June 2–4: Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony and Dohnányi’s Variations on a Nursery Tune featuring pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason
June 8–10: Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra and Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole featuring violinist María Dueñas
June 3 concert will be webcast for free at dso.org and on Facebook as part of DSO’s Live from Orchestra Hall series, June 10 concert will be webcast for free at dso.org (United States only); June 2 concert broadcast and streamed live on 90.9 WRCJ in Detroit and network of stations across Michigan
Tickets on sale now at dso.org
Detroit, (May 18, 2023) – The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) will close its 2022–2023 season with two spectacular programs conducted by Music Director Jader Bignamini at Orchestra Hall.
From June 2-4, Bignamini will conduct Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, which serves as a “faithful echo” of an intense emotional journey, in the words of the composer. Also on the program is Martucci’s Nocturne, a piece that employs gentle, beautiful melodies to portray nighttime calm, and Dohnányi’s Variations on a Nursery Tune, a piece that humorously transforms a familiar childhood melody through a variety of musical styles featuring pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason as soloist. Kanneh-Mason is the recipient of the 2021 Leonard Bernstein Award, a 2020 Opus Klassik award for best young artist and, as a member of the Kanneh-Mason family, the 2021 best classical artist at the Global Awards. The concerts will take place on Friday, June 2 at 10:45 a.m., Saturday, June 3 at 8 p.m., and Sunday, June 4 at 3 p.m. in Orchestra Hall.
From June 8-10, on the DSO’s final classical program of the season, the rhythms and harmonies of Spain infuse Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole, an exciting work for solo violin and orchestra. The soloist on these concerts is the young Spanish violinist María Dueñas, winner of the Yehudi Menuhin Competition 2021. The Lalo is followed by Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, a lush, thrilling tone poem inspired by Friedrich Nietzchse’s book of the same name and which is featured prominently in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The program opens with Wynton Marsalis’s Herald, Holler and Hallelujah! fanfare. The concerts will take place on Thursday, June 8 at 7:30 p.m., Friday, June 9 at 8 p.m., and Saturday, June 10 at 8 p.m. in Orchestra Hall.
The June 3 concert will be webcast for free at dso.org and via Facebook Live, and the June 10 concert will be webcast for free at dso.org as part of the DSO’s Live from Orchestra Hall series. Please note: the June 10 webcast will be available exclusively to audiences in the United States. The June 2 concert will also be broadcast and streamed live on 90.9 WRCJ in Detroit and network of stations across Michigan.
Tickets for the PVS Classical Series performances start at $19 and can be purchased at dso.org or by calling the Box Office at 313.576.5111, open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The title sponsor of the DSO’s Classical Series is PVS Chemicals, Inc. DSO Live is presented by Ford Motor Company Fund and made possible by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Digital programming is produced from the Al Glancy Control Room.
2022-2023 SEASON DSO SAFETY POLICIES: The DSO no longer requires audiences to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test to attend performances. Masks are optional although strongly recommended at DSO performances, particularly when Wayne County and surrounding communities are in the high or "red" category as defined by the CDC. The DSO asks audience members to do their part to create a safe environment for everyone and encourages those who are not feeling well to stay home.
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JADER CONDUCTS TCHAIKOVSKY’S FOURTH SYMPHONY
PVS Classical Series
Friday, June 2 at 10:45 a.m.
Saturday, June 3 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, June 4 at 3 p.m.
Jader Bignamini, conductor
Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano
From the opening horn calls signaling unstoppable fate to the delirious ending full of cymbal crashes and orchestral fireworks, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony serves, in the composer’s words, as a “faithful echo” of an intense emotional journey. Martucci’s Nocturne employs gentle, beautiful melodies to portray nighttime calm, and Dohnányi’s set of variations humorously transforms a familiar childhood melody through a variety of musical styles.
GIUSEPPE MARTUCCI Nocturne No. 1
ERNŐ DOHNÁNYI Variations on a Nursery Tune
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 4
STRAUSS' ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA & DUEÑAS PERFORMS LALO
PVS Classical Series
Thursday, June 8 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, June 9 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, June 10 at 8 p.m.
Jader Bignamini, conductor
María Dueñas, violin
On our final classical program of the season, the rhythms and harmonies of Spain infuse Lalo’s exciting work for solo violin and orchestra. The soloist on these concerts is the young Spanish violinist María Dueñas, winner of the Yehudi Menuhin Competition 2021. Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, the first minute of which is featured prominently in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, is a lush, thrilling tone poem inspired by Friedrich Nietzchse’s book of the same name. The concert opens with a fanfare by Wynton Marsalis titled Herald, Holler and Halleujah!
WYNTON MARSALIS Herald, Holler and Hallelujah!
ÉDOUARD LALO Symphonie Espagnole
RICHARD STRAUSS Also sprach Zarathustra
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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 2020–2021 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.
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, Bignamini 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.
About Isata Kanneh-Mason
Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason is in great demand internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. She offers eclectic and interesting repertoire, with her recital programs encompassing music from Haydn and Mozart, Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, Chopin and Brahms, to Gershwin and beyond. In concerto, she is equally at home with repertoire by Felix Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, whose piano concerto featured on Kanneh-Mason’s chart-topping debut recording, as well as concerti by Prokofiev and Dohnányi.
In 2022–2023 Kanneh-Mason steps into her role as Artist in Residence with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, performing three concerti across the season at London’s Cadogan Hall. She returns to Dortmund’s Konzerthaus as one of their Junge Wilde artists and makes multiple visits to both the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Other highlights of the season include recital performances at the Barbican, Queen Elizabeth, and Wigmore halls in London, the Philharmonie Berlin, National Concert Hall Dublin, Perth Concert Hall, Prinzregententheater Munich, and the Sala São Paulo. As concerto soloist, Kanneh-Mason appears with the Orchestra of Opera North, New World Symphony Miami, City of Birmingham Symphony, Duisburg Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and Orchestra of Norwegian Opera. She returns to the Baltimore Symphony and recently made her long-awaited debut with the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.
Kanneh-Mason is a Decca Classics recording artist. Her 2019 album, Romance – the Piano Music of Clara Schumann, entered the UK classical charts at No. 1, and Gramophone magazine extolling the recording as “one of the most charming and engaging debuts.” This was followed in 2021 by Summertime, an album of 20th-century American repertoire featuring Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata and a world premiere recording of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Impromptu in B minor. In November 2021, along with her cellist brother, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, she released her first duo album entitled Muse, beautifully demonstrating the siblings’s musicality and refined skill borne from years of playing and performing together.
She was an ECHO Rising Star in 2021–2022, performing in many of Europe’s finest halls and is also the recipient of the coveted Leonard Bernstein Award and an Opus Klassik award for best young artist.
About María Dueñas
Spanish violinist María Dueñas beguiles audiences with the breathtaking array of colours she draws from her instrument. Her technical prowess, artistic maturity and bold interpretations have inspired rave reviews, captivated competition juries, and secured invitations to appear with many of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors. She has been studying with world-renowned Professor Boris Kuschnir at the Music and Arts University of Vienna for several years.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has hailed the “freedom and joyous individuality” of her playing, while The Strad described her rising-star status as “seemingly unstoppable,” after she won a whole series of international violin competitions. Not least among these was her livestreamed run to victory at the 2021 Menuhin Violin Competition, at which she won not only the first prize and audience prize, but also a global online following.
Dueñas signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon in September 2022 and is opening her DG discography with the Beethoven Violin Concerto, for which she has composed her own cadenzas. Entitled Beethoven and Beyond, her debut album also includes five showpieces for violin and orchestra by Kreisler, Saint-Saëns, Spohr, Wieniawski, and Ysaÿe, and a companion disc presenting cadenzas written by these same composers for the first movement of the Beethoven. Recorded live at the Vienna Musikverein with the Wiener Symphoniker and Manfred Honeck, Beethoven and Beyond will be released in May 2023.
The multi-faceted artist became fond of composing after she started writing cadenzas for Mozart´s violin concertos. A solo piano piece, Farewell, was awarded a prize in the 2016 “Von fremden Ländern und Menschen” Competition for Young Composers. Recorded by Evgeny Sinaiski, it was transformed into a music video filmed during the pandemic.
A dedicated chamber musician, Dueñas has performed with baritone Matthias Goerne and pianist Itamar Golan, among other artists. She has also premiered several works written for and dedicated to her by the late Catalan composer Jordi Cervelló, including the Milstein Caprice.
Born in Granada in 2002, Dueñas fell in love with classical music through the recordings her parents played constantly at home and the concerts she attended in her native city. She started playing violin at six and enrolled at Granada’s Conservatory a year later. In 2014 she was awarded a scholarship to study abroad by Juventudes Musicales Madrid and moved to Dresden to study at the Carl Maria von Weber College of Music. There she was soon spotted by violinist Wolfgang Hentrich and conductor Marek Janowsky; at whose invitation she would later make her debut as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony. In 2016, she and her family moved again, this time to Austria on the recommendation of her mentor Vladimir Spivakov, at the Music and Arts University of Vienna.
Her competition victories began with the 2017 Zhuhai International Mozart Competition and 2018 Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition. In addition to her success at the Menuhin Competition, 2021 saw her win first prize at the Getting to Carnegie Competition, the Grand Prize at the Viktor Tretyakov International Violin Competition, and the career advancement prize at the Rheingau Music Festival. She was also named as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist from 2021–2023. In April 2023, she was awarded the prestigious Premio Princesa de Girona de las Artes y las Letras in her native Spain.
Last season she made her debuts with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Oslo Philharmonic under Manfred Honeck, the Dresdner Philharmonie and Marek Janowski, the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and Gustavo Gimeno, the Staatskapelle Berlin under Alain Altinoglu, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Domingo Hindoyan, among others. Dueñas also gave her first performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl in August 2021. They joined forces again in May 2022 for the world premiere of Gabriela Ortiz’s violin concerto Altar de cuerda, of which she is the dedicatee, causing an international sensation and followed by sold-out performances at Carnegie Hall, in Boston and at the Cervantino Festival in Mexico.
After an outstanding success with Brahms's Violin Concerto in Madrid in April 2023, forthcoming highlights of the current season include Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in Dresden with Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Herbert Blomstedt and Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, as well as Lalo's Symphonie espagnole with Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Jader Bignamini, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck, and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester under Alan Gilbert.
Dueñas plays the Nicolò Gagliano violin of 17?4, kindly loaned by the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, and the Stradivari "Camposelice" of 1710 on generous loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.
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. As a community-supported orchestra, generous giving by individuals and institutions at all levels drives the continued success and growth of the organization. In January 2020, Italian conductor Jader Bignamini was named the DSO’s next music director to commence with the 2020-2021 season. Celebrated conductor, arranger, and trumpeter Jeff Tyzik is the orchestra’s Principal Pops Conductor, while Oscar-nominated trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard holds the Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair.
Making its home at historic Orchestra Hall within the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center, the DSO offers a performance schedule that features PVS Classical, PNC Pops, Paradise Jazz, and Young People’s Family Concert series. One of the world’s most acoustically perfect concert halls, Orchestra Hall celebrated its centennial in 2019-2020. In addition, the DSO presents the William Davidson Neighborhood Concert Series in seven metro area venues, as well as a robust schedule of eclectic multi-genre performances in its mid-size venue The Cube, constructed and curated with support from Peter D. & Julie F. Cummings.
A dedication to broadcast innovation 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, which also reaches tens of thousands of children with the Classroom Edition expansion. With growing attendance and unwavering philanthropic support from the people of Detroit, the DSO actively pursues a mission to embrace and inspire individuals, families, and communities through unsurpassed musical experiences.