Performance Magazine - Fall Issue 1 - 2023-24 Season

THE MAGAZINE OF THE DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

2023–2024 SEASON

JADER BIGNAMINI MUSIC DIRECTOR

PROGRAM NOTES

From the Heart of a Movement: DSO Spotlights Social Progress

Rachmanino 150

Community & Learning: A Musical Pairing with InsideOut Student Poets

Transformational Support: Name Your Seat at Orchestra Hall, Leave a Legacy

Program Notes

ON THE COVER: Music Director Jader Bignamini (by Sarah Smarch), Kris Johnson (by Sarah Smarch), and Vanessa Williams (by Gilles Toucas).

Dear Friends,

Welcome! We are so pleased that you have chosen to join us for the 2023–2024 season by your Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Both here at Orchestra Hall and in our communities, we’ll share in the joy of live music by our wonderful orchestra and a stellar line-up of guest artists. We also look forward to our first tour with Music Director Jader Bignamini in February as we take to Florida for performances in Gainesville, Miami, West Palm Beach, Sarasota, and Vero Beach with cellist Alisa Weilerstein. You’re invited to escape the Michigan winter and join us in the Sunshine State!

Our season begins in September with programs featuring two of the most illuminating artists of our time: Yo-Yo Ma and Gil Shaham. At our Opening Night Gala, the DSO’s first in two decades, we will enjoy Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with Ma as soloist and toast to a season of remarkable excellence ahead. Earlier that week, we will celebrate the start of the PVS Classical Series as Shaham performs Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. Both programs will be under the baton of Jader, whose keen sensitivity and artistic quality guide our orchestra to new heights. This fall, we also fondly celebrate the music of Detroit and reflect on the history of Orchestra Hall. On the PNC Pops Series, Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik kicks things off in October with “Let’s Groove Tonight: Motown & The Philly Sound,” featuring classic chart-toppers from Detroit and Philadelphia. This November, we offer an encore performance by the Paradise Theatre Big Band. From 1941–1951, jazz greats like Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Cab Calloway graced the stage we now know as Orchestra Hall. With this tribute, Civic Youth Ensembles alum and Grammy Award nominee Kris Johnson leads a multi-generational group of Detroit jazz artists in a swinging program of innovative arrangements you won’t want to miss.

We are proud to be a place where people can see, hear, and experience the remarkable! As we transform lives through unforgettable performances, both on stage in Detroit and globally via our Live from Orchestra Hall webcasts, we also remain firmly committed to our community. At the DSO, we strive to have impact in all we do, from providing instruments, mentorship, and robust music education to Detroit students to partnering with local neighborhoods and community organizations to create meaningful musical experiences across the city. We couldn’t do all of this without your support.

Thank you for believing in our shared vision—we look forward to a fantastic season ahead!

Erik Rönmark

David T. Provost President and CEO Chair, Board of Directors

JEFF TYZIK

Principal Pops Conductor

FIRST VIOLIN

Robyn Bollinger CONCERTMASTER

Katherine Tuck Chair

TERENCE BLANCHARD

Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair

CELLO

Wei Yu PRINCIPAL

Abraham Feder

Assistant Conductor, Phillip & Lauren Fisher Community Ambassador

CLARINET

Ralph Skiano PRINCIPAL

Robert B. Semple Chair

Kimberly Kaloyanides Kennedy

ASSOCIATE CONCERTMASTER

Schwartz and Shapero Family Chair

Hai-Xin Wu

ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER

Walker L. Cisler/Detroit Edison Foundation Chair

Jennifer Wey Fang

ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER

Marguerite Deslippe*

Laurie Goldman*

Rachel Harding Klaus*

Eun Park Lee*

Adrienne Rönmark*

William and Story John Chair

Alexandros Sakarellos*

Drs. Doris Tong and Teck Soo Chair

Laura Soto*

Greg Staples*

Jiamin Wang*

Mingzhao Zhou*

SECOND VIOLIN

Adam Stepniewski

ACTING PRINCIPAL

The Devereaux Family Chair

Will Haapaniemi*

David and Valerie McCammon Chairs

Hae Jeong Heidi Han*

David and Valerie McCammon Chairs

Elizabeth Furuta*

Sheryl Hwangbo Yu*

Daniel Kim*

Sujin Lim*

Hong-Yi Mo *

Marian Tanau*

Alexander Volkov*

Jing Zhang*

VIOLA

Eric Nowlin PRINCIPAL

Julie and Ed Levy, Jr. Chair

James VanValkenburg

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

Caroline Coade

Henry and Patricia Nickol Chair

Mike Chen

Hart Hollman

Glenn Mellow

Hang Su

Han Zheng

Harper Randolph §

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

Dorothy and Herbert Graebner Chair

Robert Bergman*

Jeremy Crosmer*

Victor and Gale Girolami Cello Chair

David LeDoux*

Peter McCaffrey*

Joanne Deanto and Arnold Weingarden Chair

Una O’Riordan*

Mary Ann & Robert Gorlin Chair

Cole Randolph*

Mary Lee Gwizdala Chair

BASS

Kevin Brown PRINCIPAL Van Dusen Family Chair

Stephen Molina ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

Christopher Hamlen*

Peter Hatch*

Vincent Luciano*

Brandon Mason*

HARP

OPEN

PRINCIPAL Winifred E. Polk Chair

FLUTE

Hannah Hammel Maser

PRINCIPAL

Alan J. and Sue Kaufman and Family Chair

Amanda Blaikie

Morton and Brigitte Harris Chair

Sharon Sparrow

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

Bernard and Eleanor Robertson Chair

Jeffery Zook

PICCOLO

Jeffery Zook

Shari and Craig Morgan Chair

OBOE

Alexander Kinmonth

PRINCIPAL

Jack A. and Aviva Robinson Chair

Sarah Lewis

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

Monica Fosnaugh

ENGLISH HORN

Monica Fosnaugh

Jack Walters

PVS Chemicals Inc./ Jim and Ann Nicholson Chair

Shannon Orme

E-FLAT CLARINET OPEN

BASS CLARINET

Shannon Orme Barbara Frankel and Ronald Michalak Chair

BASSOON

Conrad Cornelison

PRINCIPAL

Byron and Dorothy Gerson Chair

Cornelia Sommer

Marcus Schoon

CONTRABASSOON

Marcus Schoon

HORN

OPEN

PRINCIPAL

David and Christine Provost Chair

Johanna Yarbrough

Scott Strong

Ric and Carola Huttenlocher Chair

David Everson

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

Mark Abbott

TRUMPET

Hunter Eberly

PRINCIPAL

Lee and Floy Barthel Chair

Austin Williams

William Lucas

TROMBONE

Kenneth Thompkins

PRINCIPAL

Shari and Craig Morgan Chair

David Binder

Adam Rainey

BASS TROMBONE

Adam Rainey

TUBA

Dennis Nulty

PRINCIPAL

TIMPANI

Jeremy Epp

PRINCIPAL

Richard and Mona Alonzo Chair

James Ritchie

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

PERCUSSION

Joseph Becker

PRINCIPAL

Ruth Roby and Alfred R. Glancy III Chair

Andrés Pichardo-Rosenthal

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

William Cody Knicely Chair

James Ritchie

Luciano Valdes§

LIBRARIANS

Robert Stiles

PRINCIPAL

Ethan Allen

LEGACY CHAIRS

Principal Flute

Women’s Association for the DSO

Principal Cello

James C. Gordon

Personnel Managers

Patrick Peterson

DIRECTOR OF ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL

Benjamin Tisherman

MANAGER OF ORCHESTRA PERSONNEL

Nolan Cardenas

AUDITION AND OPERATIONS

COORDINATOR

Stage Personnel

Dennis Rottell

STAGE MANAGER

Zach Deater DEPARTMENT HEAD

Issac Eide

DEPARTMENT HEAD

Kurt Henry

DEPARTMENT HEAD

Steven Kemp

DEPARTMENT HEAD

Matthew Pons

DEPARTMENT HEAD

Jason Tschantre

DEPARTMENT HEAD

LEGEND

* These members may voluntarily revolve seating within the section on a regular basis

§ African American Orchestra Fellow

Jader Bignamini

MUSIC DIRECTORSHIP ENDOWED BY THE KRESGE FOUNDATION

Jader Bignamini was introduced as the 18th music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in January 2020, commencing with the 2020–2021 season. His infectious passion and artistic excellence set the tone for the seasons ahead, creating extraordinary music and establishing a close relationship with the orchestra. A jazz aficionado, he has immersed himself in Detroit’s rich jazz culture and the influences of American music.

A native of Crema, Italy, Bignamini studied at the Piacenza Music Conservatory and began his career as a musician (clarinet) with Orchestra Sinfonica La Verdi in Milan, later serving as the group’s resident conductor. Captivated by the operatic arias of legends like Mahler and Tchaikovsky, Bignamini explored their complexity and power, puzzling out the role that each instrument played in creating a larger-than-life sound. When he conducted his first professional concert at the age of 28, it didn’t feel like a departure, but an arrival.

In the years since, Bignamini has conducted some of the world’s most acclaimed orchestras and opera companies in venues across the globe including working with Riccardo Chailly on concerts of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in 2013 and his concert debut at La Scala in 2015 for the opening season of La Verdi Orchestra. Recent highlights include debuts with Opera de Paris conducting La Forza del Destino and with Deutsche Opera Berlin conducting Simon Boccanegra; appearances with the Pittsburgh and Toronto symphonies; debuts with the Houston, Dallas, and Minnesota symphonies; Osaka Philharmonic and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo; with the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, and Dutch National Opera (Madama Butterfly ); Bayerische Staatsoper (La Traviata); I Puritani in Montpellier for the Festival of Radio France; Traviata in Tokyo directed by Sofia Coppola; return engagements with Oper Frankfurt (La forza del destino) and Santa Fe Opera (La bohème); Manon Lescaut at the Bolshoi; Traviata, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot at Arena of Verona; Il Trovatore and Aida at Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera; Madama Butterfly, I Puritani, and Manon Lescaut at Teatro Massimo in Palermo; Simon Boccanegra and La Forza del Destino at the Verdi Festival in Parma; Ciro in Babilonia at Rossini Opera Festival and La bohème, Madama Butterfly, and Elisir d’amore at La Fenice in Venice.

When Bignamini leads an orchestra in symphonic repertoire, he conducts without a score, preferring to make direct eye contact with the musicians. He conducts from the heart, forging a profound connection with his musicians that shines through both onstage and off. He both embodies and exudes the excellence and enthusiasm that has long distinguished the DSO’s artistry.

Jeff Tyzik

PRINCIPAL POPS CONDUCTOR

Grammy Award winner Jeff Tyzik is one of America’s most innovative and sought-after pops conductors. Tyzik is recognized for his brilliant arrangements, original programming, and engaging rapport with audiences of all ages. In addition to his role as Principal Pops Conductor of the DSO, Tyzik holds The Dot and Paul Mason Principal Pops Conductor’s Podium at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and serves as principal pops conductor of the of the Seattle Symphony, the Oregon Symphony, The Florida Orchestra, and the Rochester Philharmonic—where he celebrates his 30th season in 2023–2024. Frequently invited as a guest conductor, Tyzik has appeared with the Boston Pops, Cincinnati Pops, Milwaukee Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Committed to performing music of all genres, Tyzik has collaborated with such diverse artists as Leslie Odom Jr., Megan Hilty, Chris Botti, Matthew Morrison, Wynonna Judd, Sutton Foster, Tony Bennett, Art Garfunkel, Dawn Upshaw, Marilyn Horne, Arturo Sandoval, The Chieftains, Mark O’Connor, Doc Severinsen, and John Pizzarelli. He has created numerous original programs that include the greatest music from jazz and classical to Motown, Broadway, film, dance, Latin, and swing. Tyzik holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music.

Visit jefftyzik.com for more.

Terence Blanchard

FRED A. ERB JAZZ CREATIVE DIRECTOR CHAIR

Trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and educator Terence Blanchard has served as the DSO’s Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair since 2012. Blanchard has performed and recorded with many of jazz’s superstars and currently leads the celebrated E-Collective. He is also wellknown for his decades-long collaboration with filmmaker Spike Lee, scoring more than 15 of Lee’s movies since the early 1990s. 2018’s BlacKkKlansman earned Blanchard his first Academy Award nomination, with a second Academy Award nomination in 2021 for Da 5 Bloods In and out of the film world, Blanchard has received 15 Grammy nominations and seven wins, as well as nominations for Emmy, Golden Globe, Sierra, and Soul Train Music awards.

Blanchard’s second opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones, based on the memoir of New York Times columnist Charles Blow, opened The Metropolitan Opera’s 20212022 season, making it the first opera by an African American composer to premiere at the Met. With a libretto by Kasi Lemmons, the opera was commissioned by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis where it premiered in 2019. The New York Times called it “inspiring,” “subtly powerful,” and “a bold affecting adaptation of Charles Blow’s work.” Blanchard’s first opera, Champion, also premiered to critical acclaim in 2013 in St. Louis and starred Denyce Graves with a libretto from Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Cristofer. Visit terenceblanchard.com for more.

DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, INC.

LIFETIME DIRECTORS

Samuel Frankel◊

Stanley Frankel

David Handleman, Sr.◊

Dr. Arthur L. Johnson ◊

James B. Nicholson

Anne Parsons, President Emeritus◊

Barbara Van Dusen

Clyde Wu, M.D.◊

CHAIRS EMERITI

Peter D. Cummings

Mark A. Davidoff

Phillip Wm. Fisher

DIRECTORS EMERITI

Stanley Frankel

Robert S. Miller

James B. Nicholson

Floy Barthel

Chacona Baugh

Penny B. Blumenstein

Richard A. Brodie

Lois Cohn

Marianne Endicott

Sidney Forbes

Herman H. Frankel Dr. Gloria Heppner

Ronald Horwitz

Bonnie Larson

Arthur C. Liebler

Harold Kulish

David McCammon

David R. Nelson

William F. Pickard, Ph.D.

Marilyn Pincus

Marjorie S. Saulson

Jane Sherman

Arthur A. Weiss

OFFICERS OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

David T. Provost Chair

Erik Rönmark President & CEO

Faye Alexander Nelson Vice Chair

Laura Trudeau Treasurer

James G. Vella Secretary

Ralph J. Gerson Officer at Large

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Glenda D. Price, Ph.D. Officer at Large

Shirley Stancato Officer at Large

Directors are responsible for maintaining a culture of accountability, resource development, and strategic thinking. As fiduciaries, Directors oversee the artistic and cultural health and strategic direction of the DSO.

David Assemany, Governing Members Chair

Michael Bickers

Amanda Blaikie, Orchestra Representative

Elena Centeio

Dave Everson, Orchestra Representative

Aaron Frankel

Herman B. Gray, M.D., M.B.A.

Laura HernandezRomine

Rev. Nicholas Hood III

Richard Huttenlocher

Renato Jamett, Trustee Chair

Daniel J. Kaufman

Michael J. Keegan

Xavier Mosquet

David Nicholson

Arthur T. O’Reilly

Stephen Polk

Bernard I. Robertson

Nancy Tellem

David M. Wu, M.D.

Ellen Hill Zeringue

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Renato Jamett, Chair

Trustees are a diverse group of community leaders who infuse creative thinking and innovation into how the DSO strives to achieve both artistic vitality and organizational sustainability.

Renato Jamett, Trustee Chair

Ismael Ahmed

Richard Alonzo

Hadas Bernard

Janice Bernick

Elizabeth Boone

Gwen Bowlby

Marco Bruzzano

Dr. Betty Chu

Margaret Cooney Casey

Karen Cullen

Joanne Danto

Stephen D’Arcy

Maureen T. D’Avanzo

Jasmin DeForrest

Afa Sadykhly Dworkin

James C. Farber

Abe Feder, Musician

Representative

Linda Forte

Carolynn Frankel

Maha Freij

Christa Funk

Robert Gillette

Jody Glancy

Mary Ann Gorlin

Donald Hiruo

Michelle Hodges

Julie Hollinshead

Sam Huszczo

John Jullens

Laurel Kalkanis

Jay Kapadia

David Karp

Joel D. Kellman

John Kim

Jennette Smith Kotila

Leonard LaRocca

William Lentine

Linda Dresner Levy

Florine Mark

Anthony McCree

Kristen McLennan

Tito Melega

Lydia Michael

Lois A. Miller

H. Keith Mobley

Scott Monty

Shari Morgan

Sandy Morrison

Frederick J. Morsches

Jennifer Muse, NextGen Chair

Sean M. Neall

Eric Nemeth

Maury Okun

Jackie Paige

Vivian Pickard

Denise Fair Razo

Gerrit Reepmeyer

Richard Robinson

James Rose, Jr.

Laurie Rosen

Elana Rugh

Marc Schwartz

Carlo Serraiocco

Lois L. Shaevsky

Mary Shafer

Ralph Skiano, Musician Representative

Richard Sonenklar

Rob Tanner

Yoni Torgow

Gwen Weiner

Donnell White

Jennifer Whitteaker

R. Jamison Williams

Margaret E. Winters

MAESTRO CIRCLE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Gregory Haynes

Bonnie Larson

Lois Miller

Richard Sonenklar

Janet & Norm Ankers, Chairs

Cecilia Benner

Joanne Danto

FROM THE HEART OF A MOVEMENT

By Douglas Shadle

Perhaps more than any other art, music holds the power to bring people together—to unite us. The act of making music, or even just listening, creates a shared sense of time and space that transcends any one person. Add a profound underlying message, and music’s binding effect is increased many times over. This season, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra harnesses music’s special power by marking the sixtieth anniversary of major touchstones in the Civil Rights Movement with opportunities for intense reflection on the relationships between music, social activism, and freedom. What is the sound of justice for all?

In June 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. led a march known as the Walk to Freedom on a route beginning southeast

of Orchestra Hall on Woodward Avenue and continuing to Cobo Arena, now Huntington Place. Attended by well over 100,000 participants, this march was the largest civil rights demonstration to date and would only be surpassed two months later by its more famous cousin, the March on Washington. Song penetrated every corner of both events. Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records, was so intent on sharing Dr. King’s message in Detroit that the two men agreed to share royalties from a recording of his speech with King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. His speaking voice, of course, bore its own musicality, which Gordy intuitively perceived.

While music might hold the sounds of justice, the sounds of injustice

With its power to unite, music anchored the Civil Rights Movement to freedom struggles of the past while pointing toward a more just future.

can come in the form of bombs and bullets. Less than a month after the March on Washington, members of the Ku Klux Klan set off sticks of dynamite at Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four African American girls—Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Carole Rosamond Robertson, and Cynthia Dionne Wesley—and injuring well over a dozen other people. In the chaotic immediate aftermath, two more young African American men were shot—Johnny Robinson by police and Virgil Ware by a white teenager seething after attending a white supremacist rally. Joan Baez’s exhortation at the March on Washington that “we shall overcome someday” seemed like a far-off dream.

For deeper engagement with these themes, the DSO has chosen two major works that articulate the pain and hope animating the Civil Rights Movement: Margaret Bonds’s Montgomery Variations (1964) and a new commission by Dr. James Lee III titled Shades of Unbroken Dreams (2023). Each work represents a bookend to the decades between the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the ongoing struggles for equality in this country today. To help contextualize these

works, the DSO hosted me, a historian of American orchestras, in conversation with Dr. Lee himself and Dr. Tammy L. Kernodle, University Distinguished Professor of Music at Miami University and a specialist in music of the Civil Rights Movement and the works of Margaret Bonds.

Dr. Kernodle described the Civil Rights Movement as a continuous series of waves stretching from the 1950s and the Brown v. Board of Education decision through to the 1980s, when federal, state, and local governments chipped away at earlier civil rights legislation. The movement during its early period focused largely on judicial, legislative, and economic strategies but experienced a seismic shift in the early 1960s as younger activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and, especially, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) took more prominent leadership roles. Rather than seeking abstract victories on paper, these activists pioneered direct action strategies of embodied nonviolent resistance like sit-ins, pray-ins, and marches. “Music,” Dr. Kernodle explained, “was an integral component of this nonviolent resistance.”

With its power to unite, music anchored the Civil Rights Movement to freedom struggles of the past while pointing toward a more just future.

It was in the early 1960s, Dr. Kernodle noted, that freedom songs, gospel songs, and even spirituals—a much older repertoire dating to the period of enslavement before the Civil War— became a centerpiece in movement activities. At the same time, the movement’s musical tapestry became more expansive by cutting across racial, gender, and class lines as well as musical categories. Joan Baez’s performance of “We Shall Overcome” at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington is one famous example of this expansion, but Kernodle believes that we can hear musical invocations of the movement in repertoire well outside gospel and folk standards, including jazz albums like Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln’s We Insist! (1961) and John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (1964).

We can also hear the movement in Margaret Bonds’s Montgomery Variations Bonds (1913–1972) grew up in what Dr. Kernodle called a “Chicago ecosystem rooted in civic engagement, Black intellectual activity—and activism.” At the same time, her mother and father were also musicians and prioritized that dimension of Margaret’s education after she showed extraordinary aptitude from a young age. With dreams of becoming a concert pianist, she attended Northwestern University in nearby Evanston and became the first African American woman to earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree in music from that institution. Although Bonds had soloed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at only 20 years old, her family’s immersion in civic life nudged her to pursue composition, which became

a calling.

By the time she started writing Montgomery Variations in 1963, Bonds had become embedded in New York City’s radical Black intellectual and artistic scenes, which included the authors Langston Hughes and Lorraine Hansberry, as well as commercial musicians like Nina Simone and Odetta. Each of these figures used their art as a medium for social activism, and while we don’t intuitively place classical artists at the center of civil rights activity in the 1960s—save, perhaps, the great contralto Marian Anderson— Margaret Bonds certainly was. Montgomery Variations expanded the sonic tapestry of the movement in unique directions. The foundation of the piece is a spiritual called “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me,” a central song of the movement calling for the endurance of faith and hope in the face of trial. “She uses it as the basis of this orchestral piece,” Kernodle explained, “with each of these variations, as I see it, offering a lens into the ethos and the activities of the movement,” which Bonds experienced firsthand in Montgomery, Alabama during a tour in 1963.

“The first three variations,” Kernodle continued, “convey the spirit of radicalism and defiance that really underscored the beginning of this wave in the movement.” The spiritual rings out “resiliently” in the opening and is followed by two variations that introduce the physicality of praying in church and marching for freedom. By the fourth and fifth sections, the mood shifts to the darker side of the Movement as it met violent resistance in lynchings and, specifically, the Baptist church bombings. This variation serves as a historical marker, Kernodle explained, to sear that moment in the nation’s history into permanent memory. Returning to the religiosity of the opening, the piece

American composer and pianist Margaret Bonds.

closes with a serene prayer and benediction foregrounding the strings with eyes metaphorically pointed to the heavens and arms outstretched to receive love and healing.

Much like Montgomery Variations, Lee’s Shades of Unbroken Dreams pulls listeners into the historical moment of the Civil Rights Movement in 1963, but through different means altogether. Where Bonds drew structural inspiration from a freedom song and the variation techniques of J.S. Bach, Lee pulls directly from the speech melodies and rhythms heard in King’s “I Have a Dream” speech—the same musical traits that attracted Berry Gordy at the Walk to Freedom—and the classical concerto, a genre for orchestra and instrumental soloist, heard in its world premiere with the DSO by Alexandra Dariescu. The use of the concerto form is essential to the piece, Lee explained, because the piano soloist functions as a visible leader but always with the orchestra’s companionship and at times fully inside the group. Lee hopes that this imagery enables the piece to reach the “inner soul” of every individual.

Each of the movements draws from specific moments in King’s speech. The first contains the most recognizable phrase, “I have a dream,” which becomes a four-note unit that appears in various shapes first in the strings, but later in the solo piano and throughout the orchestra. The phrase “100 years later”—King’s opening remark about how freedom has remained elusive since the Emancipation Proclamation—emerges later in the movement and melds into a section highlighting the soloist alone. The second and third movements are connected without pause but have very distinct personalities. The second pulls from King’s references to biblical imagery with invocations of the shofar (an ancient Hebrew horn used for religious purposes),

prayer, and unity. The final movement presents a sharp contrast with the dynamism of the words “Free at last!” and “Let freedom ring!”—hopeful nods to the future in King’s dream.

Lee remarked that the title of his piece, Shades of Unbroken Dreams, should remind listeners that the work of Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement is not done— that old and new challenges alike continue to marginalize, from police brutality and lack of access for disabled people, to inequitable pay and barriers to education. These are the “shades” of the dream that has remained unbroken in the United States and the wider world since the beginning of struggles for freedom.

Between these two pieces, the DSO is making a clear statement that music, even classical music, can shape our lives, transform us, and even transform our wider communities. Music has a mysterious power, the power to unite us, and if we listen carefully, we might find ourselves hearing the sounds of justice for all.

HEAR THESE WORKS IN ORCHESTRA HALL

NOVEMBER 9–11: James Lee III’s Shades of Unbroken Dreams with conductor Fabien Gabel and pianist Alexandra Dariescu

DECEMBER 7–9: Margaret Bonds’s Montgomery Variations with Music Director

Jader Bignamini

James Lee III

Name Your Seat at Orchestra Hall, Leave a Legacy

DSO IMPACT CAMPAIGN

Orchestra Hall is our home, and it has shaped the development of our community since its inception in 1919. Serving as a musical beacon for Detroit, its relevance for the next 100 years must be sustained and continually innovated. This dedication requires strong endowment. By Naming Your Seat in historic Orchestra Hall, you are investing in the vibrancy and continued preservation of this iconic Detroit landmark.

Built by architect C. Howard Crane at the request of then DSO Music Director Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Orchestra Hall is one of the world’s premier concert halls. The acoustics are near perfect (we have the data to prove it), but that’s not the only thing that makes this space so special.

I believe that those who know Orchestra Hall’s storied legacy in Detroit and understand its role in shaping the future of our commitment to the arts should invest in the orchestra’s viability. There’s no place like Orchestra Hall.”

—David Assemany, DSO Governing Members Chair

In the century since its opening, Orchestra Hall has represented Detroit’s rich cultural atmosphere, including a ten-year run as the Paradise Theatre from 1941 to 1951. In the same place where musical superstars like Sergei Rachmaninoff, Pablo Casals, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Itzhak Perlman, Kathleen Battle, and Yo-Yo Ma have performed, the DSO offers the opportunity to stamp your name in DSO history.

Together with far-sighted investors, we will ensure a lasting legacy for our diverse audiences and communities. From presenting unforgettable musical experiences to reaching students in Detroit schools through music education and mentor programs, we are impacting the lives and future of our city.

Deepen your connection to the people, place, and purpose of Detroit’s historic Orchestra Hall by naming a seat today!

INTERESTED IN MAKING A GIFT? CONTACT DSO ADVANCEMENT STAFF:

Alex Kapordelis, Senior Director of Advancement; 313.576.5198

Cassidy Schmid, Director of Individual Giving; 313.576.5115

The DSO is grateful to the donors who have made extraordinary endowment investments through the DSO Impact Campaign or multi-year, comprehensive gifts to support general operations, capital improvements, or special programs.

FOUNDING FAMILIES

Mr. & Mrs. Lee Barthel

Julie & Peter Cummings APLF

Gerson Family and the William Davidson Foundation

The Richard C. Devereaux Foundation

Erb Family and the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation

The Fisher Family and the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation

Stanley & Judy Frankel and the Samuel & Jean Frankel Foundation

Danialle & Peter Karmanos, Jr.

Mort & Brigitte Harris Foundation APLF

Linda Dresner & Ed Levy, Jr.APLF

Shari & Craig Morgan APLF,MM

James B. & Ann V. Nicholson and PVS Chemicals, Inc. APLF

Bernard & Eleanor Robertson

Mrs. Richard C. Van Dusen

Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation

Clyde & Helen Wu◊

VISIONARIES

Mr. & Mrs. Richard L. AlonzoAPLF

Penny & Harold Blumenstein APLF

Mr. & Mrs. Phillip Wm. FisherAPLF,MM

Alan J. & Sue Kaufman and Family MM

Christine & David ProvostMM

Paul & Terese Zlotoff

CHAMPIONS

Mandell & Madeleine Berman Foundation APLF

Mr. and Mrs. Raymond M. Cracchiolo

Joanne Danto & Arnold Weingarden

Vera and Joseph Dresner Foundation

DTE Energy Foundation

Ford Motor Company Fund

Mr. and Mrs. Morton E. Harris◊

William & Story John

John S. & James L. Knight Foundation

The Kresge Foundation

Mrs. Bonnie Larson APLF

Brian Meer & Lisa Meer

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Ms. Deborah Miesel

Dr. William F. Pickard

The Polk Family

Stephen M. Ross

Family of Clyde and Helen Wu APLF

LEADERS

Applebaum Family Philanthropy

Charlotte Arkin Estate

Marvin & Betty Danto Family Foundation APLF

Adel & Walter DissettMM

Herman & Sharon Frankel

Ruth & Al◊ Glancy

Mary Ann & Robert Gorlin APLF

Mary L. Gwizdala

Ronald M. & Carol◊ Horwitz

Richard H. & Carola Huttenlocher MM

John C. Leyhan Estate

Bud & Nancy Liebler

Richard & Jane Manoogian Foundation

David & Valerie McCammon

Mr. & Mrs. Eugene A. Miller

Pat & Hank◊ Nickol

Jack & Aviva Robinson◊

Martie & Bob Sachs

Mr. & Mrs. Alan E. Schwartz◊

Drs. Doris Tong & Teck Soo

BENEFACTORS

Mr.◊ & Mrs. Robert A. Allesee

Mr. David Assemany & Mr. Jeffery Zook APLF,MM

W. Harold & Chacona W. Baugh APLF

Gwen & Richard Bowlby

Robert & Lucinda Clement

Lois & Avern CohnMM

Jack, Evelyn, and Richard Cole Family Foundation

Mary Rita Cuddohy Estate

Margie Dunn & Mark DavidoffAPLF,MM

DSO MusiciansMM

Bette Dyer Estate

Michael & Sally Feder MM

Marjorie S. Fisher FundMM

Dr. Marjorie M. Fisher & Mr. Roy Furman

Ms. Mary D. Fisher

Mr. & Mrs. Aaron Frankel MM

Barbara Frankel & Ronald Michalak MM

Victor ◊ & Gale Girolami Fund

The Glancy Foundation, Inc. APLF

Herbert & Dorothy Graebner ◊

Richard Sonenklar & Gregory HaynesMM

Mr. & Mrs. David Jaffa

Renato & Elizabeth JamettMM

Max Lepler & Rex DotsonMM

Allan & Joy NachmanMM

Mariam C. Noland & James A. KellyAPLF

Ann & Norman◊ Katz

Dr. Melvin A. Lester ◊

Florine Mark

Michigan Arts & Culture Council

Geoffrey S. Nathan & Margaret E. Winters APLF,MM

Roger & Kathy Penske APLF

Dr. Glenda D. Price

Ruth Rattner

Mr. & Mrs. Lloyd E. Reuss◊

Mr. & Mrs. Fred Secrest◊

Jane & Larry Sherman

Cindy McTee & Leonard Slatkin

Marilyn Snodgrass Estate

Mr. and Mrs. Arn Tellem APLF

Nancy Schlichting & Pamela Theisen APLF

Mr. James G. VellaMM

Eva von Voss and Family MM

Key:

MM DSO Musicians Fund for Artistic Excellence

APLF Anne Parsons Leadership Fund

◊ Deceased

DUETS: A Musical Pairing with InsideOut Student Poets

“It was fascinating having this conversation with poet Aja Allante with my flute alone. Before the recording we hadn’t spoken other than to say ‘hello, nice to meet you.’ The magic was what unfolded in the moment, wordart-meets-sound-art, spontaneously creating together. What a fulfilling creative endeavor this was for me!” —

The pandemic was a challenging time for all, and especially our children. “How are you feeling?” was the question that sparked a project in partnership with the City of Detroit Office of Arts, Culture, and Entrepreneurship, and with support from the Kresge Foundation. Through the collaboration, DSO musicians Joseph Becker, Jeffery Zook, Jing Zhang, Rachel Harding Klaus, and Jack Walters performed music alongside student poets from InsideOut Literary Arts, an organization that inspires and equips young people to think critically, create bravely, and share their voices with the world through creative writing. The students wrote their poetry during the pandemic, and the performances were recorded at Orchestra Hall, with the presentation, called “Duets,” airing in spring 2023 on local television.

Rochelle Riley—the city’s Director of Arts and Culture, a former newspaper columnist, and key

DSO Musician Jeffery Zook

partner on the Duets project—examined children and trauma extensively in a multi-part series in the Detroit Free Press. “In interviews with school officials across the region, it is clear that districts in Michigan like many across the country are struggling to meet their primary goal of educating children because they are not equipped to deal with teaching children in pain,” she wrote in 2019. Layer onto that the trauma of the global Covid-19 pandemic, and children were at great risk for depression and negative impact on their ability to do schoolwork, particularly in isolation.

Enter the Kresge Foundation, where Wendy Lewis Jackson saw an opportunity. “During the pandemic, in many ways, we were surrounded by silence and the importance of having young people elevate their voice, have greater agency through the arts, this was a perfect opportunity to do that.”

For Duets, student poets were paired with a DSO musician, who in turn selected a piece that they felt reflected the feeling of the poem. After meeting with the musician and briefly rehearsing their piece, the resulting collaboration was then recorded on the Orchestra Hall stage.

“Everyone was super fun and supportive throughout the whole process! I loved having the opportunity to perform my poem, especially with another artist!” writes Stella Hughes, reflecting on the experience of performing her poem “Listen” violinist Rachel Harding Klaus. Xavier Jackson, whose poem “Oasis” was performed alongside violinist Jing Zhang, shared similar sentiments:

“It was an experience that I can add to my oasis.”

Visit dso.org/stories to view the full presentation.

DSO musician Rachel Harding Klaus with a student poet from InsideOut Literary Arts.

JEFF TYZIK Principal Pops Conductor

DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

JADER BIGNAMINI , Music Director Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation

TERENCE BLANCHARD

Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair

NA’ZIR MCFADDEN

Assistant Conductor, Phillip & Lauren Fisher Community Ambassador

PVS CLASSICAL SERIES

Title Sponsor:

TCHAIKOVSKY’S VIOLIN CONCERTO

Thursday, September 28, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.

Friday, September 29, 2023 at 8 p.m. in Orchestra Hall

JADER BIGNAMINI, conductor GIL SHAHAM, violin

John Stafford Smith The Star-Spangled Banner (1750 - 1836)

Lyrics by Francis Scott Key; arr. Arthur Luck

Louise Farrenc Overture No. 1 in E minor, Op. 23 (1804 - 1875)

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1840 - 1893) in D major, Op. 35

I. Allegro moderato

II. Canzonetta: Andante

III. Finale: Allegro vivacissimo

Gil Shaham, violin

Intermission

Maurice Ravel La valse (1875 - 1937)

Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé

I. Lever du jour

II. Pantomime

III. Danse Générale

With additional support from Honigman LLP in memory of Alan E. Schwartz

Friday’s performance will be webcast via our exclusive Live From Orchestra Hall series, presented by Ford Motor Company Fund and made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

NEEME JÄRVI Music Director Emeritus

LEONARD SLATKIN Music Director Laureate

Flash photography, video recording, tripods, and cameras with detachable lenses are strictly prohibited.

PROGRAM AT-A-GLANCE | TCHAIKOVSKY’S VIOLIN CONCERTO An Overture to a Season

A new season means new beginnings, new repertoire, and an invigorated passion for bringing the works of renowned composers to life right here in Orchestra Hall. Orchestral showstoppers including Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 and La valse, and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto performed by soloist Gil Shaham are paired with pioneering French Romantic composer Louise Farrenc’s Overture No. 1 in E minor—a gorgeous work receiving much deserved new recognition.

PROGRAM NOTES

Overture No. 1 in E minor, Op. 23

Composed 1834 | Premiered 1835 LOUISE

FARRENC

B. May 31, 1804, Paris, France

D. September 15, 1875, Paris, France

Scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 7 minutes)

Louise Farrenc enjoyed a distinguished career in music as a pianist, composer, professor, and scholar. Her success in composition is remarkable—particularly because she overcame adversity and broke a gender barrier by being accepted as the first female in the previously all-male composition class at the Paris Conservatoire at age fifteen. Later in 1842, she was appointed professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire—the only woman to hold a prominent position at the conservatory throughout the duration of the 19th century. She was regarded as one of the foremost female musicians of her time when she passed away in 1875.

Farrenc was born into a distinguished artistic family in Paris—both her father and brother were award-winning sculptors—and she began studying piano and music theory at the young age of six. At age seventeen, she married flutist Artistide Farrenc and the two began

performing and touring together across Europe. Eventually growing tired of a traveling lifestyle, they later opened a publishing house in Paris that was regarded as one of the country’s finest.

Although she is well-known for her chamber music and solo piano repertoire, Farrenc wrote five pieces for orchestra throughout her lifetime—two overtures and three symphonies. She composed her first overture, Overture No. 1 in E minor, in 1834. This overture was inspired by Viennese classicism and consists of a slow, broad, and noble introduction reminiscent of the opening of Haydn’s mature symphonies, followed by an allegro written in sonata form that draws influences from the works of Carl Maria von Weber and Felix Mendelssohn. Throughout the piece, the main theme is swift and flustered, with a complementary subject begun by the clarinet in a lyrical and relaxed nature, skillfully and masterfully intertwining with the main theme. Her two overtures received notable premieres and praise by the likes of Hector Berlioz yet remained largely unknown throughout history due to her gender. With a powerful nature and musically fruitful writing, Farrenc’s long legacy of dynamic compositions deserves to be celebrated.

This performance marks the DSO premiere of Louise Farrenc’s Overture No. 1 in E minor, Op. 23.

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major, Op. 35

Composed 1878 | Premiered 1881

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

B. May 7, 1840, Votkinsk, Russia

D. November 6, 1893, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 34 minutes)

Tchaikovsky composed his lone violin concerto in the spring of 1878 immediately after completing his shattering Fourth Symphony. The latter work reflected the harrowing emotional crisis brought on by the composer’s ill- considered marriage to a young conservatory student the year before. Their union was brief and disastrous; within weeks, Tchaikovsky suffered an almost complete nervous collapse and attempted suicide. He saved himself by fleeing to Switzerland, but emerged shaken and convinced that he was destined to a life of torment. The Fourth Symphony was, by the composer’s own account, a musical expression of this belief.

And yet, the Violin Concerto reveals no sense of the anguish and struggle that characterize the symphony. Indeed, Tchaikovsky’s spirits seem to have been fully restored; he wrote from Switzerland to his patron, Nadezhda von Meck, of his work on the concerto: “From the day I began to write it [a] favorable mood has not left me. In such a spiritual state composition loses all aspect of work—it is a continuous delight.”

Tchaikovsky’s “favorable mood” is apparent throughout the concerto’s first movement. Following a brief orchestral preamble, the featured instrument presents the movement’s principal themes.

Considering Tchaikovsky’s famous talent as a melodist, it goes almost without saying that these are attractive and richly expressive ideas. Their development calls

for some formidable technical feats on the part of the soloist; the exceptionally musical cadenza is Tchaikovsky’s own.

Tchaikovsky’s brother, Modest, was dissatisfied with the original slow movement and persuaded the composer to discard it. Tchaikovsky replaced it with the present Canzonetta, reportedly composed in a single day. It is introduced by a pensive phrase in the woodwinds, which is then taken up by the solo violin and spun into a long melody suggesting a romantic, melancholy dreaming. A skillfully composed transition passage leads without pause to the finale.

The DSO most recently performed Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in December 2017, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth and featuring violinist Karen Gomyo. The DSO first performed the piece in January 1917, conducted by Weston Gales and featuring violinist David Hochstein.

La valse

Composed 1920 | Premiered December 12, 1920

MAURICE RAVEL

B. March 7, 1875, Ciboure, France

D. December 28, 1937, Paris, France

Scored for 3 flutes (1 doubling on piccolo), 3 oboes (1 doubling on English horn), 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, 2 harps, and strings. (Approx. 13 minutes)

Ravel began sketching his symphonic poem, Wien, as early as 1907, intending to musically depict the city of Vienna. Though the composer had yet to visit the Austrian capital, he felt he “knew” the city intimately by way of its musical legacy. But as he inched towards completing the work, the world plunged into war. Ravel picked up the work again after receiving interest in a commission from Serge

Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes, but Diaghilev was unsatisfied with the result and refused to produce the ballet. Frustrated, Ravel changed both title and work to fit in the concert hall. La valse received its premiere in 1920 under the baton of Ida Rubenstein.

“Clouds whirl about,” states the composer’s notes. “Occasionally they part to allow a glimpse of waltzing couples. As they gradually lift, one can discern a gigantic hall, filled by a crowd of dancers in motion. The stage gradually brightens. The glow of chandeliers breaks out fortissimo.”

Although stripped of its original title, the work retains ties to its Viennese inspiration. From its misty opening to its energetic climax, where the dance almost seizes control of its participants as if in a nightmare, La valse is not just the composer’s attempt at a Viennese waltz—its violent strokes depict more than a social dance and something closer to social commentar. —Stephanie Heriger

The DSO most recently performed Ravel’s La valse in April 2018, conducted by Fabien Gabel. The DSO first performed the piece in March 1925, conducted by Victor Kolar.

Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé

Composed 1912 | Premiered 1912

MAURICE RAVEL

B. March 7, 1875, Ciboure, France

D. December 28, 1937, Paris, France

Scored for 2 flutes (1 doubling on piccolo), alto flute, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, E-flat clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, 2 harps, celeste, and strings. (Approx. 16 minutes)

Maurice Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloé was born of a long, stormy collaboration between the composer, choreographer Michel Fokine, and impresario Serge Diaghilev. As early as 1904,

Fokine drafted a scenario from the pastoral romance by the third-century author Longus, about the abduction of the Greek maiden Chloé, her rescue from a band of pirates by the god Pan, and her joyous reunion with a shepherd boy, Daphnis. Fokine intended it as a vehicle to excise what he felt were irrelevant practices that had crept into Russian ballet, calling for a higher level of inspiration and stylistic unity between the elements of dance, music, scenery, and costume design.

Fokine’s ideas were rejected by the management of the Russian Imperial Theater but won favor with Diaghilev, who was beginning to export Russian culture to the West. Ravel was awarded the commission to compose the Daphnis et Chloé score in 1908, but he spent about equal amounts of time composing and arguing with Fokine and Diaghilev. “Almost every night, [I] work until 3 a.m.,” he wrote. “What complicates things is that Folkine doesn’t know a word of French, and I only know how to swear in Russian.”

Composition and orchestration dragged on for three more years. Towards the end of the excruciating process, Ravel extracted two orchestral suites from the ballet score, a move that infuriated Folkine. But music fans can rejoice, as his Suite No. 2 is one of Ravel’s finest and most popular works. Informed by 18th century French paintings of antiquity, it is inspired by “the Greece of my dreams,” as Ravel once wrote. Comprising the third section of the complete ballet, Suite No. 2 is full of elastic tempos and sudden contrasts—perhaps an unintentional reflection of its turbulent composition?

Carl Cunningham

The DSO most recently performed Ravel’s Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé in February 2018, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. The DSO first performed the piece in January 1925, conducted by Victor Kolar.

PHOTO BY CHRIS LEE

PROFILE

For Jader Bignamini’s biography, see page 6.

GIL SHAHAM Violinist

Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time: his flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit has solidified his renown as an American master. He is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals. Highlights of recent years include a recording and performances of J.S. Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas for solo violin and recitals with his longtime duo partner, pianist Akira Eguchi. He regularly appears with the Berlin Philharmonic; Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco symphonies; the Israel Philharmonic; Los Angeles Philharmonic; New York Philharmonic; Orchestre de

Paris; and in multi-year residencies with the orchestras of Montreal, Stuttgartand, and Singapore. Shaham has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, earning multiple Grammy Awards, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. His most recent recording in the series, 1930s Violin Concertos Vol. 2, was nominated for a Grammy Award. His latest recording of Beethoven and Brahms concertos with The Knights was released in 2021. Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990, and in 2008 he received the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. In 2012, he was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America. He plays the 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius and performs on an Antonio Stradivari violin, Cremona c. 1719, with the assistance of Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative. He lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children.

ENJOY NEW RECORDINGS FEATURING DSO MUSICIANS

Out now on the Naxos Portara label: John Williams Trumpet Concerto with the DSO and Principal Trumpet Hunter Eberly under the baton of Music Director Laureate Leonard Slatkin. This album marks Eberly’s first solo recording with the DSO, and the sixth release in the DSO’s series of concertos by Williams under Slatkin. The recording carries the DSO’s rich tradition of performing music by American composers and spotlights Williams’s trademark style of thrilling writing for brass instruments.

Compelling Portraits (Navona Records, 2023) from DSO Principal Trombone Kenneth Thompkins celebrates the music of contemporary Black composers, including James Lee III. The album takes listeners on a journey from the contemplative to the triumphant and features Thompkins alongside fellow DSO musicians Hannah Hammel Maser (Principal Flute) and Abraham Feder (Assistant Principal Cello), plus harpist Maurice Draughn, soprano Katrina Van Maanen, and pianist Zhihua Tang. This project was supported by the Sphinx Organization’s MPower Artists Grant.

JEFF TYZIK Principal Pops Conductor

DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

JADER BIGNAMINI , Music Director

Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation

TERENCE BLANCHARD

Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair

NA’ZIR MCFADDEN

Assistant Conductor, Phillip & Lauren Fisher Community Ambassador

LEONARD SLATKIN Music Director Laureate

LET’S GROOVE TONIGHT: MOTOWN & THE PHILLY SOUND

Friday, October 6, 2023 at 10:45 a.m. & 8 p.m.

Saturday, October 7, 2023 at 8 p.m. in Orchestra Hall

JEFF TYZIK, conductor

NEEME JÄRVI

Music Director Emeritus

CHESTER GREGORY, vocals • BRIK.LIAM, vocals • ASHLEY JAYY, vocals

arr. Jeff Tyzik

T.S.O.P.

Let’s Groove Tonight

I Heard It Through the Grapevine

Could It Be I’m Falling In Love

You’ll Never Find

I’ll Be Around Hurt So Bad

Don’t Leave Me This Way

I Love Music

Intermission

A 5th of Beethoven

Ball of Confusion

People Make the World Go Round

I’m Coming Out

Backstabbers

My Girl

Love Train

Me & Mrs. Jones

Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now

PROGRAM AT-A-GLANCE | MOTOWN & THE PHILLY SOUND

Celebrating Motown and the Philly Sound

In January 1959, Berry Gordon placed a “Hitsville USA” sign above the front windows of Motown Records headquarters in Detroit—and the rest is history. With a sound defined by iconic melodies, blaring horns, tambourines and handclaps, driving bass lines, and foot-stomping drum parts, Motown was the heartbeat of the city. Further south, Philadelphia was also defining its own musical renaissance: soul music with lush instrumentals, rich textures, deep rhythms, funk influences, and a focus on production that would pave the way for disco. Which sound reigns supreme? That’s for you to decide… (but it’s Motown).

PROFILES

Jeff Tyzik bio, see page 7.

CHESTER GREGORY

Chester Gregory is an award-winning Broadway veteran and recording artist. His Broadway credits include starring in Motown: The Musical (Berry Gordy), Hairspray (Seaweed), Sister Act (Eddie), Tarzan (Terk, Original Cast), and Cry-Baby (Dupree, Original Cast). National tours include Motown: The Musical (Berry Gordy), Sister Act (Eddie), and Dreamgirls (James “Thunder” Early). Regional theatre credits include Shrek (Donkey), Fences (Lyons), and Two Trains Running (Sterling). Television appearances include performances on The Daily Show, The View, and The Tony Awards. As a recording artist, Gregory, also known as CHESS, has collaborated with industry greats including Phil Collins, Marc Shaiman, Ledisi, and Chance the Rapper. Studio recordings include multiple singles, Original Broadway Cast recordings, and his album In Search of High Love. He is the recipient of Chicago’s Jeff Award, the NAACP Theatre Award, the key to the city of his hometown of Gary, Indiana, as well as an honorary Doctorate Degree from Columbia College Chicago.

BRIK.LIAM Brik.Liam

is a R&B/soul singer/songwriter and visual artist with a signature sound shaped by influence from Marvin Gaye, D’Angelo, and Brandy. Born into a military family in Petersburg, Virginia as Jacoby J. Williams, Brik.Liam’s eclectic style is partially the result of the places he has called home: from Schweinfurt, Germany; to Atlanta, Georgia; and Killeen and Houston, Texas.

In March 2012, Brik.Liam released his freshman project, CobyMeetsWord: Acoustic Heart. The mixtape was recorded with fellow indie artist, producer, and writer Douglas Whatley. After returning to Houston in the winter of 2013, Brik was inspired to change his stage name from Jacoby to Brik.Liam in celebration of his favorite color, red (brick; Brik), and his last name (Williams; Liam).

In collaboration with Kori James, Brik. Liam’s sophomore project, Mr. Liam’s Neighborhood, debuted in March 2014. With Mr. Liam’s Neighborhood, Brik.Liam also showed his visual artistry, adding individual artwork to each song on the project and crafting an authentic musical and visual experience.

ASHLEY JAYY

Ashley Jayy was born and raised in Portland, Oregon and began her first formal training in gospel choirs as a child. In 2006, she won the youth division of McDonald’s Gospelfest in Seattle. She continued to immerse herself in the vibrant Portland music scene, sharpening her ear and honing her vocal ability to a bold, unique sound. With this focused growth, she caught the eye of Prince, who taught her the importance of using music and art to talk about the world, purpose, and humanity. Following Prince’s death in 2016, Jayy shifted her focus to sharing impactful music on Instagram, where she produced viral content and explored her artistry. In the time since, Jayy has worked with acclaimed artists such as Tank, Monica, Tevin Campbell, PJ Morton, and Focus. A sought-after vocalist, writer, and vocal arranger, Jayy released her first solo project in the fall of 2020.

Vocalist

RACHMANINOFF150

One of the last great representatives of musical Romanticism, Sergei Rachmaninoff frequently shared his gifts as a virtuoso pianist with Detroit audiences and enjoyed a friendship with Russian-born contemporary Ossip Gabrilowitsch—also a composer, conductor, and pianist, and the DSO’s music director from 1918–1936.

In addition to recitals at Detroit’s Masonic Temple, Rachmaninoff had the honor of christening Orchestra Hall with a solo piano recital just two weeks after its opening in November 1919. In the Detroit Free Press, Gabrilowitsch was quoted as saying, “Not only is Rachmaninoff one of the greatest pianists of today, but as a composer he has his own powerful word to say. What has so seldom happened in the history of arts is true of Rachmaninoff—a great creative genius who during his lifetime already has achieved vast popularity.”

75th birthday concert for Leopold Auer, April 28, 1925. Standing L-R: Isidor Achron, Jascha Heifetz, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Josef Hofmann, and P. Strassievitch, Seated L-R: Auer and Efrem Zimbalist Sr.

Rachmaninoff would go on to perform with the DSO on three more occasions: at Orchestra Hall in February 1937 for his Piano Concerto No. 2 conducted by Victor Kolar, and again under Kolar at the Masonic Temple in November 1939 (Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini) and December 1941 (Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor).

Even after his passing in 1943, Rachmaninoff has remained an integral artistic figure to the DSO, with the orchestra performing his works on more than 300 occasions. Among the DSO’s recordings are a survey of Rachmaninoff’s three symphonies under Leonard Slatkin and a 1993 album of his Concerto élégiaque, Variations on a Theme of Corelli, and Vocalise under Neeme Järvi.

This season, the DSO continues the legacy. Standing where he stood more than 100 years ago, we illuminate his expressive melodies and rich orchestral colors for a new generation to savor.

Enjoy Rachmaninoff this season at Orchestra Hall

Three years later in November 1922, Rachmaninoff returned to Orchestra Hall for his highly anticipated debut as soloist with the DSO. In an all-Russian program at the height of his demand in the United States, Rachmaninoff dazzled in his Piano Concerto No. 3 under the baton of Gabrilowitsch.

OCTOBER 13–15: Piano Concerto No. 1 conducted by Jader Bignamini (with Simon Trpčeski)

DECEMBER 7–9: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini conducted by Jader Bignamini (with Sergei Babayan)

APRIL 5–7: Symphonic Dances conducted by Eric Jacobsen

As the world celebrates the composer’s 150th birthday, we reflect on his history with the DSO

DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

JADER BIGNAMINI , Music Director

Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation

TERENCE BLANCHARD

Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair

NA’ZIR MCFADDEN

Assistant Conductor, Phillip & Lauren Fisher Community Ambassador

PVS CLASSICAL SERIES

Title Sponsor:

RACHMANINOFF & BRAHMS

Friday, October 13, 2023 at 10:45 a.m.

Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 8 p.m.

Sunday, October 15, 2023 at 3 p.m. in Orchestra Hall

JADER BIGNAMINI, conductor SIMON TRPČESKI, piano

Carl Maria von Weber Overture to Der Freischütz (1786 - 1826)

Sergei Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 1 (1873 - 1943) I. Vivace

II. Andante

III. Allegro vivace

Simon Trpčeski, piano

Intermission

Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 (1833 - 1897)

I. Un poco sostenuto – Allegro

II. Andante sostenuto

III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso

IV. Adagio – Più andante – Allegro non troppo, ma con brio

With support from Bonnie Larson, the DSO is proud to feature The Larson Piano on this program. Part of the DSO’s fine instrument collection, the Steinway Model D Concert Grand Piano is the standard by which other concert pianos are judged and compared. Handmade in the New York Steinway Factory, this majestic musical instrument is the pinnacle of concert grands.

Saturday’s performance will be webcast via our exclusive Live From Orchestra Hall series, presented by Ford Motor Company Fund and made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

NEEME JÄRVI Music Director Emeritus

LEONARD SLATKIN Music Director Laureate

JEFF TYZIK Principal Pops Conductor

Flash photography, video recording, tripods, and cameras with detachable lenses are strictly prohibited.

PROGRAM AT-A-GLANCE | RACHMANINOFF & BRAHMS Timeless Classics

The legacy of composers Weber, Brahms, and Rachmaninoff is everlasting. In 2023, we celebrate Rachmaninoff’s 150th birthday with performances of some of his most compelling works. This program features his dynamic First Piano Concerto, which Rachmaninoff began writing in his teens and revised later in life. Brahms took over 20 years to complete his first symphony, which has since become a revered genre-changing work of passion and unrelenting drive. Weber was one of the first significant composers in the Romantic era and a crucial figure in the development of German romantic opera, a genre that has carried a lasting impact on Western classical music. Together, these timeless classics are celebrated once again in Orchestra Hall.

PROGRAM NOTES

Overture to Der Freischütz

Composed 1821 | Premiered June 18, 1821

CARL MARIA VON WEBER

B. November 18, 1786, Eutin, Oldenburg

D. June 5, 1826, London, England

Scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 10 minutes)

Thetale of the Freischütz— “free shooter” is as close as an English translation can come—goes as far back as the 15th century, when the famous manual on witch hunting, Malleus malleficarum, told the tale of an archer who had enchanted his arrows by shooting at a wayside crucifix. Down through the ages, the methods of magic and the weaponry changed, but the goal was the same: to produce arrows or bullets that would find their mark infallibly through the power of the Devil. The catch was that Satan always kept a missile for himself. The huntsman could have his “free shots,” but old Nick would guide the last one.

Such was the tale Weber encountered in 1810, in the Gespenterbuch, or “Ghost Book,” compiled by Johann August Apel

and Friedrich Laun. The tale of the huntsman with the magic bullets so caught his imagination that he thought at once of writing an opera on the subject. Nothing came of his plan, however, until 1817, when he had been appointed Music Director of the Dresden Opera. Another librettist and composer had already beaten him to the task of setting the tale as a play, with incidental music, but Weber was the first to make a full-scale opera of the work.

The overture has long been one of Weber’s most popular. Beginning with a slow section, in which four horns set the woodland scene, the music moves into a quicker tempo, with themes from the opera itself. First comes the flickering, serpentine music that accompanies Max’s encounter with the dark powers; then the exultant close of Agathe’s great aria “Leise, leise.” These are worked out compactly but thoroughly, with Agathe’s hymn having the last word, the key having been transformed from a tenebrous C minor, the realm of darkness, to C major, the domain of light. —Michael

Fleming

The DSO most recently performed Weber’s Overture to Der Freischütz in July 2004, conducted by Thomas Wilkins. The DSO first performed the piece in November 1916, conducted by Weston Gales.

Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 1

Composed 1891 | Premiered 1892

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF

B. April 1, 1873 in Semyonovo, Russia

D. March 28, 1943 in Beverly Hills, California

Scored for solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, percussion, and strings. (Approx. 26 minutes)

Rachmaninoff is primarily remembered today as a composer of dark, rich, brooding music, but he was also one of the greatest piano virtuosos who ever lived. The work we know as Rachmaninoff’s First Concerto was actually his second attempt at writing a piano concerto. In 1889 he started, but never finished, a concerto in C minor, the sketches for which seem not to have survived. In 1890, while a student at the Moscow Conservatory, the 17-year-old Rachmaninoff began work on the F-sharp minor concerto, completing what would become the first version the following year. In the spring of 1892, he played the first movement of this fledgling concerto with the Conservatory Orchestra, and as far as anyone can determine, this was probably the only time he played any of the concerto in its original form. In June of 1892, Rachmaninoff graduated from the conservatory and was awarded the Gold Medal, an honor that had been given previously to only two other students. A month later, he completed the concerto which would be published as his Op. 1. At the Moscow school, students were often advised to base their first attempts in a particular form on a specific older work, and in Rachmaninoff’s case it was Edvard Grieg’s great Romantic concerto, which was a favorite of his. What Rachmaninoff did was to adapt the entire musical structure of the first and third movements of the Grieg concerto and then build his music into it. By the end of the 1890s,

however, Rachmaninoff dismissed this concerto as a student work and turned his back on it. In 1908, he thought about revising the concerto, but his workload was such that he could not do so. Finally, in the fall of 1917, he returned to his early work and subjected it to a thorough revision with remarkable concentration, intensity, and speed. By this time, the concerto was more than 25 years old—in those intervening years his style had evolved, and his command of orchestral writing had grown significantly. As a result, the new version showed a great thinning of texture in both the orchestra and piano parts, as well as the removal of a good deal of material which made the original somewhat diffuse, episodic, and unpolished. The new version was now economical, exuberant, and somewhat impetuous, but with most of the melodies from the 1892 original left intact. The piano part in the revised version is more fluid and is more in line with what became Rachmaninoff’s characteristic style. The revisions were completed by the time he left Russia in 1917, and the premiere of the new version was given in New York in January of 1919 with the composer as soloist accompanied by the Russian Symphony Society Orchestra. Almost all authorities agree that the second version is far superior to the original, and of all the revisions Rachmaninoff made to various works, this one was probably the most successful. Nevertheless, this concerto did not become popular with the general public, mainly because by the time it was premiered, audiences were very familiar with the Second and Third Concertos and wanted to hear those almost exclusively. For the record, the first-ever performance of the complete original version took place in Zurich, Switzerland in March of 1993.

The DSO most recently performed Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in April 2016, conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero and featuring pianist Lise de la Salle. The DSO first performed the piece in June 1954 at the Michigan State Fair

Grounds, conducted by C. Valter Poole and featuring pianist Janet Martin.

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68

Composed 1876 | Premiered November 4, 1876 JOHANNES BRAHMS

B. May 7, 1833, Hamburg, Germany

D. April 3, 1897, Vienna, Austria Scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings. (Approx. 45 minutes)

“Seldom, if ever, has the entire musical world awaited a composer’s first symphony with such tense anticipation…[it is] one of the most individual and magnificent works of the symphonic literature…The new symphony of Brahms is a possession of which the nation may be proud, an inexhaustible fountain of sincere pleasure and fruitful study.”–Eduard Hanslick (1825–1904), music critic.

Brahms began writing the first movement of this symphony in 1856—the year his close friend Robert Schumann died. He worked on it intermittently until it premiered two decades later. During those years, Brahms was lauded for his chamber, vocal, and smaller orchestral works. His music reflects the previous tradition of Mozart and Haydn, rather than the burgeoning Romantic aesthetic of the 19th century.

While his contemporaries, Liszt and Wagner, pressed beyond the boundaries of Classical form, Brahms illustrated how one could find innovation within form. To Liszt and Wagner, the symmetry in Classical forms—such as the Sonata form—were obsolete, regardless of innovation. They favored open-ended tone poems and large-scale epic works. Leonard Bernstein described Brahms as “the Guardian of Musical Order in an age of

Romantic disorder.”

Though Brahms worked within form, he was not a slave to it. For example, in the first movement of the symphony, the Sonata form section beginning in C-minor would normally find the exposition ending in the relative major key, in this case, E-flat major. Brahms broke convention by going to E-flat minor : expressive within formal constraints, such as his life. This first symphony may be his most personal work, reflecting the passion he attempted to restrain in both his life and music; an expression of life’s disappointments resonating in the two decades of its composition: the childhood poverty, being repeatedly passed over as conductor in Hamburg, the tragic loss of his friend Schumann, his failure to find happiness in marriage and family, and the tempestuous relationship he had with Clara Schumann.

Brahms’s close ties to the Schumann family, assisting Clara and her seven children during Robert’s decline and after his death, played a part in the delay of the symphony, but his greatest obstacle may have been the shadow of the “giant” whom he greatly admired. Brahms revered Beethoven and felt that any symphony he composed would be compared unfavorably to Beethoven’s magnificent Ninth Symphony. In fact, Brahms told his friend, conductor Hermann Levi, “I shall never write a symphony! You can’t have any idea what it’s like always to hear a giant like him marching behind you!” This was the reason for premiering the symphony outside of Vienna, where Beethoven still reigned. Despite the protests, the symphony was finally completed, with the Finale paying tribute to Beethoven with allusions to the “Ode to Joy” theme from his Ninth Symphony.

The deliberation he gave to the work was rewarded. Though the reception in Karlsruhe was not enthusiastic, in Vienna, it was a success. The inevitable comparisons to Beethoven were favorable; conductor Hans von Bülow, called this “Beethoven’s Tenth.” Brahms emerged

from beneath Beethoven’s shadow and cast one of his own. He established for himself a place among the musical giants revered to this day.

The DSO most recently performed

PROFILES SIMON TRPČESKI

Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 in February 2016, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. The DSO first performed the piece in January 1919, conducted by Ossip Gabrilowitsch.

Simon

Trp česki has been praised as much for his powerful virtuosity and deeply expressive approach as for his charismatic stage presence.

Launched onto the international scene 20 years ago as a BBC New Generation Artist—in an incredibly fastpaced career unhindered by cultural or musical boundaries—he has collaborated with over a hundred orchestras on four continents and performed on the most prestigious stages.

Trp česki’s fruitful collaborations with EMI Classics, Avie Records, Wigmore Hall Live, Onyx Classics, and currently Linn Records has resulted in a broad and award-winning discography. Variations, his latest solo album was released in the spring of 2022, followed by Friendship, a chamber music album in April 2023. His

recording of Brahms’s piano concertos with the WDR Symphony Orchestra and Cristian Măcelaru will be released in November 2023.

Born in Macedonia in 1979, Trp česki is a graduate of the School of Music at the University of St. Cyril and St. Methodius in Skopje, where he studied with Boris Romanov. Committed to strengthening the cultural image of his native country, his chamber music project MAKEDONISSIMO weaves into one unique sound world, the Macedonian folk music tradition with highly virtuoso, jazz-influenced riffs and harmonies.

In 2009, Trp česki received the Presidential Order of Merit for Macedonia and in 2011, he became the first-ever recipient of the title “National Artist of Macedonia.” He was the BBC New Generation Artist 2001-2003 and in 2003, was honored with the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award.

Enjoy the DSO from anywhere with Live from Orchestra Hall! View free, live webcasts of PVS Classical Series, Paradise Jazz Series, and Classroom Edition performances, plus Civic Youth Ensembles presentations.

Jader Bignamini bio, see page 6.

JEFF TYZIK Principal Pops Conductor

DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

A COMMU N I T Y -SU P P ORT E D ORCHESTRA

TERENCE BLANCHARD

PARADISE JAZZ SERIES

MAKAYA MCCRAVEN WITH THE URBAN ART ORCHESTRA | ENDEA OWENS + THE COOKOUT

Friday, October 13, 2023 at 8 p.m. in Orchestra Hall

ENDEA OWENS & THE COOKOUT

ENDEA OWENS, bassist/composer

J.HOARD, vocalist

SHENEL JOHNS, vocalist

JEROME JENNINGS, drums

KRIS JOHNSON, trumpet

LOUIS FOUCHE, alto saxophone

Intermission

MAKAYA MCCRAVEN: IN THESE TIMES

MAKAYA MCCRAVEN, drums

JUNIUS PAUL, bass

MATT GOLD, guitar

BRANDEE YOUNGER, harp

DE’SEAN JONES, tenor saxophone, flute, EWI

MARQUIS HILL, trumpet

GREG WARD, alto saxophone

JOEL ROSS, vibes

MACIE STEWART, violin

MARTA SOFIA, viola

LIA KOHL, cello

ZARA ZAHARIEVA, violin

URBAN ART ORCHESTRA

DE’SEAN JONES, composer/conductor

Program to be announced from the stage, artists subject to change

MADE POSSIBLE WITH SUPPORT FROM DownBeat magazine

JADER BIGNAMINI , Music Director Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation

Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair

NA’ZIR MCFADDEN Assistant Conductor, Phillip & Lauren Fisher Community Ambassador

NEEME JÄRVI Music Director Emeritus

LEONARD SLATKIN Music Director Laureate

PROGRAM AT-A-GLANCE | THE NEXT GENERATION OF JAZZ

Jazz artists of the past several decades have pushed boundaries and innovated the genre to better capture and converse with our modern society. Makaya McCraven, a multi-talented drummer, composer, and producer, is a stellar example of an artist expanding the norm. Known as a “cultural synthesizer,” McCraven’s inventive process and intuitive, cinematic sound defies categorization, and we enjoy his latest project, In These Times, on today’s program. Detroit-raised and Grammy Award-winning bassist Endea Owens is a composer herself and a staunch advocate for contemporary jazz music. Her masterful band, The Cookout, intertwines joyful, head-bobbing jazz with a sense of community and activism. Owens is an alum of the DSO’s Civic Youth Ensembles, as is De’Sean Jones and Kris Johnson, who are also featured in this performance. These dynamic artists embody the next generation of jazz—offering fresh perspectives on this timeless genre and its deep connection as a catalyst for social change.

PROFILES

MAKAYA MCCRAVEN

Makaya McCraven is a prolific drummer, composer, and producer who, according to The New York Times, “has quietly become one of the best arguments for jazz’s vitality.” His newest album, In These Times, is the triumphant finale of a project seven years in the making. It’s a preeminent addition to his acclaimed and extensive discography, and it’s the album he’s been trying to make since he started making records.

In These Times encompasses all he’s lived through, as well as his lineage, while also pushing the music forward. Music critic Passion of the Weiss suggested that “McCraven’s work, both with younger players and the sounds of older recordings, is part of a necessary conversation about the next evolution of the Black improvised music known colloquially as ‘jazz.’ He’s found the threads connecting the past with the present, and is either wrapping them with new colors and textures, or he’s plucking them gleefully like the strings of a grand instrument.”

McCraven concurs: “To me, that is the tradition that I want to try to take part in.

Being well-rooted, but walking into the future, is really what all of the leaders in this music have done that I admire. And I think that resonates with people. Something that’s like how we know it, but is evolving… It’s just where I am at, where we’re at, and the evolution of that, and that’s what I’m trying to be.”

DE’SEAN JONES

De’Sean Jones, a Detroit School of Arts alumnus, is a two-time Grammy Awardnominated and three-time Stellar Award-winning composer and arranger. He is the protégé of both the late trumpet legend Marcus Belgrave and techno pioneer Mad Mike Banks, as well as a longtime member of Underground Resistance. Jones has garnered opportunities to teach, compose, and tour the world extensively, collaborating with music icons such as Stevie Wonder, The Clark Sisters, and Faith Evans. Through his consistent artistic efforts, Jones aspires to uphold the rich musical legacy of Detroit.

Jones is a 2022 Kresge Artist Fellow and founder of the Urban Art Orchestra.

ENDEA OWENS

Oneof jazz’s most vibrant emerging artists, Endea Owens is a Detroit-raised recording artist, bassist, and composer. Her mentors include jazz icons Marcus Belgrave, Rodney Whitaker, and Ron Carter, and she has toured and performed with Wynton Marsalis, Jennifer Holliday, Diana Ross, Rhonda Ross, Solange, Jon Batiste, Jazzmeia Horn, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Steve Turre, among others.

In 2018, Owens graduated from The Juilliard School, and joined The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as a member of the house band, Stay Human. She is an Emmy, Grammy, and George Foster Peabody Award-winning artist whose work has appeared on Jon Batiste’s Grammy Award-winning album We Are,

Oscar-nominated film Judas and the Black Messiah, and H.E.R’s widely acclaimed Super Bowl LV performance.

A passionate philanthropist and educator, she has taught students across the United States, South America, and Europe. In 2020, Owens founded the Community Cookout, a non-profit organization that provides meals and music to underserved neighborhoods in New York City.

In 2022, Owens composed an original piece about the life of Ida B. Wells entitled “Ida’s Crusade” for the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, which was also performed by the NYO Carnegie Hall Orchestra. With the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, she serves as the 2023 MAC Music Innovator and has also served as curator for the National Arts Club and as a “Jazz is Now!” fellow with the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. Owens’s debut album, Feel Good Music, is slated for release in September 2023.

DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

PVS CLASSICAL SERIES

Title Sponsor:

KORNGOLD’S VIOLIN CONCERTO

Thursday, October 19, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.

Friday, October 20, 2023 at 10:45 a.m.

Saturday, October 21, 2023 at 8 p.m. in Orchestra Hall

KEVIN JOHN EDUSEI, conductor CLARA-JUMI KANG, violin

Arlene Sierra Kiskadee (World Premiere) (b. 1970)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1897 - 1957) in D Major, Op.35 Moderato nobile Romance

Finale: Allegro assai vivace Clara-Jumi Kang, violin

Intermission

Alexander von Zemlinsky Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid) (1871-1942)

I. Sehr mässig bewegt (very moderately moved)

II. Sehr bewegt, rauschend (very moving, rushing)

III. Sehr gedehnt, mit schmerzvollem Ausdruck (very drawn out, with a painful expression)

JADER BIGNAMINI , Music Director Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation

TERENCE BLANCHARD

Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair

NA’ZIR MCFADDEN Assistant Conductor, Phillip & Lauren Fisher Community Ambassador

NEEME JÄRVI Music Director Emeritus

LEONARD SLATKIN Music Director Laureate

JEFF TYZIK Principal Pops Conductor

Saturday’s performance will be webcast via our exclusive Live From Orchestra Hall series, presented by Ford Motor Company Fund and made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Flash photography, video recording, tripods, and cameras with detachable lenses are strictly prohibited.

PROGRAM AT-A-GLANCE | KORNGOLD’S VIOLIN CONCERTO A Flair for the Dramatic

Music is a powerful force for nonverbal communication and serves as a vehicle for artists to tell stories. This program features the world premiere of a new work by composer and University of Michigan alum Arlene Sierra. Her Kiskadee is inspired by the song of the titular bird—a colorful and boisterous creature found in locations from Texas to Argentina. Korngold is well-known for his work as a film composer, and his captivating Violin Concerto evokes many aspects of the programmatic nature, borrowing melodies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Another Dawn (1937), Juarez (1939), and more. Zemlinsky’s The Mermaid is also a highly programmatic adventure, taking us through the legendary fairytale drama of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid and rounding out our program of enchanting narratives.

PROGRAM NOTES

Kiskadee

Composed 2023 | World Premiere

ARLENE SIERRA

B. 1970, Miami, Florida

Scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 3 oboes, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, keyboard, and strings. (Approx. 8 minutes)

Kiskadee is the most recent of Arlene Sierra’s works based on bird song, following directly from Bird Symphony (2021, commissioned by the Utah Symphony) and Birds and Insects, Book Three (2023, commissioned by the Barbican Centre, London for pianist Sarah Cahill). Part of a larger series of pieces based on ideas from the natural world including Butterfly House (2022), Nature Symphony (2017), Urban Birds (2014), Butterflies Remember a Mountain (2013), and Colmena (2008), the mechanics and processes of nature are the basis for Sierra’s compositional approach, rather than offering a simple reflection or meditation. In Kiskadee, this technical focus employs the composer’s transcriptions from field recordings as structural building blocks integral to the form of the overall work.

Kiskadees are described in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology database as “boisterous in both attitude and color: a black bandit’s mask, a yellow belly, and flashes of warm reddish-brown when they fly. [They] sit out in the open and attract attention with incessant kis-ka-dee calls and sallying flights.” The work employs a transcription of the kiskadee’s call as well as transcriptions of sounds from its environment. Later, the call of another bird, the troupial, supplants the kiskadee’s— mirroring the behavior of territorial overtaking that occurs in the wild. The kiskadee call later reasserts itself with renewed power, prevailing with its characteristic boisterousness.

Kiskadee was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras with the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. This performance with the DSO, under Kevin John Edusei, marks the world premiere of Arlene Sierra’s Kiskadee; subsequent performances are scheduled with the Dallas, Louisiana, Illinois, and Wheeling symphonies.

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, Op. 35

Composed 1945 | Premiered 1947

ERICH WOLFGANG KORNGOLD

B. May 29, 1897, Brünn, Austria-Hungary (now Brno, Czech Republic)

D. November 29, 1957, Los Angeles, CA

Scored for solo violin, 2 flutes (one doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes (one doubling on English horn), 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons (one doubling on contrabassoon), 4 horns, 2 trumpets, trombone, timpani, percussion, harp, celeste, and strings (Approx. 24 minutes)

In1934, the Warner Brothers film conglomerate engaged Erich Korngold, the renowned composer now practically synonymous with Hollywood film scores, to transform Mendelssohn’s incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream for use in a new movie based on the play. But at the time Korngold was not yet well-known for his work in Tinseltown; his claim to fame was the hit opera Die Tote Stadt. In those days, it was rare for a soundtrack album to be commercially released, so Korngold and other film composers often found ways to extend the life of their big screen music by incorporating it into pieces suitable for the concert hall. Such is the case with Korngold’s Violin Concerto, which borrows melodies from not only A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but also other films the composer worked on around the same time, including Another Dawn (1937), Juarez (1939), and more.

The first movement features two themes, both somewhat poignant and wistful. As opposed to a conventional sonata form in which two themes are expected to contrast in style and tone, Korngold’s freer form (which eschews the typical development section in favor of a cadenza) emphasizes the themes’ similarities: their lyrical, bittersweet character, expressed through gentle dissonances,

expansively supple phrases, and the violin’s delicate upper register. The second movement is based on themes from Anthony Adverse (1936), the film score for which Korngold received his first Academy Award, but the music was radically altered somewhere between the film and the concert hall. Square rhythms and a solid harmonic foundation were replaced by a free, meandering fantasy through which the violinist drifts on arabesques, leaving behind any sense of metered pulse. In contrast to the pervasive lyricism of the first two movements, the finale is a maddash scramble as orchestra and soloist trade virtuosic passages. The movement rarely takes itself seriously: in the final measures, the orchestra grinds to a halt on a grating, minor second dissonance before finishing with a resounding, “all’s well” D major hit.

The DSO most recently performed Korngold’s Violin Concerto at concerts in Japan during the 2017 Asia Tour, conducted by Leonard Slatkin and featuring violinist Akiko Suwanai. The DSO first performed the piece in March 1954, conducted by C. Valter Poole and featuring violinist Jascha Heifetz.

Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid)

Composed 1903 | Premiered 1905

ALEXANDER VON ZEMLINSKY

B. October 14, 1871, Vienna, Austria

D. March 15, 1942, Larchmont, New York

Scored for 4 flutes (2 doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, english horn, 2 clarinets, e-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, 6 horns, 3 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, 2 harps, and strings. (Approx. 47 minutes)

Zemlinsky’s symphonic poem The Mermaid was premiered in January of 1905 on a program with Schoenberg’s symphonic poem Pelleas and Melisande. Overshadowed by the

Schoenberg work, The Mermaid was dismissed by press, and did not receive a second performance until nearly 80 years later. For years, the score was considered lost. While the manuscript of the first movement lay unnoticed in Vienna, the manuscripts of the two other movements found their way to the US, where Zemlinsky moved in 1939 and died three years later. These manuscripts were eventually rediscovered there in his estate. Since the revival performance in the fall of 1984 by the Austrian Youth Philharmonic under the direction of Peter Gülke, the work has commanded long overdue attention.

The Mermaid is a highly programmatic tone poem in three movements, which follows closely the fairy tale of Hans Christian Andersen. After Wagner’s Das Rheingold set the standard for the musical portrayal of watery depths, Zemlinsky created a powerful illusion of the sea, using it as the source of both the narrative and musical elements of the entire work. Beginning in the depths, he adds new motifs to the upward movement of the basses and finally exposes a very simple melody behind an intricate curtain of the motifs. From this melody the theme of the mermaid arises. A lyrical and contrapuntal “soliloquy”—representing the togetherness of the sisters—twice introduces developments of the mermaid’s theme. The second development changes into a storm, in which the theme of the sea becomes fierce and menacing, moving to a climax and sudden cut-off as the ship falters. At the end of the first movement, the peaceful happiness of the mermaid, who believes herself to have reached the goal of her yearning, is sung in an epilogue of folksong-like tenderness.

In the second movement, the opening runs clearly signal the way to the sea witch. The cut-off which separates them symbolizes the wounding, which is expressed as an imploring melodic gesture recognizable from the first part. The sea theme moves forward as the helpless screams of her sisters call after the fleeting mermaid. The human world, expressed

musically as the round dance of the prince’s wedding, is seen through her eyes—again intermingled with her theme of yearning in a light and transparent grazioso. As the little mermaid painfully experiences the wedding of her beloved, her internalized feelings are represented as a many-stranded combination of various themes. Between the sections of the round dance, the admonishing call from the depths is presented as an extended 4/4 measure; she can only answer it helplessly with her theme of yearning and—with a hymn-like andante—acknowledge her fate. The movement concludes with a fragmented dissolution of themes, which parallels the collapse of the mermaid’s dreams.

The declining lines from the end of the second movement are condensed into a lament at the beginning of the third, which is twice interrupted by the solo theme of the mermaid. As the work progresses, more meanings are associated with the themes, which are set in complex and contrasting relationships.

Through this technique, Zemlinsky achieves a density of texture, moving beyond programmatic representation, but nevertheless remaining faithful to it. The themes oppose each other in an outbreak of desperation to a multilayered climax, which is interwoven with the plaintive song of the sisters and trails off into a somber dialogue of muted wind instruments. This requiem is followed by the picture of the sleeping wedded couple, which begins with high, muted string instruments and harp. A dramatic layering of several themes follows, portraying the last conflict before the mermaid throws the dagger into the ocean. The depth of the sea, into which the dagger sinks, resounds again with the mermaid’s yearning. In an emphatic intensification, the work concludes with the trumpet once again singing the longing melody of the little mermaid. —Peter Gülke

The DSO’s first and most recent performance of Alexander von Zemlinsky’s The Mermaid was in May 1989, conducted by Peter Gülke.

PROFILES

KEVIN JOHN EDUSEI

German conductor

Kevin John Edusei is a globally sought-after conductor praised for the drama and tension that he brings to his music-making, his attention to detail and sense of architecture, and the fluidity, warmth, and insight he brings to his performances. He is deeply committed to the creative elements of performance, presenting classical music in new formats, cultivating audiences, and introducing music by underrepresented composers.

In the 2023-2024 season, Edusei makes his debut with the Seattle Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Antwerp Symphony Orchestra conducting an eclectic range of repertoire including Beethoven, Mazzoli, Zemlinsky, Moussa, Ravel, and a world premiere by Arlene Sierra. He will also return to the Fort Worth Symphony, where he holds the position of Principal Guest Conductor, the City of Birmingham Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra, among others.

In recent seasons, Edusei has conducted major orchestras across Europe and the US including the Munich Philharmonic, London Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, and Minnesota orchestras, among others. He has a long-standing relationship with the Chineke! Orchestra and is the former Chief Conductor of the Munich Symphony Orchestra and the Bern Opera House, where he led many highly acclaimed new productions. In fall 2022, Edusei made his Royal Opera House debut conducting Puccini’s La bohème, which was streamed across cinemas worldwide, and he will return in the 2023-24 season for a production of Madama Butterfly.

CLARA-JUMI KANG

Violinist

Clara-Jumi

Kang is an artist of supreme musicality, impeccable refinement, and poise. Her many accolades include winning first prize at the Indianapolis International Violin Competition (2010), Sendai Violin Competition (2010), and the Seoul Violin Competition (2009); recipient of the Daewon Music Award (2012) and Kumho’s Musician of the Year (2015); and her selection as one of the top 100 “Most promising and influential people of Korea” in 2012 by Korean newspaper Dong-A Times

Upcoming highlights of the 2023-2024 season include debuts with the Israel Philharmonic, the LA Philharmonic, and the Cincinnati and Detroit symphony orchestras. Kang will also return to the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Auckland Philharmonia, and tour South Korea with the Munich Philharmonic.

She made her concerto debut with Hamburg Symphony at age five and has since performed with orchestras including the Warsaw Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Belgique, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orquesta Sinfónica de RTVE, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, with conductors including Bancroft, Bringuier, Chung, P. Järvi, Lü Jia, Märkl, and Mena, among others.

Born in Germany to a musical family, Kang took up the violin at the age of three and a year later enrolled as the youngest ever student at the Mannheim Musikhochschule. She then studied at the Lübeck Musikhochschule and at age seven was awarded a full scholarship to The Juilliard School. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Korean National University of Arts before completing her studies at the Munich Musikhochschule.

DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

JEFF TYZIK Principal Pops Conductor

LATIN FIRE

Friday, October 27, 2023 at 10:45 a.m.

Saturday, October 28, 2023 8 p.m.

Sunday, October 29, 2023 at 3 p.m.

PROGRAM AT-A-GLANCE | LATIN FIRE

Latin American Legends

This celebration highlights the long history of Latin American and Latinx artists in the orchestral realm. Featuring acclaimed Costa Rican trumpet player José Sibaja and celebrated Mexican vocalist Mónica Ábrego, our program includes hits like Tico-Tico no Fuba, Bésame Mucho, Granada, Carmen Suite, and Brasil—all under the baton of Enrico Lopez-Yañez, who returns to Orchestra Hall several times this season. We hope you wore your dancing shoes—and that you’re prepared to leave today’s concert with many of these popular and catchy tunes stuck in your head!

JADER BIGNAMINI , Music Director Music Directorship endowed by the Kresge Foundation

TERENCE BLANCHARD

Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair

NA’ZIR MCFADDEN Assistant Conductor, Phillip & Lauren Fisher Community Ambassador

NEEME JÄRVI Music Director Emeritus

LEONARD SLATKIN Music Director Laureate

ENRICO LOPEZ-YAÑEZ, conductor JOSÉ SIBAJA, trumpet • MÓNICA ÁBREGO, soprano

Program to be announced from the stage

PROFILES

ENRICO LOPEZ-YAÑEZ

Enrico Lopez-Yañez is the newly appointed Principal Conductor of Dallas Symphony Presents and Principal Pops Conductor of the Pacific Symphony. In addition, Lopez-Yañez serves as the Principal Pops Conductor of the Nashville Symphony. Lopez-Yañez is quickly establishing himself as one of the nation’s leading conductors of popular music and becoming known for his unique style of audience engagement. An active composer/arranger, he has been commissioned to write for the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Houston Symphony, San Diego Symphony, and Omaha Symphony, and has had his works performed by orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, National Symphony, Seattle Symphony, and Utah Symphony, among others.

This season, Lopez-Yañez will collaborate with artists including Ben Rector, Cody Fry, Trisha Yearwood, Tituss Burgess, Jefferson Starship, Portugal. The Man, Aida Cuevas, and Lila Downs. Lopez-Yañez will appear with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Colorado Symphony as well as make return appearances with the National Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, and more. Previously, LopezYañez has appeared with orchestras throughout North America including the Cincinnati Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, and the Seattle Symphony, among others.

As Artistic Director and Co-Founder of Symphonica Productions, LLC, LopezYañez curates and leads programs designed to cultivate new audiences. Symphonica manages a wide breadth of Pops and Family/Education productions

that “breathe new, exuberant life into classical programming for kids and families” (Nashville Parent Magazine).

JOSÉ SIBAJA

José Sibaja is one of the most acclaimed Costa Rican trumpet players of his generation, with worldwide audiences and broadcast media in the classical, Latin, jazz, and pop musical genres. His career ranges from international appearances as an orchestral soloist with Nashville Symphony, The Florida Orchestra, Utah Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Tucson Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Winds, Orquesta Sinfonica Venezuela, and Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Costa Rica; to worldwide tours with Ricky Martin for the Vuelve and Livin’ La Vida Loca tours. Currently, Sibaja plays lead trumpet with the world-renowned Boston Brass. He received his musical training at the New World School of the Arts and the University of Miami and has held positions as principal trumpet with the Miami Symphony, the Sinfonieta de Caracas, and Orquesta Sinfonica Venezuela. He has appeared on the American Music Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, the Grammy Awards, and the Latin Grammy Awards as well as on Conan, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Today Show, Late Night with David Letterman, and numerous television appearances in more than 40 countries.

Sibaja has recorded with such artists as Ricky Martin, Alejandro Sanz, Luis Enrique, Rey Ruiz, Marc Anthony, Celia Cruz, and Gloria Estefan, among others. Sibaja can be heard with the Boston Brass on their Latin Night s, Reminiscing, Rewired, and Blues for Sam albums, as well as his

solo records Inner Voice, Spanish Air, and Latitudes. Sibaja is a Yamaha Performing Artist, giving master classes as a clinician worldwide. He is Associate Professor of Trumpet at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

MÓNICA ÁBREGO

Mónica Ábrego is one of Mexico’s most outstanding sopranos. She has performed on stages around the world with a diverse repertoire including opera, lied, oratorio, folk, and popular music. Ábrego has performed with renowned orchestras including the San Diego, Colorado, Iowa, Key West, Delaware, La Jolla, Aguascalientes, and Bulgaria symphony orchestras, as well as the Chihuahua Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom she toured Mexico and the US. She has performed the roles of Serpina (La serva padrona), Norina (Don Pasquale), Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi ), Gilda (Rigoletto), Magda (La rondine), Violetta (La traviata), Manon (Manon), Musetta (La bohème), Olympia

(The Tales of Hoffmann), Nanetta (Falstaff ), Susanna (The Marriage of Figaro), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel ), María (Tango Operita–María de Buenos Aires), and recently as Micaela (Carmen).

Ábrego made her debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 2003 as a soloist for the Pacific Opera Encore company; she has also performed at Lincoln Center’s Merkin Hall. Her passion for music has given her the opportunity to proudly perform traditional Mexican music alongside Champaña Nevin Mariachi, both in México and the US, and several concerts at the Jacobs Music Center. In 2012, her first album Alma Mía was released by Vientos del Sur Productions. Her debut recording includes bossa nova, Mexican music, musical theater, and tango.

Ábrego holds a bachelor’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music. She has received awards from the USA National Association of Teachers of Singing (1998), La Jolla Symphony & Chorus in California (1997–1998), RYLA Rotary International Club (1998), Mexico’s National Fund for Culture and Arts (1999–2002), and the Musical Merit Foundation of San Diego (1998–2002).

THIS FALL AT THE DSO

TRIBUTE GIFTS

Gifts received April 1, 2023 - August 31, 2023”

Tribute gifts to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra are made to honor accomplishments, celebrate occasions, and pay respect in memory or reflection. These gifts support current season projects, partnerships and performances such as DSO concerts, education programs, free community concerts, and family programming. For information about making a tribute gift, please call 313.576.5114 or visit dso.org/donate.

In Honor

Dr. Theodore Golden

Mrs. Eleanore Gabrys

Ms. Leslie Groves & Mr. Joseph Kochanek

David & Andrea Corp

Mr. & Mrs. David Hempstead

Mr. & Mrs. Larry R. Shulman

Tom & Cindy Van Dusen

Richard Huttenlocher

Mr. & Mrs. Michael Simmons

Henry Jack Kaufman

Ms. Lynn Downing

Tom Kelley P A Davis

Sarah Lewis

Dale & Jeannette Lewis

Dr. Melissa McBrien

Ms. Victoria McBrien

Ms. Susan Queen

Will & Megann Smith

In Memory

John Bernick

Mr. Brian Arble

Mr. David Assemany & Mr. Jeffery Zook

Mr. Thomas Bernick

Dr. Janice Bernick

Mr. David Everson & Mrs. Jill Jordan

Mr. & Mrs. John McFadden

Cheryl Megahan

Dr. Susan & Mr. Stephen Molina

Richard H. Beuther

Mrs. Jane Iacobelli

Ms. Debra O’Hara

Robert Broderson

Mr. Robert Stieber

Robert Clark

Ms. Janet Brown

William Clark

Ms. Stacy Kaplan

Ms. Margaret Devereaux

Ms. Stephanie Applin

Stephen Easter

Mrs. Phyllis Osler

Lawrence Egan

Ms. Mary Durivage

Ms. Rosemary Gouin

Mr. & Ms. Arthur McCoy

Ms. Sheri Ward

Mrs. Helen Fildew

Marc Lie

Barbara Frankel

Gwen & Richard Bowlby

Kenneth Joseph Gouin

Mr. & Mrs. Shimon Edut

Daniel Jew

Chris Farber & Ben Toth

Mr. Henry P. Lee

Marcoux, Allen, Bower, Nichols & Kendall P.C.

Faith & Debora Renner

Marianne Masserang

Ms. Lynda Bonucchi

Ms. Nancy Deming

Ms. Denise Juif-Pomerleau

Mr. Thomas LaGrasso

Mr. & Mrs. Jim Marchand

Mr. & Mrs. Thomas G. Peck

Mrs. Kathleen Masserang Petterle

Mr. & Ms. Andrew Rudnycky

Mr. & Ms. Michael Rudnycky

Ms. Judy Testa

Mrs. Delores Michael

Ms. Barbara Rice

Mary E. Pence

Ms. Elizabeth Lewis

Helen Popow

Crandon Family Foundation

Mr. Robert D’Aoust

Mr. & Mrs. Robert J. Holton

Mr. Craig Hook

Wieslaw & Lottie Stokinger

Mr. & Ms. Ed Szczepanik

Mr. Anthony A. Szczotka & Ms. Anna M. Cairns

Raymond Pfiester

Ms. Maureen Pfiester

Dale Propson

Mr. Michael V. Lennon

Mr. Lloyd E. Reuss

Mr. & Mrs. Phillip Wm. Fisher

Genevieve Rohrkemper

Ms. Cheryl Rohrkemper

Mr. Alan E. Schwartz

Lisa Applebaum

Pamela Applebaum

Mr. & Ms. Agustin Arbulu

Dr. & Mrs. James Austin

Mr. & Mrs. Robert E. Baer

Penny & Harold Blumenstein

Ms. Rhonda Brown

Ms. Francie Cook

Mr. & Mrs. Richard M. Cooper

Ms. Fiona Donovan

Drs. Lee & Catherine Reinleitner

Mr. James McDonald

Susan Rontal

Mr. & Mrs. Jeffrey Topf

Donna Schwartz

Anna & Yale Levin

Kenneth Thompkins

Mr. Greg Thompkins

Andreae Downs

Andrew Echt

Mr. & Mrs. Phillip Wm. Fisher

Mr. & Mrs. Jack Folbe

Ruthanne Fuller

Nancy Gross

Robyn Jacobson

Ms. Zina Kramer

Mrs. Margaret Meyer

Mr. & Ms. Jon Moray

Mr. & Mrs. John Mucha

Joy & Allan Nachman

Newton Public Schools

Central Staff

Mr. Peter Remington & Ms. Peggy F. Daitch

Mr. Robert Rosiello

Mr. & Mrs. Todd Sachse

Mr. & Mrs. Edward Schulak

Lois & Mark Shaevsky

Mr. & Mrs. Paul Silverman

Mrs. Susan Sosnick

Dr. & Mrs. Martin Tessler

Mr. & Dr. Sheldon S. Toll

Ms. Barbara Wachstein

Carolyn Shantz

Dr. Cynthia Walker

Barbel Monika Strasen

Ms. Laura Cassar

Ellie Tholen

Gwen & Richard Bowlby

Mr. Charles W. Dyer

Eric & Ginny Lundquist

Charles Van Dusen

Mr. & Mrs. Leonard W. Smith

John VanBrandeghen

Linnea Gustafson

John & Delcine Heart

Bradford & Vicky Janzen

Ms. Elizabeth Pieper

Michael Wilson & Colleen Maltby

Etta B. Zivian

Debra & Martin Darvick

THE ANNUAL FUND

Gifts received between September 1, 2022 and August 31, 2023.

The DSO is a community-supported orchestra, and you can play your part through frequent ticket purchases and generous annual donations. Your tax-deductible Annual Fund donation is an investment in the wonderful music at Orchestra Hall, around the neighborhoods, and across the community. This honor roll celebrates those generous donors who made a gift of $1,500 or more to the DSO Annual Fund Campaign. If you have questions about this roster or would like to make a donation, please contact 313.576.5114 or go to dso.org/donate.

PARAY SOCIETY - GIVING OF $250,000 & MORE

Mr. & Mrs. Lee Barthel

Penny & Harold Blumenstein

Julie & Peter Cummings

Ms. Leslie C. Devereaux

Linda Dresner & Ed Levy, Jr.

DORATI SOCIETY - GIVING OF $100,000 & MORE

Mr. & Mrs. Richard L. Alonzo

James & Patricia Anderson

Mr. & Mrs. Raymond M. Cracchiolo

Joanne Danto & Arnold Weingarden

Mr. & Mrs. Phillip Wm. Fisher

EHRLING SOCIETY - GIVING OF $50,000 & MORE

Mr. & Mrs. Richard A. Brodie

Lois & Avern ◊ Cohn

Ms. Karol Foss

Mr. & Mrs. Aaron Frankel

Mr. & Mrs. Ralph J. Gerson

Mary Ann & Robert Gorlin

Mr. & Mrs. James Grosfeld

Mr. ◊ & Mrs. Norman H. Hofley

JÄRVI SOCIETY — GIVING OF $25,000 & MORE

Ms. Sharon Backstrom

Mrs. Cecilia Benner

Dr. Mark & Karen Diem

Mr. Michael J. Fisher

Madeline & Sidney Forbes

Mr. & Mrs. Edsel B. Ford II

Mrs. Martha Ford

Dale & Bruce Frankel

Ronald M. & Carol+ Horwitz

Mr.+ & Mrs. Norman D. Katz

Morgan & Danny Kaufman

Xavier & Maeva Mosquet

Mr. & Mrs. Stanley Frankel

Mr. & Mrs. Peter Karmanos, Jr.

Mr. & Mrs. James B. Nicholson

Mr. & Mrs. David Provost

Mrs. Richard C. Van Dusen

Shari & Craig Morgan

The Polk Family

Bernard & Eleanor Robertson

Drs. David & Bernadine Wu

Paul & Terese Zlotoff

Ric & Carola Huttenlocher

Mrs. Bonnie Larson

Nicole & Matt Lester

David & Valerie McCammon

Mr. & Mrs. Eugene A. Miller

Patricia & Henry◊ Nickol

Mr. & Mrs. Arn Tellem

Ms. Ruth Rattner

Martie & Bob Sachs

Mrs. Patricia Finnegan Sharf

Mr. & Mrs. James H. Sherman

Mr. & Mrs. Larry Sherman

Richard Sonenklar & Gregory Haynes

Dr. Doris Tong & Dr. Teck M. Soo

Mr. & Mrs. Gary Torgow

Peter & Carol Walters

S. Evan & Gwen Weiner

And one who wishes to remain anonymous

Mr. & Mrs. Robert A. Allesee

Dr. Lourdes V. Andaya

Janet & Norman Ankers

Pamela Applebaum

Drs. Brian & Elizabeth Bachynski

Drs. John ◊ & Janice Bernick

Ms. Debra Bonde

Gwen & Richard Bowlby

Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Brownell

Michael & Geraldine Buckles

Ms. Elena Centeio

Thomas W. Cook & Marie L. Masters

Gail Danto & Art Roffey

Mr. Kevin S. Dennis & Mr. Jeremy J. Zeltzer

Adel & Walter Dissett

Mr. Charles L. Dunlap & Mr. Lee V. Hart

Jim & Margo Farber

Sally & Michael Feder

Dr. Saul & Mrs. Helen Forman

Barbara Frankel◊ & Ronald Michalak

Herman & Sharon Frankel

Mrs. Janet M. Garrett

Victor ◊ & Gale Girolami

Ruth & Al◊ Glancy

Dr. Robert T. Goldman

GIVING OF $5,000 & MORE

Mrs. Denise Abrash

Mrs. Jennifer Adderley

Richard & Jiehan Alonzo

Mr. David Assemany & Mr. Jeffery Zook*

Mr. & Mrs. William C. Babbage

Ms. Ruth Baidas

Dr. David S. Balle

Mr. Patrick Barone

W. Harold & Chacona W. Baugh

Ms. Therese Bellaimey

Mr. William Beluzo

Mr. & Mrs. Dennis Bernard

Mr. & Mrs. Jeffrey A. Berner

Mr. Michael G. Bickers

Timothy J. Bogan

Ms. Nadia Boreiko

Mr. Anthony F. Brinkman

Claire P. & Robert N. Brown

Dr. & Mrs. Roger C. Byrd

Philip & Carol Campbell

Mrs. Carolyn Carr

Mr. & Mrs. François Castaing

Mr. & Mrs. Andrew Christians

Mr. Fred J. Chynchuk

Dr. & Mrs. Charles G. Colombo

Ms. Elizabeth Correa

Mr.◊ & Mrs. James A. Green

Mary Lee Gwizdala

Mr. & Mrs. Robert Hage

Judy ◊ & Kenneth Hale

Ms. Nancy B. Henk◊

Michael E. Hinsky & Tyrus N. Curtis

Renato & Elizabeth Jamett

Mr. & Mrs. Richard J. Jessup

William & Story John

Lenard & Connie Johnston

Dr. David & Mrs. Elizabeth Kessel

Mr. & Mrs. Kosch

Bud & Nancy Liebler

Mr. & Mrs.◊ Joseph Lile

Dana Locniskar & Christine Beck

Alexander & Evelyn McKeen

Ms. Deborah Miesel

Dr. Robert & Dr. Mary Mobley

Cyril Moscow

Geoffrey S. Nathan & Margaret E. Winters

David Robert & Sylvia Jean Nelson

Eric & Paula Nemeth

Mr. David Nicholson

Jim & Mary Beth Nicholson

Gloria & Stanley Nycek

George & Jo Elyn Nyman

Debra & Richard Partrich

Kathryn & Roger Penske

Dr. Erik Rönmark* & Mrs. Adrienne Rönmark*

Mr. & Mrs. Robert B. Rosowski

Peggy & Dr. Mark B. Saffer

Mr. & Mrs. Alan E. Schwartz ◊

Elaine & Michael Serling

Lois & Mark Shaevsky

William H. Smith ◊

Charlie & John Solecki

Mr. & Mrs. John Stroh III

Joel & Shelley Tauber

Emily & Paul Tobias

Mr. James G. Vella

Mr.◊ & Mrs. Jonathan T. Walton

Gary L. Wasserman & Charles A. Kashner

Ms. Mary Wilson

And four who wish to remain anonymous

Mr.◊ & Mrs. Gary L. Cowger

Mr. & Mrs. Charles W. Dare

Mr. & Mrs. Richard L. DeVore

Eugene ◊ & Elaine C. Driker

Ms. Ruby Duffield

Margie Dunn & Mark Davidoff

Dr. & Mrs. A. Bradley Eisenbrey

Mr. Lawrence Ellenbogen

Ms. Laurie Ellias & Mr. James Murphy

Marianne T. Endicott

Mr. Peter Falzon

Fieldman Family Foundation

Dr. & Mrs. Franchi

Mr.◊ & Mrs. Richard M. Gabrys

Alan M. Gallatin

Mr. Max Gates

Ambassador Yousif B. Ghafari & Mrs. Mara Kalnins-Ghafari

Allan D. Gilmour & Eric C. Jirgens

Dr. & Mrs. Theodore Golden

Goodman Family Charitable Trust

Dr. Herman & Mrs. Shirley Mann Gray

Mr. Sanford Hansell & Dr. Raina Ernstoff

Mr. Eric J. Hespenheide & Ms. Judith V. Hicks

Mr. Matthew Howell & Mrs. Julie Wagner

Mr. & Mrs. Kent Jidov

Mr. George G. Johnson

Paul & Karen Johnson

Carol & Rick Johnston

Paul & Marietta Joliat

Mr. & Mrs. Steven Kalkanis

Judy & David Karp

Mike & Katy Keegan

Betsy & Joel Kellman

John Kim & Sabrina Hiedemann

Dr. Sandy Koltonow & Dr. Mary Schlaff

Barbara & Michael Kratchman

Richard & Sally Krugel

Dr. Raymond Landes & Dr. Melissa McBrien-Landes

Bill & Kathleen Langhorst

Mr. Leonard LaRocca

Max Lepler & Rex L. Dotson

Mr. & Mrs. Robert K. Leverenz

Bob & Terri Lutz

Daniel & Linda* Lutz

Mrs. Sandra MacLeod

Mr. & Mrs. Winom J. Mahoney

Cis Maisel

Dr. Stephen & Paulette Mancuso

Maurice Marshall

Patricia A.◊ & Patrick G. McKeever

Joy & Allan Nachman

Mr. & Mrs. Albert T. Nelson, Jr.

Ms. Jacqueline Paige & Mr. David Fischer

Mr. David Phipps & Ms. Mary Buzard

William H. & Wendy W. Powers

Dr. Glenda D. Price

Charlene & Michael Prysak

Drs. Yaddanapudi Ravindranath & Kanta

Bhambhani

Mr. & Mrs. Dave Redfield

GIVING OF $2,500 & MORE

Nina Dodge Abrams

Mr. Juan Alvarez

Mr. & Mrs. Robert L. Anthony

Dr. & Mrs. Joel Appel

Drs. Kwabena & Jacqueline Appiah

Mr. Eduardo Arciniegas

Dr. & Mrs. Ali-Reza R. Armin

Pauline Averbach & Charles Peacock

Mr. Joseph Aviv & Mrs. Linda Wasserman

Mrs. Jean Azar

James A. Bannan

Mr. Mark G. Bartnik & Ms. Sandra J. Collins

Mr. Joseph Bartush

Mr. & Mrs. Martin S. Baum

Mr. & Mrs. Richard Beaubien

Mr. Abraham Beidoun

Dr. George & Joyce Blum

Nancy & Lawrence Bluth

Ms. Kristin Bolitho

John ◊ & Marlene Boll

The Achim & Mary Bonawitz Family

The Honorable Susan D. Borman & Mr. Stuart Michaelson

Mr. & Mrs. Mark R. Buchanan

Virginia Burkel

Sandra & Paul Butler

Mr. & Mrs. Brian C. Campbell

Dr. & Mrs.◊ Thomas E. Carson

Dr. Carol S. Chadwick & Mr. H. Taylor Burleson

Ronald & Lynda Charfoos

Dr. Betty Chu

Mr. William Cole & Mrs. Carol Litka Cole

Mr. & Mrs. Brian G. Connors

Bryan Cornwall & Phyllis Cornwall

Patricia & William ◊ Cosgrove, Sr.

Ms. Joy Crawford* & Mr. Richard Aude

Mr. & Mrs. Matthew P. Cullen

Mrs. Barbara Cunningham

Dr. Edward & Mrs. Jamie Dabrowski

Suzanne Dalton & Clyde Foles

Deborah & Stephen D’Arcy Fund

Maureen & Jerry ◊ D’Avanzo

Dr. Heather Richter

The Steven Della Rocca Memorial Fund/ Courtenay A. Hardy

Mr. Ronald Ross & Ms. Alice Brody

Mr. David Salisbury & Mrs. Terese Ireland Salisbury

Marjorie Shuman Saulson

Sandy Schreier

Robert & Patricia Shaw

Mr. Norman Silk & Mr. Dale Morgan

Mr. & Mrs. Matthew Simoncini

Lillian & Walter Dean

Dr. & Mrs. Thomas Ditkoff

Diana & Mark Domin

Felicia Donadoni

Paul◊ & Peggy Dufault

Edwin & Rosemarie ◊ Dyer

Randall & Jill* Elder

Mrs. Marjory Epstein

Mr. & Mrs. John M. Erb

Dave & Sandy Eyl

Ellie Farber & Mitch Barnett

Hon. Sharon Tevis Finch

John & Karen Fischer

Ms. Joanne Fisher

Dorothy A. & Larry L. Fobes

Amy & Robert Folberg

Ms. Linda Forte & Mr. Tyrone Davenport

Ms. Marci Frick

Kit & Dan Frohardt-Lane

Lynn & Bharat Gandhi

Stephanie Germack

Thomas M. Gervasi

Mr. & Mrs. James Gietzen

Mr. & Mrs. Robert W. Gillette

Dr. Kenneth ◊ & Roslyne Gitlin

Ms. Jody Glancy

Mr. Lawrence Glowczewski

Dr. William & Mrs. Antoinette Govier

Ms. Jacqueline Graham

Dr. Darla Granger & Mr. Luke Ponder

Diane & Saul Green

Anne & Eugene Greenstein

Ms. Chris Gropp

Leslie Groves* & Joseph Kochanek

Sharon Lopo Hadden

Dr. & Mrs. David Haines

Robert & Elizabeth Hamel

Cheryl A. Harvey

Ms. Barbara Heller

Ms. Karla Henry-Morris & Mr. William H. Morris

Ms. Doreen Hermelin

Mr. Donald & Marcia Hiruo

William & Cherie Sirois

Michael E. Smerza & Nancy Keppelman

Mrs. Kathleen Straus & Mr. Walter Shapero

Dr. & Mrs. Howard Terebelo

Alice ◊ & Paul Tomboulian

Mr. & Mrs. R. Jamison Williams

Dr. & Mrs. Ned Winkelman

Cathy Cromer Wood

Ms. June Wu

Ms. Gail Zabowski

Lucia Zamorano, M.D.

Mr. & Mrs. Peter Hollinshead

The Honorable Denise Page Hood & Reverend Nicholas Hood III

James Hoogstra & Clark Heath

Mr. F. Robert Hozian

Dr. Karen Hrapkiewicz

Sam G. Huszczo

Larry & Connie Hutchinson

Ms. Elizabeth Ingraham

Dr. Raymond E. Jackson & Dr. Kathleen Murphy

Mr. John S. Johns

Mr. William & Mrs. Connie Jordan

Diane & John Kaplan

Lucy & Alexander Kapordelis

Bernard & Nina Kent Philanthropic Fund

Mrs. Frances King

Dr. & Mrs. Edward L. Klarman

Aileen & Harvey Kleiman

Tom ◊ & Beverly Klimko

Mr. & Mrs. Ludvik F. Koci

Mr. & Mrs. Robert Koffron

Ms. Susan Konop

Douglas Korney & Marieta Bautista

James Kors & Victoria King*

Ms. Jennette Smith Kotila

George M. Krappmann & Lynda BurburyKrappmann

Mr. Michael Kuhne

Mr. & Mrs. Robert LaBelle

Dr. & Mrs. Gerald Laker

Mr. David Lalain & Ms. Deniella OrtizLalain

Deborah Lamm

Drs. Lisa & Scott Langenburg

Ms. Sandra Lapadot

Ms. Anne T. Larin

Dr. Lawrence O. Larson

Dr. Jonathan Lazar

Mr. Henry P. Lee

Drs. Donald & Diane Levine

Arlene & John Lewis

Mr. Dane Lighthart & Ms. Robyn Bollinger*

GIVING OF $2,500 & MORE, CONTINUED

David & Clare Loebl

Mr. John Lovegren & Mr. Daniel

Isenschmid

Mr. & Mrs. Charles W. Manke, Jr.

Melissa & Tom Mark

Barbara J. Martin

Brian & Becky McCabe

Dr. & Mrs. Peter M. McCann, M.D.

Mr. Edward McClew

Mr. Anthony Roy McCree

Ms. Mary McGough

Ms. Kristen McLennan

Dr. Donald & Barbara Meier

Dr. & Mrs. David Mendelson

Mr. & Mrs. Randall Miller

Mr. Keith Mobley

J.J. & Liz Modell

Dr. Susan & Mr. Stephen* Molina

Dr. Van C. Momon, Jr. & Dr. Pamela Berry

Eugene & Sheila Mondry Foundation

Mr. & Mrs. Daniel E. Moore

Ms. Sandra Morrison

Mr. Frederick Morsches & Mr. Kareem

George

Ms. Jennifer Muse

Ms. I. Surayyah R. Muwwakkil

Mr. & Mrs. George Nicholson

Megan Norris & Howard Matthew

Lisa & Michael O’Brien

Mr. & Mrs. Robert Obringer

Mr. & Mrs. Arthur T. O’Reilly

Mr. Tony Osentoski & Mr. David Ogloza

Terry E. Packer

Mark Pasik & Julie Sosnowski

Priscilla & Huel Perkins

GIVING OF $1,500 & MORE

Ms. Jacqueline Adams

William Aerni & Janet Frazis

Dr. & Mrs. Gary S. Assarian

Drs. Richard & Helena Balon

Mr. & Mrs. David W. Berry

Mr. and Mrs. John Bishop

Don & Marilyn Bowerman

Mr. & Mrs. Richard Burstein

Mr. & Mrs. Byron Canvasser

Steve & Geri Carlson

Mr. & Mrs. Robert J. Colombo

Catherine Compton

Mr. & Mrs. David Conrad

Mr. & Mrs. John Courtney

DeLuca Violin Emporium

Gordon & Elaine Didier

Mr. & Mrs. Walter E. Douglas

Mrs. Connie Dugger

Mr. Howard O. Emorey

Burke & Carol Fossee

Dr. & Ms. E. Bruce Geelhoed

Frank & Elyse Germack

Peter & Carrie Perlman

Ms. Alice Pfahlert

Benjamin B. Phillips

Mr. & Mrs. William A. Reed

Mr. & Mrs. Gerrit Reepmeyer

Dr. Claude & Mrs. Sandra Reitelman

Denise Reske

Mr. & Mrs. John Rieckhoff

Mr. & Mrs. Jon Rigoni

Ms. Linda Rodney

Seth & Laura Romine

Michael & Susan Rontal

Mr.◊ & Mrs. Gerald F. Ross

Ms. Elana Rugh

Linda & Leonard Sahn

Ms. Joyce E. Scafe

Ms. Martha A. Scharchburg & Mr. Bruce Beyer

Mr. & Mrs. Donald and Janet Schenk

Shirley Anne & Alan Schlang

Joe & Ashley Schotthoefer

Catherine & Dennis B. Schultz

Sandy ◊ & Alan Schwartz

Mrs. Rosalind B. Sell

Mr. Jeffrey S. Serman

Carlo & Nicole Serraiocco

Shapero Foundation

Bill* & Chris Shell

Dr. Les Siegel & Ellen Lesser Siegel

Dean P. & D. Giles Simmer

Mr. Michael J. Smith & Mrs. Mary C. Williams

Ms. Susan Smith

Shirley R. Stancato

Peter & Patricia Steffes

Mr. Joseph & Mrs. Lois Gilmore

Mr. & Mrs. Stanley Hirt

Jean Hudson

Carolyn & Howard Iwrey

Ms. Nadine Jakobowski

Dr. & Mrs. Leonard B. Johnson

Ms. Judith Jones

Carole Keller

Mr. & Mrs. Gerd H. Keuffel

Elissa & Daniel Kline

Mr. Robert Kosinski

Mr. Sean Maloney & Mrs. Laura PepplerMaloney

Mr. & Mrs. Richard Manning

Steve & Brenda Mihalik

Carolyn & J. Michael Moore

Muramatsu America Flutes

Rachel L. & Joshua F. Opperer

Ken & Geralyn Papa

Mr. & Mrs. Mark H. Peterson

Mrs. Anna M. Ptasznik

Drs. Renato & Daisy Ramos

Dr. Gregory Stephens

Mr. Mark Stewart & Mr. Anonio GamezGalaz

Nancy C. Stocking

Dr. & Mrs. Gerald Stollman

Mr. & Mrs.◊ John Streit

Dr. & Mrs. Choichi Sugawa

David Szymborski & Marilyn Sicklesteel

Dr. Neil Talon

Mr. Rob Tanner

Mr. & Mrs. James W. Throop

Dr. Barry Tigay

Yoni & Rachel Torgow

Barbara & Stuart Trager

Tom & Laura Trudeau

Amanda Van Dusen & Curtis Blessing

Charles ◊ & Sally Van Dusen

Gerald & Teresa Varani

Mrs. Eva von Voss

Mr. William Waak

Dr.◊ & Mrs. Ronald W. Wadle

Mr. Michael A. Walch & Ms. Joyce Keller

Mr. Patrick Webster

David R. Weinberg, Ph.D.

Beverly & Barry Williams

Elizabeth & Michael Willoughby

Rissa & Sheldon Winkelman

Ms. Andrea L. Wulf

Ms. Eileen Wunderlich

Dr. Sandra & Mr. D. Johnny Yee

Mr. & Mrs. Wesley Yee

Ms. Ellen Hill Zeringue

And nine who wish to remain anonymous

Mr. & Mrs. Rodney Rask

Mr. & Mrs. James P. Ryan

Brian & Toni Sanchez-Murphy

Dr. & Mrs. Hershel Sandberg

Ms. Rosemarie Sandel

Dr. & Mrs. Richard S. Schwartz

Mr. Konstantin Shirokinskiy

Mrs. Andreas H. Steglich

Mr. Jon Steiger

Mr. Jt Stout

Ms. Amanda Tew*

David & Lila Tirsell

Dennis & Jennifer Varian

Mr. Barry Webster

Ms. Janet Weir

Janis & William Wetsman/The Wetsman Foundation

Mr. & Mrs.◊ Richard Wigginton

Mr. & Mrs. Michael Zerkich

And one who wishes to remain anonymous

CORPORATE, FOUNDATION, AND GOVERNMENT GIVING

Giving of $500,000 & more

Giving of $200,000 & more

Giving of $100,000 & more

SAMUEL & JEAN FRANKEL FOUNDATION

MARVIN & BETTY DANTO FAMILY FOUNDATION

EMORY M. FORD JR. ENDOWMENT FUND

Giving of $50,000 & more

The Paul M. Angell Family Foundation

Huntington MASCO Corporation

MGM Grand Detroit

Milner Hotels Foundation

National Endowment for the Arts

Penske Foundation, Inc.

Donald R. Simon & Esther Simon Foundation

Matilda R. Wilson Fund

Giving of $20,000 & more

Mandell & Madeleine Berman Foundation

Eleanor & Edsel Ford Fund

Henry Ford II Fund

JPMorgan Chase

Myron P. Leven Foundation

Michigan Arts & Culture Council

Stone Foundation of Michigan

Wolverine Packing

Giving of $10,000 & more

Geoinge Foundation

Honigman LLP

Laskaris-Jamett Advisors of Raymond James

Oliver

Dewey Marcks Foundation

Karen & Drew Peslar Foundation

Sun Communities Inc.

Varnum LLP

Burton A. Zipser & Sandra D. Zipser Foundation

Giving of $5,000 & more

Applebaum Family Philanthropy

Creative Benefit Solutions, LLC

Fisher Funeral Home & Cremation Services

Benson & Edith Ford Fund

Hylant Group

Marjorie & Maxwell Jospey Foundation

KPMG LLP

Meemic

Sigmund & Sophie Rohlik Foundation

Taft Law

Warner Norcross + Judd LLP

Wisne Charitable Foundation

Giving of $1,000 & more

Coffee Express Roasting Company

Jack, Evelyn, & Richard Cole Family Foundation

Frank and Gertrude Dunlap Foundation

Enterprise Holdings Foundation

EY

James & Lynelle Holden Fund

Japan Business Society of Detroit Foundation

Josephine Kleiner Foundation

Dolores & Paul Lavins Foundation

Ludwig Foundation Fund

Madison Electric Company

Michigan First Credit Union

Plante and Moran, PLCC

Renaissance (MI) Chapter of the Links

Louis & Nellie Sieg Foundation

Samuel L. Westerman Foundation

DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

CELEBRATING YOUR LEGACY SUPPORT

BARBARA VAN DUSEN, Honorary Chair

The 1887 Society honors individuals who have made a special legacy commitment to support the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Members of the 1887 Society ensure that future music lovers will continue to enjoy unsurpassed musical experiences by including the DSO in their estate plans.

Ms. Doris L. Adler

Dr. & Mrs. William C. Albert

Mr. & Mrs. Robert A. Allesee ◊

Dr. Lourdes V. Andaya

Mr. & Mrs. Eugene Applebaum ◊

Dr. Augustin & Nancy ◊ Arbulu

Mr. David Assemany & Mr. Jeffery Zook

Ms. Sharon Backstrom

Sally & Donald Baker

Mr. & Mrs. Lee Barthel

Mr. Mark G. Bartnik & Ms. Sandra J. Collins

Stanley A. Beattie

Mr. & Mrs. Mandell L. Berman ◊

Virginia B. Bertram

Mrs. Betty Blair

Ms. Rosalee Bleecker

Mr. Joseph Boner

Gwen & Richard Bowlby

Mr. Harry G. Bowles ◊

Mr. Charles Broh ◊

Mrs. Ellen Brownfain

William & Julia Bugera

CM Carnes

Cynthia Cassell, Ph. D.

Eleanor A. Christie

Ms. Mary F. Christner

Mr. Gary Ciampa

Robert & Lucinda Clement

Drs. William ◊ & Janet Cohn

Lois & Avern ◊ Cohn

Mrs. RoseAnn Comstock◊

Mr. Scott Cook, Jr.

Mr. & Ms. Thomas Cook

Dorothy M. Craig

Mr. & Mrs. John Cruikshank

Julie & Peter Cummings

Joanne Danto & Arnold

Weingarden

Mr. Kevin S. Dennis & Mr. Jeremy J. Zeltzer

Ms. Leslie C. Devereaux

Mr. John Diebel◊

Mr. Stuart Dow

Mr. Roger Dye & Ms. Jeanne A. Bakale

Mr. & Mrs. Robert G. Eidson

Marianne T. Endicott

Ms. Dorothy Fisher

Mrs. Marjorie S. Fisher

Mr. & Mrs. Phillip Wm. Fisher

Dorothy A. & Larry L. Fobes

Samuel & Laura Fogleman

Mr. Emory Ford, Jr.◊ Endowment

Dr. Saul & Mrs. Helen Forman

Barbara Frankel ◊ & Ron Michalak

Herman & Sharon Frankel

Mrs. Rema Frankel ◊

Jane French

Mark & Donna Frentrup

Alan M. Gallatin

Janet M. Garrett

Dr. Byron P.◊ & Marilyn Georgeson

Jim & Nancy Gietzen

Mr. Joseph & Mrs. Lois Gilmore

Victor ◊ & Gale Girolami

Ruth & Al◊ Glancy

David & Paulette Groen

Mr. Gerald Grum ◊

Rosemary Gugino

Mr. & Mrs. William Harriss

Donna & Eugene Hartwig

Ms. Nancy B. Henk

Joseph L. Hickey

Mr. & Mrs. Thomas N. Hitchman

Ronald M. & Carol◊ Horwitz

Andy Howell

Carol Howell

Paul M. Huxley & Cynthia Pasky

David & Sheri Jaffa

Mr. & Mrs. Thomas H. Jeffs II

Mr. & Mrs. Richard J. Jessup

Mr. George G. Johnson

Ms. Carol Johnston

Lenard & Connie Johnston

Carol M. Jonson

Drs. Anthony & Joyce Kales

Faye & Austin ◊ Kanter

Norb ◊ & Carole Keller

Dr. Mark & Mrs. Gail Kelley

June K. Kendall◊

Dimitri ◊ & Suzanne Kosacheff

Douglas Koschik

Mr.◊ & Mrs. Arthur J. Krolikowski

Mary Clippert LaMont

Ms. Sandra Lapadot

Mrs. Bonnie Larson

Ann C. Lawson ◊

Allan S. Leonard

Max Lepler & Rex L. Dotson

Dr. Melvin A. Lester ◊

Mr. & Mrs.◊ Joseph Lile

Eric & Ginny Lundquist

Harold Lundquist ◊ & Elizabeth Brockhaus Lundquist

Roberta Maki

Eileen & Ralph Mandarino

Judy Howe Masserang

Mr. Glenn Maxwell

Ms. Elizabeth Maysa

Mary Joy McMachen, Ph.D.

Judith Mich ◊

Rhoda A. Milgrim

Mr. & Mrs. Eugene A. Miller

John & Marcia Miller

Jerald A. & Marilyn H. Mitchell

Mr.◊ & Mrs. L. William Moll

Shari & Craig Morgan

Ms. I. Surayyah R. Muwwakkil

Joy & Allan Nachman

Geoffrey S. Nathan & Margaret E. Winters

Beverley Anne Pack

David & Andrea Page ◊

Mr. Dale J. Pangonis

Ms. Mary Webber Parker ◊

Mr. David Patria & Ms. Barbara Underwood ◊

Mrs. Sophie Pearlstein ◊

Helen & Wesley Pelling ◊

Dr. William F. Pickard

Mrs. Bernard E. Pincus

Ms. Christina Pitts

Mrs. Robert Plummer ◊

Mr. & Mrs. P. T. Ponta

Mrs. Mary Carol Prokop ◊

Ms. Linda Rankin & Mr. Daniel Graschuck

Mr. & Mrs. Douglas J. Rasmussen

Ms. Elizabeth Reiha ◊

Deborah J. Remer

Mr. & Mrs. Lloyd E. Reuss ◊

Barbara Gage Rex ◊

Ms. Marianne Reye

Lori-Ann Rickard

Katherine D. Rines

Bernard & Eleanor Robertson

Ms. Barbara Robins

Jack & Aviva Robinson ◊

Mr.◊ & Mrs. Gerald F. Ross

Mr. & Mrs. George Roumell

Marjorie Shuman Saulson

Ruth Saur Trust

Mr. & Mrs. Donald and Janet Schenk

Ms. Yvonne Schilla

David W. Schmidt ◊

Mr. & Mrs. Fred Secrest ◊

Mr. & Mrs. Robert L. Shaffer ◊

Patricia Finnegan Sharf

Ms. Marla K. Shelton

Edna J. Shin

Ms. June Siebert

Mr. & Mrs. Donald R. Simon ◊

Dr. Melissa J. Smiley & Dr. Patricia A. Wren

David & Sandra Smith

Ms. Marilyn Snodgrass ◊

Mrs. Margot Sterren ◊

Mr. & Mrs. Walter Stuecken

Mr.◊ & Mrs. Alexander C. Suczek

David Szymborski & Marilyn Sicklesteel

Alice ◊ & Paul Tomboulian

Roger & Tina Valade

Charles ◊ & Sally Van Dusen

Mrs. Richard C. Van Dusen

Mr. & Mrs. Melvin VanderBrug

Mr. & Mrs. George C. Vincent ◊

Mr. Sanford Waxer ◊

Christine & Keith C. Weber

Mr. Herman Weinreich ◊

John ◊ & Joanne Werner

Mr.◊ & Mrs. Arthur Wilhelm

Mr. Robert E. Wilkins ◊

Mrs. Michel Williams

Ms. Nancy Williams ◊

Mr. Robert S. Williams & Ms. Treva Womble

Ms. Barbara Wojtas

Elizabeth B. Work◊

Dr. & Mrs. Clyde Wu ◊

Ms. Andrea L. Wulf

Mrs. Judith G. Yaker

Milton & Lois Zussman ◊

And five who wish to remain anonymous

The DSO’s Planned Giving Council recognizes the region’s leading financial and estate professionals whose current and future clients may involve them in their decision to make a planned gift to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Members play a critical role in shaping the future of the DSO through ongoing feedback, working with their clients, supporting philanthropy and attending briefings twice per year.

Linda Wasserman, Chair

Mrs. Katana H. Abbott*

Mr. Joseph Aviv

Mr. Christopher Ballard*

Ms. Jessica B. Blake, Esq.

Ms. Rebecca J. Braun

Mr. Timothy Compton

Ms. Wendy Zimmer Cox*

Mr. Robin D. Ferriby*

Mrs. Jill Governale*

Mr. Henry Grix*

Mrs. Julie Hollinshead, CFA

Mr. Mark W. Jannott, CTFA

Ms. Jennifer Jennings*

Ms. Dawn Jinsky*

Mrs. Shirley Kaigler*

Mr. Robert E. Kass*

Mr. Christopher L. Kelly

Mr. Bernard S. Kent

Ms. Yuh Suhn Kim

Mr. Henry P. Lee*

Mrs. Marguerite Munson Lentz*

Mr. J. Thomas MacFarlane

Mr. Christopher M. Mann*

Mr. Curtis J. Mann

Mrs. Mary K. Mansfield

Mr. Mark E. Neithercut*

Mr. Steve Pierce

Ms. Deborah J. Renshaw, CFP

Mr. James P. Spica

Mr. David M. Thoms*

Mr. John N. Thomson, Esq.

Mr. Jason Tinsley*

Mr. William Vanover

Mr. William Winkler

*Executive Committee Member

Share the music of the DSO with future generations

INCLUDE THE DSO AS A BENEFICIARY IN YOUR WILL

Remembering the DSO in your estate plans will support the sustainability and longevity of our orchestra, so that tomorrow’s audience will continue to be inspired through unsurpassed musical experiences. If you value the role of the DSO—in your life and in our community—

please consider making a gift through your will, trust, life insurance, or other deferred gift.

To learn more please call Alexander Kapordelis at 313.576.5198 or email akapordelis@dso.org

Our Home on Woodward Avenue

The Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center is one of Detroit’s most notable cultural campuses. The Max includes three main performance spaces: historic Orchestra Hall, the Peter D. and Julie F. Cummings Cube (The Cube), and Robert A. and Maggie Allesee Hall, plus our outdoor green space, Sosnick Courtyard. All are accessible from the centrally located William Davidson Atrium. The Jacob Bernard Pincus Music Education Center is home to the DSO’s Wu Family Academy and other music education offerings. The DSO is also proud to offer The Max as a performance and administrative space for several local partners.

Parking

The DSO Parking Deck is located at 81 Parsons Street. Self-parking in the garage costs $12 for most concerts (credit card payment only). Accessible parking is available on the first and second floors of the garage. Note that accessible parking spaces go quickly, so please arrive early!

Valet parking is also available for all patrons (credit card payment only), and a golf cart-style DSO Courtesy Shuttle is available for all patrons who need assistance entering The Max.

What Should I Wear?

You do you! We don’t have a dress code, and you’ll see a variety of outfit styles. Business casual attire is common, but sneakers and jeans are just as welcome as suits and ties.

Food and Drink

Concessions are available for purchase on the first floor of the William Davidson Atrium at most concerts, and light bites are available in the Paradise Lounge on the second floor. Bars are located on the first and third floors of the William Davidson Atrium and offer canned sodas (pop, if you prefer), beer, wine, and specialty cocktail mixes.

Patrons are welcome to bring drinks to their seats at all performances except Friday morning Coffee Concerts; food is not allowed in Orchestra Hall. Please note that outside food and beverages are prohibited.

Accessibility

Accessibility matters. Whether you need ramp access for your wheelchair or are looking for sensory-friendly concert options, we are thinking of you.

• The Max has elevators, barrierfree restrooms, and accessible seating on each level. Security staff are available at all entrances to help patrons requiring extra assistance in and out of vehicles.

• The DSO’s Sennheiser MobileConnect hearing assistance system is available for all performances in Orchestra Hall. You can use your own mobile device and headphones by downloading the Sennheiser MobileConnect app, or borrow a device by visiting the Box Office.

• Available at the Box Office during all events at The Max, the DSO offers sensory toolkits to use free of charge, courtesy of the Mid-Michigan Autism Association. The kits contain items that can help calm or stimulate a person with a sensory processing

THE MAX M. & MARJORIE S. FISHER MUSIC CENTER

3711 Woodward Avenue

Detroit, MI 48201

Box Office: 313.576.5111

Group Sales: 313.576.5111

Administrative Offices: 313.576.5100

Facilities Rental Info: 313.576.5131

Visit the DSO online at dso.org

For general inquiries, please email info@dso.org

difference, including noise-reducing headphones and fidget toys. The DSO also has a quiet room, available for patrons to use at every performance

• A golf cart-style DSO Courtesy Shuttle is available for all patrons who need assistance entering The Max.

• Check out the Accessibility tab on dso.org/yourexperience to learn more

WiFi

Complimentary WiFi is available throughout The Max. Look for the DSOGuest network on your device. And be sure to tag your posts with #IAMDSO!

Shop DSO Merchandise

Visit shopdso.org to purchase DSO and Civic Youth Ensembles merchandise anywhere, anytime!

The Herman and

Sharon Frankel Donor Lounge

Governing Members can enjoy complimentary beverages, appetizers, and desserts in the Donor Lounge, open 90 minutes prior to each concert through the end of intermission. For more information on becoming a Governing Member, contact Leslie Groves at 313.576.5451 or lgroves@dso.org.

Gift Certificates

Gift certificates are available in any denomination and may be used towards tickets to any DSO performance. Please contact the Box Office for more information.

Rent The Max

Elegant and versatile, The Max is an ideal setting for a variety of events and performances: weddings, corporate gatherings, meetings, concerts, and more. Visit dso.org/rentals or call 313.576.5131 for more information.

POLICIES SEATING

Please note that all patrons (of any age) must have a ticket to attend concerts. If the music has already started, an usher will ask you to wait until a break before seating you. The same applies if you leave Orchestra Hall and re-enter. Most performances are broadcast (with sound) on a TV in the William Davidson Atrium.

TICKETS, EXCHANGES, AND CONCERT CANCELLATIONS

PHONES

Your neighbors and the musicians appreciate your cooperation in turning your phone to silent and your brightness down while you’re keeping an eye on texts from the babysitter or looking up where a composer was born!

PHOTOGRAPHY & RECORDING

To report an emergency during a concert, immediately notify an usher or DSO staff member. If an usher or DSO staff member is not available, please contact DSO Security at 313.576.5199

n All sales are final and non-refundable. n Even though we’ll miss you, we understand that plans can change unexpectedly, so the DSO offers flexible exchange and ticket donation options.

n Please contact the Box Office to exchange tickets and for all ticketing questions or concerns.

n The DSO is a show-must-go-on orchestra. In the rare event a concert is cancelled, our website and social media feeds will announce the cancellation, and patrons will be notified of exchange options.

We love a good selfie (please share your experiences using @DetroitSymphony and #IAMDSO) but remember that photography can be distracting to musicians and audience members. Please be cautious and respectful if you wish to take photos. Flash photography, video recording, tripods, and cameras with detachable lenses are strictly prohibited.

NOTE: By entering event premises, you consent to having your likeness featured in photography, audio, and video captured by the DSO, and release the DSO from any liability connected with these materials. Visit dso.org for more.

SMOKING

Smoking and vaping are not allowed anywhere in The Max.

A GREATER WORLD STANDS BEFORE YOU. The loudest sound in the world is the whisper that comes from inside, pushing you to achieve possibilities that once seemed impossible. A cancer diagnosis can be the start of a new journey; not an ending. In the fight, you want every advantage to beat the disease. There is no bigger advantage than having the experts at Karmanos Cancer Institute in your corner. Cancer is a beginning.

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF

EXECUTIVE OFFICE

Erik Rönmark President and CEO

James B. and Ann V. Nicholson Chair

Jill Elder Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer

Linda Lutz

Vice President and Chief Financial and Administrative Officer

Joy Crawford

Executive Assistant to the President and CEO

Serena Donadoni Executive Assistant to the Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer

Anne Parsons ◊ President Emeritus

ARTISTIC OPERATIONS

ARTISTIC PLANNING

Jessica Ruiz

Senior Director of Artistic Planning

Jessica Slais Creative Director of Popular and Special Programming

Claudia Scalzetti Artistic Coordinator

Lindzy Volk Artist Liaison

LIVE FROM ORCHESTRA HALL

Marc Geelhoed Executive Producer of Live from Orchestra Hall

ORCHESTRA OPERATIONS

Kathryn Ginsburg General Manager

Patrick Peterson Director of Orchestra Personnel

Dennis Rottell Stage Manager

Benjamin Brown Production Manager

Nolan Cardenas Auditions and Operations Coordinator

Benjamin Tisherman Manager of Orchestra Personnel

LIBRARY

Robert Stiles Principal Librarian

Ethan Allen Assistant Principal Librarian

Bronwyn Hagerty Orchestra and Training Programs Librarian

ADVANCEMENT

Alex Kapordelis Senior Director of Advancement

Audrey Kelley Director of Executive and Board Operations

Colleen McLellan Director of Institutional and Legislative Partnerships

Cassidy Schmid Director of Individual Giving

Amanda Tew Director, Advancement Operations

Leslie Groves

Major Gift Officer

Ali Huber Signature Events Manager

Jane Koelsch Data and Research Specialist

Juanda Pack Advancement Benefits Concierge

Susan Queen Gift Officer, Corporate Giving

Joseph Sabatella Fulfillment Coordinator

Alice Sheppard Event Coordinator

Shay Vaughn Major Gift Officer

BUILDING OPERATIONS

Ken Waddington Senior Director of Facilities and Engineering

Cedric Allen EVS Technician

Teresa Beachem Chief Engineer

Demetris Fisher Manager of Environmental Services (EVS)

William Guilbault EVS Technician

Robert Hobson Chief Maintenance Technician

Aaron Kirkwood EVS Technician

Daniel Speights EVS Technician

EVENT AND PATRON EXPERIENCE

Christina Williams Director of Patron and Event Experience

Neva Kirksey Manager of Events and Rentals

Alison Reed, CVA Manager of Volunteer and Patron Experience

COMMUNICATIONS

Matt Carlson

Senior Director, Communications and Media Relations

Sarah Smarch Director of Content and Storytelling

Natalie Berger Video Content Specialist

LaToya Cross Communications and Advancement Content Specialist

Hannah Engwall Public Relations Manager

Francesca Leo Public Relations Coordinator

COMMUNITY

LEARNING

&

Karisa Antonio

Senior Director of Social Innovation and Learning

Damien Crutcher

Managing Director of Detroit Harmony

Debora Kang

Director of Education

Clare Valenti

Director of Community Engagement

Kiersten Alcorn

Manager of Community Engagement

Chris DeLouis Training Ensembles Operations Coordinator

Joanna Goldstein

Manager of Programs and Student Development

Kendra Sachs Training Ensembles Recruitment and Communications Coordinator

FINANCE

Agnes Postma Senior Director of Accounting and Finance

Adela Löw

Director of Accounting and Financial Reporting

Sandra Mazza

Senior Accountant, Business Operations

Hoang Duong

Staff Accountant

Dina Hardeman-McCoy Payroll and Benefits Accountant

Nick Mangrum Accounting Clerk Assistant

HUMAN RESOURCES

Hannah Lozon Senior Director of Talent and Culture

Jacquez Gray Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Angela Stough Director of Human Resources

Shuntia Perry Recruitment and Employee Experience Specialist

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

William Shell Director of Information Technology

Pat Harris Systems Administrator

Michelle Koning Web Manager

Aaron Tockstein Database Administrator

MARKETING & AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT

Charles Buchanan

Senior Director of Marketing and Audience Development

Teresa Alden Director of Growth and Acquisition

Rebecca Villarreal Director of Subscriptions and Loyalty

Sharon Gardner Carr Assistant Manager of Tessitura and Ticketing Operations

Jay Holladay Brand Graphic Designer

Crystal Mann Loyalty Marketing Strategist

LaHeidra Marshall Marketing Projects Specialist

Connor Mehren Digital Marketing Strategist

Declan O’Neal Marketing and Promotions Coordinator

Kristin Pagels-Quinlan Content Marketing Strategist

PATRON SALES & SERVICE

Michelle Marshall Director of Patron Sales and Service

Rollie Edwards Patron Sales and Service Specialist

James Sabatella Group & Tourism Sales Manager

SAFETY & SECURITY

George Krappmann Director of Safety and Security

Johnnie Scott Safety and Security Manager

Willie Coleman Security Officer

Joyce Dorsey Security Officer

Sarah McClure Security Officer

Tony Morris Security Officer

PERFORMANCE

Fall • 2023-2024 Season

Hannah Engwall, editor hengwall@dso.org

•

ECHO PUBLICATIONS, INC. Tom Putters, publisher James Van Fleteren, designer echopublications.com

•

Cover design by Jay Holladay

•

To advertise in Performance: call 248.582.9690 or email info@echopublications.com

Read Performance anytime! dso.org/performance

Activities of the DSO are made possible in part with the support of the Michigan Arts & Culture Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.

UPCOMING CONCERTS & EVENTS

Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony

Dec 7–9

TICKETS & INFO

313.576.5111 or dso.org

Voctave: The Spirit of the Season

Dec 8

Bach & Beyond

Jan 11–14

PVS CLASSICAL SERIES MARSALIS’ BLUES SYMPHONY

Fri, Dec 1 – Sun, Dec 3

PVS CLASSICAL SERIES TCHAIKOVSKY’S SIXTH SYMPHONY

Thu, Dec 7 – Sat, Dec 9

SPECIAL EVENT VOCTAVE: THE SPIRIT OF THE SEASON

Fri, Dec 8

TINY TOTS (Ages 2-5) FOX & BRANCH

Sat, Dec 9

YOUNG PEOPLE’S FAMILY CONCERT SERIES (Ages 6+) THE SNOWMAN

Sat, Dec 9

chamber recital BACH’S GOLDBERG VARIATIONS

Mon, Dec 11

SPECIAL EVENT HOME ALONE IN CONCERT

Wed, Dec 13

PNC POPS SERIES HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Fri, Dec 15 – Sun, Dec 17

SPECIAL EVENT ELF IN CONCERT

Fri, Dec 22 – Sat, Dec 23

WILLIAM DAVIDSON NEIGHBORHOOD CONCERT SERIES BACH & BEYOND

Thurs, Jan 11 – Sun, Jan 14

CHAMBER RECITAL BRUCE & BRAHMS

Tues, Jan 16

PVS CLASSICAL SERIES BEETHOVEN & SIBELIUS

Thurs, Jan 18 – Sat, Jan 20

WILLIAM DAVIDSON

NEIGHBORHOOD CONCERT SERIES ELGAR & MOZART

Thurs, Jan 25 – Sun, Jan 28

For complete program listings, including Live from Orchestra Hall webcast dates, visit dso.org