Ann Hobson Pilot is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music under Alice Chalifoux . She became principal harp of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1980, having joined the BSO in 1969 as assistant principal harp and principal with the Boston Pops. Before that she was substitute second harp with the Pittsburgh Symphony and principal harp of the Washington National Symphony. Ms. Pilot has had an extensive solo career; she has performed with many American orchestras as soloist, as well as with orchestras in Europe, Haiti, New Zealand, and South Africa. She has several CDs available on the Boston Records label, as well as on the Koch International and Denouement labels. Ms. Pilot is the recipient of a Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Bridgewater State College. In 1998 and 1999 she was featured in a video documentary sponsored by the Museum of Afro-American History and WGBH, aired nationwide on PBS, about her personal musical journey as well as her African journey to find the roots of the harp. In September 1999 she traveled to London to record, with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Harp Concerto by the young American composer Kevin Kaska, a work that she commissioned. Ms. Pilot is on the faculties of the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston University, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. She is a member of the contemporary music ensemble Collage and has also performed with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, the Marlboro Music Festival, the Newport Music Festival, and the Sarasota Music Festival, among others. She is a member of the Ritz Chamber Players and has performed extensively with them in concerts around the country.  Ann Hobson Pilot's solo performances with the BSO have included her solo debut with Mozart's Concerto in C for Flute and Harp at Tanglewood in July 1972, the Ginastera Concerto with both the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops,  and in Debussy's Danses Sacrée et profane with Charles Dutoit in July 1999.  She performed the Mozart Concerto again at Tanglewood in 2005 with flutist Sir James Galway.  The Tanglewood summer of 2006 brings a solo performance of the Theme and Variations for harp and strings by Joaquin Turina, conducted by Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, on August 18.