The American Harp Journal - Extras - Summer 2018

Ann Hobson Pilot: An Appreciation
by Emily Laurance
I
N my last years at Oberlin, my teacher, Alice
Chalifoux, began to engage me in discussions
about where I should go to continue my training.
Or rather, she told me what she thought I ought
to do.
“You should study with Ann,” she said. Miss
Chalifoux did not tell me that I should continue with
her, but that didn’t bother me: Miss Chalifoux was
sensitive to her students’ individual personalities. I
trusted her to determine the best fit for me, and she
saw something that would respond well to Ann’s
tutelage. But she pointedly instructed me: “you must
never call her Ann; you must always call her Miss
Hobson.” I had been brought up to use honorifics,
so I would never have questioned the formality. But
Miss Chalifoux felt it necessary to emphasize this
point, since she herself spoke always of “Ann”—her
former student. So, pleased with my own correctness,
I made sure to address her as “Miss Hobson” when I
auditioned for her that spring. “I am Mrs. Pilot now,”
she gently corrected me. I was slightly embarrassed
but struck by her direct, formal bearing.
That was my first introduction to Ann Hobson
Pilot: correct, measured, polite. But before we even
met, I was aware of Mrs. Pilot’s career. After graduating
from CIM in 1966 she had performed with the
Pittsburgh and the National Symphonies and was
then invited to audition in Boston. Although moving
to Boston meant playing second to Bernard Zighera,
it also meant playing principal for the Pops under
Arthur Fiedler—an especially high-profile position,
as the Pops had a regular national broadcast on
public television via WGBH. In those same years I
was starting to mature as a young harpist; I saw Mrs.
Pilot regularly on the Pops broadcasts, and she was
L. to R. Emily Laurance, Ann Pilot, Prentiss Pilot. Cleveland,
2018.
a prominent feature of them. Whoever edited the
footage anticipated each showy glissando in the lush
orchestrations that typified the Pops. Each time the
camera focused on Mrs. Pilot—not with a close-up
of her hands or a shot from behind, but directly on
her face, with all its concentration and close attention
to detail. The camera fully saw her: one of the
few young women and the only African American
in the orchestra. In the midst of that middlebrow atmosphere,
audience, and repertoire, there was something
refreshingly new about her, as though the longstanding
musical traditions that I trained in were, at
bottom, big enough to include everyone.
Mrs. Pilot’s high-profile performing career sometimes
overshadowed her reputation as a teacher.
At the New England Conservatory we were all in
awe of her, not only as a musician, but as a person.
We noticed all her sartorial choices—not flashy,
but elegant and often streamlined. We particularly
2 THE AMERICAN HARP JOURNAL – EXTRAS