Jader Bignamini was introduced as the 18th music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in January 2020, commencing with the 2020-2021 season. He kicked off his tenure as DSO Music Director with the launch of DSO Digital Concerts in September 2020, conducting works by Copland, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, and Saint-Georges. His infectious passion and artistic excellence set the tone for the season 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.

In December, Bignamini returned to Detroit to lead a triumphant performance of Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst, Strauss’s Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, “Eroica.” He returned again in May 2021 to conduct four programs including performances with violinist Midori and pianist Orli Shaham.

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, Jader 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 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 Trovatoreand 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.

Serbian-French violinist Nemanja Radulović champions the power of music to bring people together with his unique energy and candour, thrilling virtuosity, depth of expression, and adventurous programming. His hotly-anticipated BBC Proms debut in 2019 with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Kirill Karabits featured a Barber Violin Concerto played with "lyric delicacy and last-movement super-virtuosity" (The Times).

Signed exclusively to Warner Classics in 2021, Radulović’s debut album on the label–ROOTS–represents a beguiling sonic journey evoked by his many influences and inspirations to date. His previous album, Baïka, one of a string of nine successful recordings made with Deutsche Grammophon and the Universal Music Group labels, was declared "a fiery whirlwind of an album…" by BBC Music Magazine, which awarded it 5 stars and the coveted Critics’ Choice Award. Gramophone Magazine praised Baïka’s ‘"imaginative pairings," saying that "…Radulović dispatches [the Khachaturian Violin Concerto] with energy and firepower…" and that "…with Radulović as narrator, this is an album with entrancing tales to tell."

Winner of the 2015 Echo Klassik Award for Newcomer of the Year, Radulović is an artist who seeks to broaden the boundaries of classical music. He has amassed a legion of loyal fans around the world who have enjoyed his performances with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Philharmonia, Munich Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony in Tokyo, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Orquesta Nacional de España, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hanover, WDR Sinfonieorchester in Cologne, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Belgian National Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI in Turin, Orchestra della Toscana, Tampere Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Copenhagen Phil, Geneva Camerata, Queensland Symphony, Macao Orchestra, and the Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa.

Radulović’s recent and forthcoming highlights include engagements with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Dusseldorf Symphony, RTE National Symphony in Dublin, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg; an extensive UK tour with the Gavle Symphony Orchestra and Jaime Martin; sold-out performances with his ensemble Double Sens at such celebrated festivals as the Folle Journée de Nantes and the Chorégies d’Orange and in venues such as the Paris Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Berlin Philharmonie; and the opening concert on the Jeunesse Musicale series at the Vienna Konzerthaus. 
Radulović has an equal passion for the intimacy of chamber music, and is an increasingly active recitalist on the international circuit. He has performed at such notable venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonie, both the Salle Pleyel and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Athens Megaron, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and the Melbourne Recital Centre in Australia. His many recital partners include Marielle Nordmann, Laure Favre-Kahn, and Susan Manoff.

Radulović also regularly undertakes a play/direct role with his chamber orchestra, Double Sens, which was recently celebrated for their unprecedented musical film entitled Unique – an artist, a place, a concert, which featured selections by Bach and from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, as well as a new arrangement by frequent collaborator Aleksandar Sedlar of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, all shot and recorded live at the famed Neolithic site in Carnac, France. Their other recent recordings include Paganini Fantasy (2013), Journey East (2014), BACH (2016), Tchaikovsky (2017), and Baïka (2018).

Radulović’s recognition for his work in classical music includes International Revelation of the Year by the Victoires de la musique classique in 2005, an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Arts in Niš, Serbia, and an ELLE Style Award for Musician of the Year in 2015. He was the winner of several international violin competitions, such as Joseph Joachim in Hanover, George Enescu in Bucharest, and Stradivarius in Cremona.

Born in Serbia in 1985, Radulović studied at the Faculty of Arts and Music in Belgrade, the Saarlandes Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Saarbrücken, the Stauffer Academy in Cremona with Salvatore Accardo, and the Conservatoire de Paris with Patrice Fontanarosa.

Image courtesy of Jiyang Chen

Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. Her music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry, and social consciousness, making her an acute interpreter of 21st-century American sound and experience. Her profoundly felt works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” (The Washington Post). 

Montgomery was born and raised in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1980s during a time when the neighborhood was at a major turning point in its history. Artists gravitated to the hotbed of artistic experimentation and community development. Her parents–her father a musician, her mother a theater artist and storyteller–were engaged in the activities of the neighborhood and regularly brought Montgomery to rallies, performances, and parties where neighbors, activists, and artists gathered to celebrate and support the movements of the time. It is from this unique experience that Jessie has created a life that merges composing, performance, education, and advocacy. 

Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. Some recent highlights include Shift, Change, Turn (2019) commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Coincident Dances (2018) for the Chicago Sinfonietta, Caught by the Wind (2016) for the Albany Symphony and the American Music Festival, and Banner (2014)–written to mark the 200th anniversary of The Star Spangled Banner–for The Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation. 

Since 1999, Montgomery has been affiliated with The Sphinx Organization, which supports young African American and Latinx string players and has served as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the Organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble. She was a two-time laureate of the annual Sphinx Competition and was awarded their highest honor, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence. She has received additional grants and awards from the ASCAP Foundation, Chamber Music America, American Composers Orchestra, the Joyce Foundation, and the Sorel Organization. 

The New York Philharmonic has selected Montgomery as one of the featured composers for their Project 19, which marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting equal voting rights in the United States to women. Other forthcoming works include a nonet inspired by the Great Migration, told from the perspective of Montgomery’s great-grandfather William McCauley and to be performed by Imani Winds and the Catalyst Quartet; a cello concerto for Thomas Mesa jointly commissioned by Carnegie Hall, New World Symphony, and The Sphinx Organization; and a new orchestral work for the National Symphony Orchestra; a viola concerto, L.E.S Characters, for Masumi per Rostad commissioned by the Grant Park Music Festival, City Music Cleveland, Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Orlando Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; a new arrangement of a song cycle, Five Freedom Songs, written for Soprano Julia Bullock, and a site-specific collaboration with Bard SummerScape Festival and Pam Tanowitz Dance, I was waiting for the echo of a better day, with choreography by Pam Tanowitz and music by Jessie Montgomery and Big Dog Little Dog. 

Montgomery began her violin studies at the Third Street Music School Settlement, one of the oldest community organizations in the country. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and former member of the Catalyst Quartet, she continues to maintain an active performance career as a violinist appearing regularly with her own ensembles, as well as with the Silkroad Ensemble and Sphinx Virtuosi. 

Montgomery’s teachers and mentors include Sally Thomas, Ann Setzer, Alice Kanack, Joan Tower, Derek Bermel, Mark Suozzo, Ira Newborn, and Laura Kaminsky. She holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a Graduate Fellow in Music Composition at Princeton University. She is Professor of Violin and Composition at The New School. In May 2021, she began her appointment as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.