Detroit Symphony Orchestra Announces 2018-2019 Season

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) has announced the 2018-2019 Season of its Classical and PNC Pops Series.

Leonard Slatkin, currently in his 10th and final year as DSO music director, will return as music director laureate to open the Classical Season on Friday, October 5, 2018, with a weekend of performances in Orchestra Hall featuring acclaimed violinist Gil Shaham. Maestro Slatkin will return twice more during the season, leading the DSO’s three-week American Festival in February and closing the season in June with pianist Makoto Ozone, the featured soloist on the DSO’s tour of Japan last summer.

“Many storylines and common threads come together over the course of the DSO’s 2018-2019 season,” said Erik Rönmark, DSO Vice President and General Manager. “The orchestra and Leonard Slatkin both have deserved reputations going back many decades for outstanding performances of American music and music by living composers. The new season brings both to the foreground, centered around our American Festival but also branching out over the entire year to feature twenty-six American works and music by twelve living composers including five women. In our Classical Series, we are thrilled to introduce our audiences to several artists making their DSO debuts as well as welcome back returning favorites. We are also pleased to welcome back Jeff Tyzik as our Principal Pops Conductor, who leads three new programs in our PNC Pops Series including ones devoted to the music of Motown and the Beatles.”

The DSO’s American Festival, the orchestra’s sixth annual winter music festival, will take place from February 8-24, 2019. Highlights include two programs with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet (in Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 “The Age of Anxiety” and Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F), Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess: Concert Version for two singers and chorus, an all-John Williams program including selections of his film music, a world premiere by composer Kristin Kuster, and a festival closing program titled Maximum Minimal with music by Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and John Luther Adams (the Pulitzer Prize-winning Become Ocean).

Additionally, the DSO announced its wide-ranging 2018-2019 PNC Pops Season, which will bring favorites from Broadway, film and TV, rock, jazz, and more to the Orchestra Hall stage. Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik will lead three PNC Pops Series programs: Dancing in the Street: A Symphonic Tribute to Motown in the season opener; Heroes & Villains, featuring music from Superman and Batman to King Kong and Jaws; and Revolution: The Beatles Symphonic Experience, with restorative arrangements by Tyzik of the original recordings for singers and orchestra.

Subscriptions are on sale now for the 2018-2019 Classical and PNC Pops Series, and nearly all subscription prices remain unchanged from last season.

A complete series of Live from Orchestra Hall webcasts will return for the eighth full season, offering free, live broadcasts of each Classical program at dso.org/live and via Facebook Live.