Welcome

Dear Friends, Welcome to Orchestra Hall for the 2022-2023 season by your Detroit Symphony Orchestra! Thank you to all who returned last year, and to those who are coming back for the first time since the pandemic began—we missed you! If this is your first experience with the DSO, we thank you for choosing to spend your time with us and hope you join us again soon.

The DSO’s new season of PVS Classical Series concerts under Music Director Jader Bignamini promises spectacular performances across a wide spectrum of composers and guest artists. This fall, Jader conducts Mahler’s mighty Symphony No. 2 for the first time and continues his survey of works by Florence Price and Joseph Bologne/Chevalier de Saint-Georges. The Mahler 2 concerts will feature a pair of outstanding singers, soprano Janai Brugger and mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, and Jader will be joined by acclaimed pianists Emanuel Ax and Daniil Trifonov for the second piano concertos of Chopin and Brahms, respectively. We also welcome back three supremely talented guest conductors, Matthias Pintscher, Enrique Mazzola, and Jonathon Heyward, who in July was named music director of the Baltimore Symphony one week after making his DSO debut on the William Davidson Neighborhood Concert Series.

Our PNC Pops Series is also strong, with Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik leading two programs this fall—Prohibition and Sci-Fi Spectacular—and former Associate Conductor Michelle Merrill returns to Orchestra Hall for our annual Home for the Holidays concerts. Trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, the DSO’s Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair, kicks off our Paradise Jazz Series, with highlights in the coming months including Arturo O’Farrill with the Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble and A Charlie Brown Christmas with Cyrus Chestnut and Friends. Young People’s Family Concerts offer Halloween at Hogwarts and Tale of the Firebird, and Tiny Tots—for our youngest concertgoers—returns to The Cube for the first time since 2019.

With such a huge variety, we have made it even easier to experience all the DSO has to offer while also providing a high level of scheduling flexibility. These days, we understand it’s harder for some of you to commit to a big subscription of concerts over a long period of time. So, with our Create Your Own series, you can pick three or four concerts with easy return and exchange options if your plans change. And for the first time, you can select concerts across our many different series. Visit dso.org/create to get started.

Lastly, join us in extending a big Detroit welcome this fall to six new DSO musicians who all won their auditions over the past year: Concertmaster Robyn Bollinger (Katherine Tuck Chair), Violins Elizabeth Furuta and Daniel Kim, Principal Bassoon Conrad Cornelison (Byron and Dorothy Gerson Chair), Bass Trombone Adam Rainey, and Flute Fellow Shantanique Moore. We also welcome new DSO Assistant Conductor and Detroit Symphony Youth Orchestra Music Director Na’Zir McFadden (Phillip and Lauren Fisher Community Ambassador). Learn more about these wonderful musicians at dso.org and read on for this issue’s cover story introducing the DSO’s new concertmaster.

Enjoy your concert!

Erik Rönmark President and CEO Mark Davidoff, Chair Board of Directors