Leonard Slatkin welcomes the DSO’s community outreach efforts as he returns to lead the orchestra

Leonard Slatkin, music director laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, returns to Detroit this weekend for a musical walk with the orchestra. He will be joined by Russian pianist Olga Kern during two performances of works by Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff.

Slatkin, a six-time Grammy winner and 35-time nominee, served as DSO Music Director for a decade beginning in the 2008-09 season before being named Music Director Laureate. As part of his 80th birthday celebration, he’s been touring and guest conducting with orchestras from near and far, and his stop in the Motor City marks a celebratory return.

This program is also a bit of a family affair for Slatkin. It includes a piece by his son Daniel, a film and video game composer who used DSO musicians to perform his score for the 2022 documentary Gradually, Then Suddenly: The Bankruptcy of Detroit.

“I thought this season, instead of making it all selfish, I would include other members of my family as part of the celebration,” Slatkin said, “both those who are with us and those who I’m not. So that meant that, of the living, I could either make a piece of me, I could make a piece of my wife, or I could make a piece of my son. For Detroit, it turned out that the most interesting would be that of my son, who actually had his first orchestral work performed by the DSO.

“This piece … is about the Voyager spacecraft up there, billions of miles away, still sending a signal, and it’s very moving; it’s very cinematic. It has electronic sounds that are generated throughout the room. You hear parts of people talking, sending greetings from Earth, and also the sound of a Beethoven quartet, which is up there with him on a golden record. I thought it would be a nice opening for the audience.”

Turning his thoughts to Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff, Slatkin said a priority is luring pianist Kern back to Detroit after working with her several times during his DSO tenure.

“It felt right to bring works by Rachmaninoff,” he said, noting that “he’s played a few pieces by Rachmaninoff, but not this one. It is the least performed of his five works for piano and orchestra – the fourth piano concerto – but it is a wonderful piece.

“The Prokofiev symphony … has an interesting connection. In 2007, I think, I was just a guest conductor in Detroit. I didn’t even know there was a job vacancy. I didn’t think about that. This song was on that program for me as a guest, and maybe it was this song that made people want to take a good look at me as a possible candidate for music director. And sure enough, a few months later, they got me another set of gigs at Meadow Brook, and lo and behold, I became the music director. So each piece has a beautiful personal connection to me and the relationship with the Detroit Symphony.”

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Slatkin also shared his thoughts on how classical music has evolved (and yes—for those unfamiliar with the genre, it do what continues to evolve) and about DSO’s place in achieving this evolution.

“It’s very different from when I started in the profession,” he said. “That was 1968. We have over 50 years of music that has been added, of course, so things automatically change and orchestras are asked to do a lot more in terms of repertoire. It’s not just “classical” music, but new music being created, (including) for movies, pop concerts… there’s a lot more community engagement in the orchestra. The orchestra plays a very different role. We can’t even say it’s just “classical” music anymore. An orchestra must serve the whole community.

“In Detroit, the turning point was clearly (the 2010-11 DSO strike), there’s no doubt about that. It was a terrible time – six months, no one worked. But that’s where the innovations came from. Detroit can proudly claim to have been a leader in the industry, and achievements included live streaming of its concerts. No orchestra was doing that in the States… none. And that was something only now allowed in the new contract deal, and they remain the only orchestra in the United States to offer all of its concerts for free live streaming to its audience.”

Slatkin called the effort “remarkable.”

“The level and quality of video and audio now is so extraordinary,” he said. “Rivals anything in the world. It’s wonderful. And then, after the strike, anyone who was a student could come to any show at Orchestra Hall for $25 – but it was $25 for the whole year! Therefore, we have increased not only the number of people in the audience, but it has contributed to a greater balance of the generation gap, let’s say. So you’re seeing more young faces in Detroit audiences than before.”

Slatkin also pointed to DSO’s efforts to push the Detroit community outward.

“The orchestra itself, during the strike,” he said, “organized and performed concerts at various locations in the suburban areas. When the strike ended, it was decided that we would continue to do those concerts. It might take 35, 45 minutes to get to the hall for some, so that way they’re playing in their neighborhood, (creating) more connection between the orchestra and those audience members.

“Another thing that I think is changing is the Detroit Symphony’s role in education. They are mentors and work with over 500 young people who, in some cases, are just starting out. I’m very happy that those elements — the younger audience that’s coming in, the suburban crowd, the educational activities and the Internet broadcast — all of that has changed from when we started to where it is now.”

And there are, he said, even more changes.

“The way auditions happen has changed,” he pointed out. “The fight for diversity, of course – and that was, in many cases, because of the wonderful work that the Sphinx Organization did and how they worked with the orchestra. But there are other communities we need to reach, and we all need to broaden our idea of ​​what an audience means here as we move into the second quarter of the 21st century.”

Leonard Slatkin will conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at 8pm on Saturday and 3pm on Sunday. Both performances will be held at Orchestra Hall, 3711 Woodward Ave., Detroit. Tickets start at $20and maybebe purchased at dso.org.

Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on the Detroit Free Press: Leonard Slatkin welcomes DSO innovations as he returns to conducting the orchestra