Tony Danza sings at Fallen Heroes Tribute Concert

For the Philadelphia Orchestra, it was a chance to give something back to the city it comes home to after summers in Vail and Saratoga Springs and tours to Vienna and Tokyo.

For the survivors fund of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, it meant at least a badly needed $160,000 for the coffers.

And for families of last night's Fallen Heroes Tribute Concert at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, it was a gift.

"I love the Philadelphia Orchestra - I am so proud of the quality," said Rosalyn Barclay Harrison, sister of Walter Barclay, an officer who was shot and paralyzed during an attempted burglary in 1966 and who died in 2007. "I am grateful to the maestro and to every musician in the group."

The event, attended by about 1,200 listeners, was a mix of music and speeches. Tony Danza hosted - and sang. Mayor Nutter spoke, noting that in the last year and a half, five police officers had been killed in the line of duty.

With so many killed in such a short time, the survivors fund, which provides for the fallen officers' funeral expenses and ongoing support to their widows and their children, is as low as it has ever been, according to the FOP. For each death, the fund may be called on to spend up to $50,000 for a burial, meals for the bereaved, and subsequent expenditures such as school-related purchases for the officer's children.

The orchestra is looking for ways to assert its relevance, and last night's concert was the overture to a week of hobnobbing with a variety of constituents.

On Wednesday evening, the ensemble throws open the doors of Verizon Hall in a free performance for college students. On Thursday, it reopens a restored Academy of Music ballroom and bids a final goodbye to its most generous patron, Leonore Annenberg, in a memorial expected to draw Julie Eisenhower Nixon, New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and hundreds of friends from the realms of politics, philanthropy, and arts and culture. Alec Baldwin meets Aaron Copland on Saturday night in Lincoln Portrait at the orchestra's official opening-night gala.

The Fallen Heroes event echoes a neighborhood concert at City Hall last season. That performance occurred several hours after the shooting of Officer Patrick McDonald, and rather than cancel what was to have been an evening of carefree, early-fall bliss, organizers decided to use the event as a moment of reflection - a way of getting back some control amid the chaos.

While last night's memorial had none of that day's raw urgency, it was, nonetheless, a salve. Pieces were carefully chosen, each to send a particular message.

The "Nimrod" movement from Elgar's Enigma Variations is often played at memorials, traditionally in the United Kingdom on Remembrance Sunday, the second Sunday of November, in honor of war dead.

The rest of the pops-like program aimed at stirring pride, patriotism, and heroism. It's tricky, evoking this trio of virtues, but the orchestra and conductor Rossen Milanov pulled it off with what often sounded like the Official Soundtrack of America - trumpet fanfares, snare drum rat-tat-tats, church-bell evocations, and the occasional stirring modulation.

It helps to have a voice of unquestionable sincerity on hand in "America, the Beautiful," and "God Bless America," which the orchestra did in the creamy soprano of Mary Elizabeth Williams.

Whether Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man evoked pride and Morton Gould's An American Salute elicited bravery was something only each listener could answer for himself.

But Nutter did what all good mayors should do when he looked out into the audience to tell the families of fallen police officers:

"We care about you, we love you, and we will never forget you."