DSO to Launch Season with Free Live Stream

DSO Music Director Jader Bignamini (courtesy of Opus 3 Artists)

Readers may recall that, during the early days of lockdown conditions, one of this site’s first ventures into streamed performances involved the Live from Orchestra Hall archive of online performances by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO). This was the time when DSO was awaiting the arrival of conductor Jader Bignamini to begin serving as Music Director by launching the 2020–2021 season. As a result, I wrote an article about a video of a performance by Bignamini leading the DSO on October 18, 2019.

Tonight Bignamini will kick off his first full season in Detroit, and the performance will be given a free live stream. This will be a celebratory occasion for which Bignamini has decided to “pull out all the stops” to provide a rich account of the ensemble’s capabilities. The second half of the program will be devoted to the two best-known tone poems by Ottorino Respighi, “Fountains of Rome” and “Pines of Rome,” both of which abound with the rhetoric of spectacle. They will be preceded by an interview during the intermission at which Bignamini will discuss his own thoughts about these compositions.

The first half of the program will feature Jean Sibelius’ Opus 47 violin concerto in D minor with violin soloist Ray Chen. The opening selection will be Jessie Montgomery’s “Banner,” scored for solo string quartet and string ensemble, composed under commissions by the Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation. For those unfamiliar with this music, it was created as a response to the 200th anniversary of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” When Anthony Tommasini wrote about this piece for the New York Times in 2014, he credited the music with “daringly transform[ing] the anthem, folding it into a teeming score that draws upon American folk and protest songs, and anthems from around the world, including Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban, to create a musical melting pot.” Some readers may recall that, this past June, Joseph Young conducted this piece at the beginning of the program he had prepared for the San Francisco Symphony.

The concert will begin at 5 p.m. (Pacific time) this evening, Saturday, October 9. The performance will be live-streamed through the DSO Facebook Web page. DSO also has its own Web page for viewing, but this will require registering for the chat space. There will be no charge for registration. If there are any readers in Detroit, they should be informed that tickets are still on sale for this concert, as well as tomorrow afternoon’s matinee performance.