DSO kicks off star-studded season with Opening Night Gala and concert, September 27

Concert-only tickets for Opening Night Gala start at $49 and include pre-concert reception access. These tickets can be purchased at dso.org or by calling the Box Office at 313.576.5111, open Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. beginning September 15.) Tickets for the full Opening Night Gala experience start at $1000, and can be purchased by contacting Alex Anderson, Manager of Advancement Events, at aanderson@dso.org or by calling 313.576.5448.

The title sponsor of the DSO’s Classical Series is PVS Chemicals, Inc. The DSO thanks Stanley and Judy Frankel, Linda Dresner and Ed Levy. Jr., Joanne Danto and Arnold Weingarden, The Marvin & Betty Danto Foundation, Henry Ford Health, Christine and David Provost, DTE Energy Foundation, The Kaufman Family, Erica and Ralph Gerson, Nancy and James Grosfeld, Penny and Harold Blumenstein, Marjory Winkelman Epstein, Bernadine and David Wu, and Terese and Paul Zlotoff for their sponsorship of Opening Night Gala.

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About Jader Bignamini

Jader Bignamini was introduced as the 18th music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in January 2020, commencing with the 2020–21 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. During his tenure in Detroit, Bignamini has collaborated with such artists as Branford Marsalis, Daniil Trifonov, Yo-Yo Ma, Hilary Hahn, Alisa Weilerstein, and Yuja Wang, as well as composers Michael Abels and Carlos Simon, and conducted major symphonic works by Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler, and also Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, Florence Price, and Margaret Bonds. A jazz aficionado, he has immersed himself in Detroit’s rich jazz culture and the influences of American music. In 2023, the DSO extended Bignamini’s contract for a second five-year term, through 2031.

A native of Crema, Italy, Bignamini studied at the Piacenza Music Conservatory and began his career as a musician (clarinet) with Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, later serving as the group’s resident conductor. Captivated by the works 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.

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 Sinfonica di Milano. Recent highlights include debuts with Opera de Paris (La Forza del Destino and Adriana Lecouvreur) and Deutsche Opera Berlin (Simon Boccanegra); debuts with Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra, the Washington National Symphony, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Minnesota symphonies; The Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Festival and the Grand Teton Festival; with the BBC Orchestra and London Philharmonic; with the Metropolitan Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Vienna State Opera, and Dutch National Opera (Madama Butterfly); Bayerische Staatsoper (La traviata); I Puritani in Montpellier for the Festival of Radio France; La traviata in Tokyo directed by Sofia Coppola; return engagements with Oper Frankfurt (La forza del destino, Trovatore, and Carmen) and Santa Fe Opera (Rigoletto and La bohème); La traviata, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot at Arena of Verona; Il Trovatore and Aida at Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera; Madama Butterfly, I Puritani, Manon Lescaut, and Otello at Teatro Massimo in Palermo; Simon Boccanegra and La Forza del destino at the Verdi Festival in Parma; Ciro in Babilonia and Eduardo e Cristina at Rossini Opera Festival; and La bohème, Madama Butterfly, and Elisir d’amore at La Fenice in Venice.

Bignamini also has a great career in Asia, including Japan where he has conducted the Osaka Philharmonic, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, and opera productions of Andrea Chenier at NHK and La Traviata by Sofia Coppola with costumes by Valentino in Tokyo and on tour with Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera that is available on Blu-ray.

Recent highlights include collaborations with artists such as Alexander Gavrylyuk, Sergei Babayan, Emanuel Ax, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Simon Trpčeski, Kian Soltani, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Ray Chen, Gil Shaham, James Ehnes, Augustin Hadelich, María Dueñas, Karen Gomyo, Nemanja Radulović, and Leonidas Kavakos.

One of Bignamini’s greatest passions is working with the next generation of musicians, and during the summer he is a regular guest of the Interlochen Center for the Arts with the DSO and of the Asian Youth Orchestra, leading tours featuring the most talented young musicians from Asia.

About Juan Diego Flórez

With a career that includes performances on the world’s leading stages, Juan Diego Flórez has established himself as one of opera’s greatest talents with his expressive singing and virtuosity. His generosity, charisma, and passion inspire his many philanthropic endeavors, in addition to his acclaimed operatic appearances and recordings.

Flórez was born in Lima, Peru in 1973 and began singing and playing Peruvian folk and pop music at an early age. He inherited from his family the love for Peruvian and Latin American music in general, and when he was a teenager, he wrote his own songs and sang live in the piano bars frequented by his schoolmates in Lima. In 1989, the young singer won Peru’s first Festival of Song for Peace, which was broadcast on TV nationwide.

In 1990, he gained a place at Peru’s National Conservatory of Music and later became a member of Peru’s National Choir. The Choir played a decisive part in his musical development, giving him the invaluable experience of performing music by the greatest composers at a professional level.

Keen to travel and to continue his education, Flórez then won a scholarship to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He studied there between 1993 and 1996 and had the opportunity to sing in a number of fully staged complete operas with an orchestra, an excellent foundation for what was to turn out to be a spectacular career.

Following a breakthrough performance in the leading role of Corradino in Matilde di Shabran at age 23, opera houses around the world set their sights on the young tenor, including the most famous of all: La Scala in Milan. Flórez made his La Scala debut in 1996 under the baton of Riccardo Muti, who was to be a key influence on the tenor over the next few years. Flórez had visited La Scala a few months earlier and, gazing out across the auditorium from one of the boxes, had said, with great prescience, “I’ll be singing here within ten years”. He could never have imagined that he’d be starring there just 10 months later.

Since then, he has appeared at all the world’s leading opera houses, concert halls and music festivals, including the Metropolitan Opera; Lyric Opera of Chicago; Los Angeles Opera; San Francisco Opera; Washington National Opera; Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Wexford Festival; Vienna Staatsoper; Salzburg Festival; Vienna Konzerthaus; Vienna Musikverein; Paris Opéra; Radio France and Montpellier Festival; Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris; Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris; Ópera de Lyon; Teatro Real, Madrid; Teatre Liceu, Barcelona; ABAO, Bilbao; Teatro de la Maestranza, Seville; Las Palmas, Gran Canaria; Teatro São Carlos, Lisbon; La Scala, Milan; Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro; Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Rome; Teatro San Carlo, Naples; Teatro Regio, Turin; Teatro Verdi, Trieste; Teatro Comunale, Bologna; Rome Opera; Teatro Massimo, Palermo; Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Florence; Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa; Teatro Filarmonico de Verona; Munich Staatsoper; Deutsche Oper Berlin; Dresden Staatsoper; and Zurich Opernhaus.

Flórez’s repertoire includes numerous bel canto roles in operas by Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini. In recent years, he has also expanded to the French romantic repertoire, including operas like Werther, Roméo and Juliette, and Les Hugenots. His next projects include performances in operas including La bohème, Faust, Guillaume Tell, and Les contes d’Hoffmann, as well as recital and concert performances.

Flórez has recorded numerous solo albums, as well as complete operas on CD and DVD. He has been recognized as one of the best tenors in history by the BBC and has received numerous accolades and awards including the Echo Klassik Preis, the Diapason d’Or, the Choc du Monde de la Musique, and a Gramophone Award, among others. In 2012, he received the Austrian’s government title of Kammersänger.

Flórez has always maintained a close relationship with his native country, which has awarded him its very highest distinction: the Order of the Sun, Grand Cross. In 2011, he founded Sinfonía por el Perú, an inclusive social project inspired by the Venezuelan “El Sistema” that aims to enhance the personal and artistic development of the most vulnerable children and youth in the country through music. In recognition of his work, he was appointed UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 2012 and received the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum in 2014.

About the DSO

The acclaimed Detroit Symphony Orchestra is known for trailblazing performances, collaborations with the world’s foremost musical artists, and a deep connection to its city. Led by Music Director Jader Bignamini since 2020, the DSO makes its home at historic Orchestra Hall within the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center, offering a robust performance schedule that features classical, pops, jazz, and family concerts, plus community performances. Enrico Lopez-Yañez was named Principal Pops Conductor in 2023, trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard serves as the orchestra’s Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair, and Tabita Berglund began her tenure as Principal Guest Conductor in the 2024–25 season. A dedication to broadcast innovation and technology began in 1922, when the DSO became the first orchestra in the world to present a live radio broadcast of a concert and continues today with the groundbreaking Live from Orchestra Hall series of free webcasts.

The DSO’s distinguished history of recordings—many led by its renowned music directors—spans nearly a century, beginning with the orchestra’s first 78 rpm singles with Ossip Gabrilowitsch released on the Victrola label in 1928. A steady recording output has continued since then, with highlights including more than 20 releases with Paul Paray for Mercury’s Living Presence series, and 27 under the baton of Neeme Järvi, mostly on the Chandos label. In the 1970s, the DSO took part in the historic Black Composers Series for Columbia Records led by its then-Associate Conductor Paul Freeman and later made several acclaimed recordings with Antal Doráti for the Decca label. More recently, under the direction of Leonard Slatkin, the DSO recorded music by Rachmaninoff, Copland, and John Williams for the Naxos label, earning its first GRAMMY® nomination in 2017 for Copland’s Third Symphony / Three Latin American Sketches. The first recording with Jader Bignamini, of Wynton Marsalis’s Blues Symphony, was released in March 2025 on the Pentatone label.

Since its first school concerts a century ago, and particularly since the founding of the Civic Youth Ensembles in 1970, the DSO has been a national leader in bringing the benefits of music education to students, teachers, and families in Detroit and surrounding communities. The DSO remains committed to expanding its participation in the growth and well-being of Detroit through programs like its Detroit Neighborhood Initiative—cultural events co-created with community partners and residents—and Detroit Harmony, a promise to provide an instrument and instruction to any student in the city who wants to learn. With unwavering support from the people of Detroit, the DSO actively pursues a mission to impact lives through the power of unforgettable musical experiences.