Detroit Symphony Orchestra

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Concert hall at the Max M. Fisher Music Center

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) is a symphony orchestra based in Detroit , Michigan , USA . Its main venue is the Orchestra Hall at the Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit's Midtown Neighborhood. In addition to the normal concert series, the DSO also organizes free concerts for the general public. The DSO can also be seen and heard on the Internet.

history

The DSO gave the first concert of its first subscription season on Monday, December 19, 1887 at 8:00 p.m. in the Detroit Opera House . The conductor was Rudolph Speil . A large number of conductors followed him in the following years until Hugo Kalsow was appointed. The orchestra ceased operations in 1910. The orchestra resumed in 1914 when ten Detroit women socially committed paid $ 100  each to the organization and pledged to find an additional 100 subscribers. They soon hired a music director, Weston Gales , a 27-year-old church organist from Boston, who gave the first performance of the reunited orchestra at the old Detroit Opera House on February 26, 1914.

The appointment of the Russian pianist Ossip Gabrilowitsch as music director in 1918 brought the new orchestra a higher reputation. He was a friend of the composers Gustav Mahler and Sergei Rachmaninow . Gabrilowitsch asked for a new auditorium to be built before he came. The Orchestra Hall was built in 1919 for the new music director in four months and 23 days. Under Gabrilowitsch, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra quickly became one of the most prominent orchestras in the country and played with the leading artists of its time. In 1922, the orchestra gave the world's first radio broadcast of a symphony orchestra concert with Gabrilowitsch as conductor and guest artist Artur Schnabel at the piano. From 1934 to 1942, the orchestra performed for millions of concertgoers across the country as the official orchestra of The Ford Sunday Evening Hour (later The Ford Symphony Hour ), the nationwide radio show.

In 1939, three years after Gabrilowitsch's untimely death, the orchestra moved from the Orchestra Hall to the Masonic Temple . This became necessary because of the financial problems in the wake of the global economic crisis . In the 1940s, the orchestra split up twice and moved to three different venues. In 1946 the orchestra moved to the Wilson Theater , which was renamed the Music Hall . In 1956 the orchestra moved to the Ford Auditorium on the Detroit River waterfront , where it would remain for the next 33 years. The orchestra once again enjoyed national prestige under Music Director Paul Paray and won numerous awards for its 70 recordings under the Mercury Records label . Paray was followed by the famous music directors Sixten Ehrling , Aldo Ceccato , Antal Doráti and Günther Herbig .

In pop music, the members of the orchestra contributed to many classic hits of the 1960s with their string recordings on Motown Records . This was mostly done under the direction of the well-known concertmaster Gordon Staples . Two Motown albums showed the strings with the Motown rhythm of the Funk Brothers . The combined ensemble became known as the San Remo Golden Strings and was able to achieve a placement in the Billboard Top 100 with the two hit singles "Hungry for Love" (# 3 Adult Contemporary) and "I'm Satisfied" . 1966 were recorded with the members of the orchestra in Motown Studio on West-Grand-Boulevard with the Supremes the setting of the ABC television documentary "Anatomy of Pop: The Music Explosion". The song they played is the hit "My World Is Empty Without You" by the songwriter trio Holland-Dozier-Holland . The San Remo Golden Strings released two albums, "Hungry for Love" (1967) and "Swing" (1968), both of which were released under the Gordy label (a subsidiary of Motown).

In 1970 the DSO founded the Detroit Symphony Youth Orchestra as a young ensemble under Paul Freeman .

In 1989 the Detroit Symphony Orchestra returned to Orchestra Hall after a 20-year restoration period . Further renovations to the hall were completed in 2003, including a $ 60 million addition, a concert hall, and an educational wing, the Max M. Fisher Music Center . A High School for Fine Arts , the Detroit School of Arts , was included in the DSO campus of 2004.

Neeme Järvi became music director in 1990 and remained so until 2005, the second longest term in the orchestra's history. Järvi is now Music Director Emeritus. After Järvi left, the DSO appointed Peter Oundjian as Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Advisor for a period from 2006 to 2008. After a five-year search, on October 7, 2007, the DSO announced the appointment of Leonard Slatkin as the twelfth music director from 2008 onwards. In February 2010, the orchestra announced the extension of Slatkin's contract as DSO music director beyond the 2012-2013 season. Slatkin accepted a pay cut to relieve the orchestra's financial difficulties. After a further contract extension in December 2015, Slatkin worked as music director until the end of the 2017-2018 season, after which he was appointed the first honorary conductor in the orchestra's history.

Anne Parsons, an art administrator with links to the national funding community, has been President of the DSO since 2004.

Recordings

The symphony orchestra has produced many recordings on the Victor, London, Decca, Mercury, RCA, Chandos and DSO labels. The DSO recording of Igor Stravinsky's The Spring Consecration was the first CD to win the Grand Prix du Disque Award . The DSO is currently under contract with the Naxos label . Recent and upcoming releases include works by Sergei Rachmaninov, Aaron Copland and John Williams . In early 2010 began George Blood Audio and Video in Philadelphia trying to dub the recordings from the concert season 1959-1960 on digital media.

Musicians' strike 2010–2011 and its aftermath

A labor dispute caused the DSO musicians to go on strike on October 4, 2010. On February 19, 2011, after the musicians had rejected a final offer on February 15, 2011, DSO management announced that it would suspend the remainder of the 2010-2011 concert season. After a six-month strike, the musicians and management reached an agreement on April 3, 2011. Concerts resumed on April 9, 2011 with a weekend of free concerts. DSO tickets for the first concert weekend were $ 20. The DSO set similar "patron-minded pricing" (reduced prices for regular customers) for the 2011–2012 season for most seats for all classical concerts at US $ 15 or US $ 25.

A year after the strike, a member of the musicians' negotiating committee, violinist Marian Tanau, spoke to the International Committee of the Fourth International about the new conditions. He noted the loss of significant members of the orchestra and the predominance of substitute musicians, which resulted in a slight loss of quality. Tanau claimed that the 30% wage cut and loss of prestige meant the DSO was no longer among the "best of the best."

Since the DSO returned to the stage in April 2011, the orchestra has reorganized its activities under the umbrella term “OneDSO”, with new work in areas such as community engagement and digital accessibility. The Neighborhood series attracted new subscribers to the orchestra in venues around Metro-Detroit and helped increase overall subscription growth by nearly 25% from 2011 to 2014. In 2013, the DSO returned to Carnegie Hall for the first time in 17 years to play for the music festival that spring. In January 2014 the DSO announced that, eight months before the old contract expired, the board, musicians and management had agreed on a new three-year contract with improved working conditions.

On April 10, 2011, DSO Live launched the orchestra's first free internet broadcast from Orchestra Hall . During the classical weekends, DSO concerts are streamed live to a worldwide audience. On October 9, 2010, the DSO extended the offer to mobile devices with the DSO-to-Go app for iOS and Android devices. More than 550,000 spectators in over 100 countries saw the concerts live from the Orchestra Hall . On October 7, 2012, the DSO organized its first pop concert “Cirque de la Symphonie”, which was also broadcast to the building for the general public using a “MaxCast” screen.

New era after 2018

After guest conducting in June 2018 and October 2019, the Italian Jader Bignamini was appointed Slatkin's successor and thus the orchestra's new music director in January 2020. At the same time it was announced that his term of office will begin in September 2020 and that his contract will initially run for six years.

Music directors

See also

literature

  • Peter Gavrilovich and Bill McGraw: The Detroit almanac. 300 years of life in the Motor City . Detroit Free Press, Detroit 2001, ISBN 0-937247-34-0 (English).
  • Anne Mischakoff Heiles: America's concertmasters . In: Detroit monographs in musicology, studies in music . Harmonie Park Press, Sterling Heights 2007, ISBN 978-0-89990-139-8 (English).
  • Arthur M. Woodford: This is Detroit 1701-2001 . Wayne State University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8143-2914-4 (English).

Remarks

  1. ↑ is $ 2,634 today, adjusted for inflation
  2. ↑ is $ 22.69 today, adjusted for inflation

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mark Stryker: Joyful noise: Jarvi and DSO reunite at Orchestra Hall. In: freep.com. Detroit Free Press, December 15, 2014, accessed May 15, 2017 (American English, newspaper article).
  2. ^ Mark Stryker: Oundjian takes big DSO role. Toronto maestro to conduct, advise. In: freep.com. Detroit Free Press, June 20, 2006; archived from the original on October 30, 2014 ; Retrieved December 6, 2015 (American English, newspaper article).
  3. ^ Mark Stryker: World-class maestro heading to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. In: freep.com. Detroit Free Press, October 8, 2007, accessed May 8, 2014 (American English, newspaper article).
  4. ^ Mark Stryker: Slatkin extends contract with Detroit Symphony Orchestra, takes pay cut. In: freep.com. Detroit Free Press, February 11, 2010; archived from the original on December 9, 2015 ; Retrieved May 8, 2014 (American English, newspaper article).
  5. ^ Leonard Slatkin, DSO Forge New Deal. In: dso.org. Detroit Symphony Orchestra, December 3, 2015, archived from the original on December 8, 2015 ; accessed on April 21, 2020 (English, press release).
  6. ↑ Mark Stryker: DSO maestro Slatkin to step down in 2018. In: Detroit Free Press. December 6, 2015 (English).;
  7. ^ Mark Stryker: DSO musicians go on strike. In: freep.com. Detroit Free Press October 4, 2010, archived from the original September 24, 2015 ; Retrieved December 1, 2010 (American English, newspaper article).
  8. ^ Mark Stryker: DSO, striking musicians reach tentative agreement. In: freep.com. Detroit Free Press April 4, 2011, archived from the original May 12, 2014 ; Retrieved May 8, 2014 (American English, newspaper article).
  9. ^ Musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Ratify New Contract. In: detroitsymphony.com. Detroit Symphony Orchestra, April 8, 2011, archived from the original on July 13, 2012 ; accessed on May 8, 2014 (English, press release).
  10. ↑ Shannon Jones: We went on strike because we didn't want the orchestra to be destroyed. Interview with Detroit Symphony violinist. In: wsws.org. World Socialist Web Site, October 10, 2011, accessed May 8, 2014 (English, newspaper article).
  11. ^ IM: Detroit Symphony Orchestra Marks Three Years of Subscription Growth. In: internationalmusician.org. July 21, 2014, accessed May 15, 2017 .
  12. ↑ James R. Oestreich: Detroit Stands Up for Ives, and Stands In for Oregon. In: The New York Times . Retrieved May 13, 2013, December 6, 2015 (American English, newspaper article).
  13. ^ Mark Stryker: DSO musicians ratify 3-year contract - this time, without public drama. In: Detroit Free Press. January 15, 2014, archived from the original on January 16, 2014 ; accessed on April 21, 2020 (English).
  14. ↑ Michael Cooper and Rebecca Schmid: Detroit Symphony Dives Headlong Into Streaming. In: The New York Times . March 21, 2014. Retrieved May 15, 2017 (American English, newspaper article).
  15. ↑ Jader Bignamini named Music Director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. In: dso.org. January 22, 2020, accessed April 21, 2020 .
  16. ^ Brian McCollum: A new Detroit maestro: DSO names young Italian conductor Jader Bignamini as music director. In: Detroit Free Press. January 22, 2020, accessed April 21, 2020 .