Detroit, (January 12, 2023) – The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) will welcome Music Director Laureate Leonard Slatkin and pianist Garrick Ohlsson to Orchestra Hall for a program of works by Johannes Brahms, Igor Stravinsky, and Béla Bartók. The three concerts will take place February 3-4 at Orchestra Hall as part of the PVS Classical Series.
The program will open with two 20th century classics with unusual instrumentation: Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments and Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. Ohlsson is featured soloist in Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1, which is vast in scope and requires dexterity, power, and grace from the soloist, and storms of expression from the orchestra.
The week prior, a piano trio comprised of DSO musicians Sujin Lim (violin), David LeDoux (cello), and guest Zhihua Tang (piano) will perform a chamber recital on January 30 at 7 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church of Plymouth. The program includes Ludwig van Beethoven's "Archduke" Trio, which features expansive vistas and unexpected turns, and Claude Debussy’s Piano Trio in G major, a youthful work with moments of tenderness, nostalgia, and Romantic expression.
The following week, a clarinet trio comprised of DSO musicians Jack Walters (clarinet), David LeDoux (cello), and guest Pauline Martin (piano) will perform a chamber recital on February 7 at 7 p.m. at the Ferndale First United Methodist Church. The recital will include Johannes Brahms's introspective Clarinet Trio written for the harmonious combination of clarinet, cello, and piano.
Brahms' First Piano Concerto and Bartók will take place Friday, February 3 at 10:45 a.m. and 8 p.m. and Saturday, February 4 at 8 p.m. at Orchestra Hall.
The February 4 performance will also be webcast for free at dso.org and via Facebook Live as part of the DSO’s Live from Orchestra Hall series.
Tickets for Brahms’ First Piano Concerto and Bartók start at $25 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 January 30 and February 7 chamber performances are free to all Neighborhood Series subscribers. Single tickets are also available and start at $15, with $10 tickets available for students.
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.
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. The William Davidson Neighborhood Concert Series is made possible by a generous grant from the William Davidson Foundation. WRCJ 90.9 FM also supports the series.
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BRAHMS’ FIRST PIANO CONCERTO AND BARTÓK
PVS Classical Series
Friday, February 3 at 10:45 a.m. or 8 p.m.
Saturday, February 4 at 8 p.m.
Orchestra Hall
Leonard Slatkin, conductor
Garrick Ohlsson, piano
Brahms’ First Piano Concerto is vast in its scope, requiring dexterity, power, and grace from the soloist—the phenomenally versatile Garrick Ohlsson in these performances—as well as storms of expression from the orchestra. It is a concerto in which the orchestra and soloist are truly equal partners in storytelling. Two 20th century classics, both with unusual instrumentation, open this concert. Music Director Laureate Leonard Slatkin conducts.
IGOR STRAVINSKY Symphonies of Wind Instruments
BÉLA BARTÓK Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Sz. 106
JOHANNES BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 1
BEETHOVEN & DEBUSSY | PIANO TRIO
Chamber Recital
Monday, January 30 at 7 p.m.
First Presbyterian Church of Plymouth
Sujin Lim, violin
David LeDoux, cello
Zhihua Tang, piano
Luxuriate in Beethoven's "Archduke" Trio, a piece with so many expansive vistas and unexpected turns that one does not regret getting lost in it. Debussy's Piano Trio — a youthful work with moments of tenderness, nostalgia, and Romantic expression — completes the program.
BRAHMS’ CLARINET TRIO
Chamber Recital
Tuesday, February 7 at 7 p.m.
Ferndale First United Methodist Church
Jack Walters, clarinet
David LeDoux, cello
Pauline Martin, piano
Join us for a program including Brahms's introspective trio written for the harmonious combination of clarinet, cello, and piano.
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About Leonard Slatkin
Internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin is Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO), Directeur Musical Honoraire of the Orchestre National de Lyon (ONL), and Conductor Laureate of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He maintains a rigorous schedule of guest conducting throughout the world and is active as a composer, author, and educator.
Slatkin has received six Grammy awards and 35 nominations. His latest recording is the world premiere of Alexander Kastalsky’s Requiem for Fallen Brothers commemorating the 100th anniversary of the armistice ending World War I. Other recent Naxos releases include works by Saint-Saëns, Ravel, and Berlioz (with the ONL) and music by Copland, Rachmaninoff, Borzova, McTee, and John Williams (with the DSO). In addition, he has recorded the complete Brahms, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky symphonies with the DSO (available online as digital downloads).
A recipient of the prestigious National Medal of Arts, Slatkin also holds the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor. He has received the Prix Charbonnier from the Federation of Alliances Françaises, Austria’s Decoration of Honor in Silver, the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton Award, and the 2013 ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award for his debut book, Conducting Business. His second book, Leading Tones: Reflections on Music, Musicians, and the Music Industry, was published by Amadeus Press in 2017. He is working on a third volume, Classical Crossroads: The Path Forward for Music in the 21st Century.
Slatkin has conducted virtually all the leading orchestras in the world. As Music Director, he has held posts in New Orleans; St. Louis; Washington, DC; London (with the BBCSO); Detroit; and Lyon, France. He has also served as Principal Guest Conductor in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Cleveland.
About Garrick Ohlsson
Since his triumph as winner of the 1970 Chopin International Piano Competition, pianist Garrick Ohlsson has established himself worldwide as a musician of magisterial interpretive and technical prowess. Although long regarded as one of the world’s leading exponents of the music of Frédéric Chopin, Ohlsson commands an enormous repertoire, which ranges over the entire piano literature. A student of the late Claudio Arrau, Ohlsson has come to be noted for his masterly performances of the works of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, as well as the Romantic repertoire. To date he has at his command more than 80 concertos, ranging from Haydn and Mozart to works of the 21st century, many commissioned for him. In the 2018-2019 season, he launched an ambitious project spread over multiple seasons exploring the complete solo piano works of Brahms in four programs to be heard in New York, San Francisco, Montreal, Los Angeles, London, and other cities across North America.
A frequent guest with the orchestras in New Zealand and Australia, Ohlsson accomplished a seven-city recital tour across Australia just prior to the closure of the concert world due to COVID-19. Since that time and as a faculty member of San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he kept music alive for several organizations with live or recorded recital streams, and since the re-opening of concert activity in summer 2021 has appeared with the Indianapolis, Atlanta, Dallas, Seattle, Toronto, and Cleveland orchestras; in recital in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston; at Ravinia and Tanglewood summer festivals; and on tour in the US with colleague Kirill Gerstein. The 2022-2023 season includes orchestra appearances in Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, San Diego, Spain, Poland, and Czech Republic.
An avid chamber musician, Ohlsson has collaborated with the Cleveland, Emerson, Tokyo, and Takacs string quartets and began the 2022-2023 season with a US tour with Poland’s Apollon Musagete quartet. Together with violinist Jorja Fleezanis and cellist Michael Grebanier, he is a founding member of the San Francisco-based FOG Trio. Passionate about singing and singers, Ohlsson has appeared in recital with such legendary artists as Magda Olivero, Jessye Norman, and Ewa Podleś.
Ohlsson can be heard on the Arabesque, RCA Victor Red Seal, Angel, BMG, Delos, Hänssler, Nonesuch, Telarc, Hyperion and Virgin Classics labels. His ten-disc set of the complete Beethoven Sonatas, for Bridge Records, has garnered critical acclaim, including a Grammy Award for Vol. 3. His recording of Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 3, with the Atlanta Symphony and Robert Spano, was released in 2011. In fall 2008, the English label Hyperion re-released his 16-disc set of the complete works of Chopin followed in 2010 by all the Brahms piano variations, Goyescas by Enrique Granados, and music of Charles Tomlinson Griffes. Most recently on that label are Scriabin’s Complete Poèmes, Smetana Czech Dances, and ètudes by Debussy, Bartok, and Prokofiev. The latest CDs in his ongoing association with Bridge Records are the complete Scriabin sonatas, Close Connections, a recital of 20th-Century pieces, and two CDs of works by Liszt. In recognition of the Chopin bicentenary in 2010, Ohlsson was featured in a documentary, The Art of Chopin, co-produced by Polish, French, British, and Chinese television stations. Most recently, both Brahms concerti and Tchaikovsky’s second piano concerto were released on live performance recordings with the Melbourne and Sydney Symphonies on their own recording labels, and Ohlsson was featured on Dvořák’s piano concerto in the Czech Philharmonic’s recordings of the composer’s complete symphonies and concertos, released July of 2014 on the Decca label.
A native of White Plains, New York, Ohlsson began his piano studies at the age of 8, at the Westchester Conservatory of Music. At 13, he entered The Juilliard School in New York City. His musical development has been influenced in completely different ways by a succession of distinguished teachers, most notably Claudio Arrau, Olga Barabini, Tom Lishman, Sascha Gorodnitzki, Rosina Lhévinne, and Irma Wolpe. Although he won First Prizes at the 1966 Busoni Competition in Italy and the 1968 Montréal Piano Competition, it was his 1970 triumph at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, where he won the Gold Medal (and remains the single American to have done so), that brought him worldwide recognition as one of the finest pianists of his generation. Since then, he has made nearly a dozen tours of Poland, where he retains immense personal popularity. Ohlsson was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize in 1994 and received the 1998 University Musical Society Distinguished Artist Award in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is the 2014 recipient of the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance from the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, and in August 2018 the Polish Deputy Culture Minister awarded him with the Gloria Artis Gold Medal for cultural merit. He is a Steinway Artist and makes his home in San Francisco.
About the DSO
The most accessible orchestra on the planet, 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.