerts in the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade, featured the Longwood Symphony, with Jonathan McPhee conducting.

The Longwood Symphony Orchestra might be the most unusual ensemble in the area. Can you picture an entire orchestra made of medical professionals? The folks who work 100 hours a week and are on call the rest of the time? Is there a more unlikely group to get together on their free (?) time to make music?

But they do. Longwood has been around for a while, and with McPhee, they have an astute and clever music director. And Wednesday evening's performance, a mix of Pops favorites and a Mozart chestnut, notwithstanding the sound problems, proved that the gloved and booted crowd knows how to let their (long)hair down.

The venue calls for brash works, heavy on the winds and brass, and McPhee opened appropriately with Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man," as accessible a piece as could be. Gustav Holst's "Suite for Orchestra" followed — nothing challenging for musicians or listeners, but nothing unpleasant either.

The musical treat of the performance came with pianist Tina Ho's performance of Mozart's B flat major concerto. Mozart's final work, redolent of a mature style that would never be realized, the B flat stretches listeners and players in a way that is sadly never developed.

The concert was a co-presentation with the Chinese Center for the Performing Arts, which brings many fine players to the area. Pianist Ho had the touch — this listener scurried up close to the stage to catch the action. It was worth it. The ensemble playing was brilliant, and the cadenzas memorable.

McPhee opened the second half with a work of his own — a tribute to Bruce Marks, for many years artistic director of the Boston Ballet, where McPhee maintains a musical directorship. "Re:Marks," as McPhee put it in backstage comments during intermission, "just tries to capture some of his personality. He used to write a column called 'Re:Marks,' and this piece tries to get at some of that energy." It did. Forceful and dynamic, "Re:Marks" was the best of what outdoor entertainment can be: aggressive and loud, emphatic, with strong dynamics.

The Hatch Shell is a marvel of sound and visual excitement, but when a heavily sponsored evening needs to banner the event with the names and logos of its donors, the sound gets compromised. The huge flag hanging from the top of the Shell swayed in the threatening breeze and diminished the sound quality considerably — it sounded like a cheesy thunder effect from a B movie.

Click here to listen to this audio program from WBUR's web site.

In its nineteenth season, the Longwood Symphony Orchestra (LSO) continues to bring together leaders in Boston's medical community with both local and world-renowned musicians. Together this group, combining their love of medicine and music, shows that both physicians and musicians embody the power to heal others. No group knows this better than the LSO. Comprised of faculty, students and staff from 18 hospitals and all three of Boston's medical schools, members of the orchestra possess not only brilliant musical and scientific minds, but hearts full of compassion.

The LSO performs on average four concerts per year, each of which helps to support a different medical charity. LSO beneficiaries include organizations such as the March of Dimes, the National Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Foundation and most recently, the New England Hemophilia Association (NEHA).

The May concert held at Jordan Hall on Saturday, May 11 hit close to home with BWH doctors. Peter Marks, MD, PhD, of BWH's Hematology Division and a former member of the LSO, returned to the stage to introduce the musicians and members of the NEHA. For one of Marks' fellow hematologists at BWH, Leonard Zon, MD, Saturday's performance really struck a chord. While entertaining the audience, Zon, a trumpet player, had the pleasure of knowing his music mirrored the mission he carries out at the hospital each day — to help members of the community overcome the challenges of blood disorders.

Along with Zon, four other BWH doctors participated in the LSO this season. They include Susan Pauker, MD; Mark Gebhardt, MD; Stephen Wright, MD; and Lisa Wong, MD, who also currently serves as LSO president. As musicians, these physicians are required to attend two to three hour practice sessions weekly and in the days preceding a concert, they meet for almost eight hours of rehearsals. They have performed with several local and international celebrities, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma and conductor, Jonathan McPhee, music director, Boston Ballet.

"It makes me very proud to be a part of this organization and such a superb group of people," said Pauker, who is celebrating twelve years as a violinist with the LSO this season. "In the music we play, there lies a mutual healing process. After a demanding day, I am healed when I begin playing. Similarly, our concerts support advances in medical research and patient care. This mission draws me back year after year."

The LSO's next concert season will begin in October. For more information about next season's line-up, visit the LSO website (www.longwoodsymphony.org). To support the LSO's mission and purchase season tickets, please call 508-877-3928.

People who don't go the Boston Ballet are missing out on some world-class, top-notch conducting, to judge from Jonathan McPhee's guest appearance Saturday night with the non-professional Longwood Symphony Orchestra. For one thing, you were almost never aware that you weren't hearing a rather good professional ensemble. And the music making always had a point of view — not just tinkering, but the product of up-and-down, in-and-out knowledge of how the music of Mozart (the Two- Piano Concerto, K. 365), Berlioz ("Symphonie fantastique"), and — no real surprise here — Jonathan McPhee ("Fantasy for Two Pianos") achieves its effects and, when possible, works its magic. Leslie Amper and Randall Hodgkinson, the pianists, looked happy to be keeping such agreeable company.