Leonard Slatkin hails DSO's community outreach efforts as he returns to lead orchestra
Leonard Slatkin, Detroit Symphony Orchestra music director laureate, returns to Detroit this weekend for a musical joyride with the orchestra. He'll be joined by Russian pianist Olga Kern during two performances featuring works by Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff.
Slatkin, a six-time Grammy winner and 35-time nominee, served as DSO music director for a decade starting with the 2008-09 season before being named music director laureate. As part of his 80th birthday celebration, he's touring and guest conducting with orchestras near and far, and his Motor City stop marks a celebratory homecoming.
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 play his score for the 2022 documentary "Gradually, Then Suddenly: The Bankruptcy of Detroit."
"I thought that this season, rather than making it totally self-serving, I would incorporate other members of my family as part of the celebration," Slatkin said, "both those who are with us and those who are not. So that meant, of the living ones, I could either do a piece by me, I could do a piece by my wife, or I could do a piece by my son. For Detroit, it turned out the more interesting one would be one by my son, who actually had his very first orchestral work played 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 auditorium. You hear parts with people speaking, sending greetings from Earth, and also the sound of a Beethoven quartet, which is up there with it on a golden disc. I thought that would be a nice opener for the audience."
Turning his thoughts to Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff, Slatkin said a priority was drawing pianist Kern back to Detroit after having worked with her several times during his DSO tenure.
"It felt right to bring work by Rachmaninoff," he said, noting that "she's played a couple of Rachmaninoff pieces, but not this one. It's the least played of his five works for piano and orchestra – the fourth piano concerto – but it's a marvelous 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 hadn't thought about it. This piece was on that program for me as a guest, and it was maybe this piece in particular that made people want to take a good look at me as a possible candidate for musical director. And, indeed, a few months later, they set up another set of concerts for me at Meadow Brook, and lo and behold, I became the music director. So each piece has a nice, personal connection to myself 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 does continue to evolve) and about the DSO's place in carving out that evolution.
"It's very different than it was when I started in the profession," he said. "That was 1968. We've had more than 50 years of music that's been added, of course, so that automatically changes things, and orchestras are required to do so much more in the way of the repertoire. It's not just the 'classic' music, but the new music that's being created, (including) for films, pops concerts ... there's much 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 has to serve the entire community.
"In Detroit, the turning point was clearly the (2010-11 DSO strike), there's no question about that. It was a horrendous time – six months, nobody working. But out of that came innovations. Detroit can proudly claim it was a leader in the industry, and among the achievements were the live streaming of its concerts. No orchestra was doing that in the States ... none. And that was something only permissible now in the new settlement of the contract, and they remain the only orchestra in the United States that offers all of its concerts up for live streaming for free for its audiences."
Slatkin called the effort "remarkable."
"The level and the quality of the video and the sound now is so extraordinary," he said. "It rivals anything in the world. It's great. And then, after the strike, anybody who was a student could come to any performance at Orchestra Hall for $25 – but it was $25 for the whole year! Therefore, we increased not only the number of people in the audience, but it helped to give more of a balance to the generational gap, shall we say. So you see more young faces in the audiences in Detroit than you used to."
Slatkin also pointed to efforts by the DSO to push outward into Detroit's community.
"The orchestra themselves, during the strike," he said, "set up and did concerts in various venues in the suburban areas. When the strike ended, it was decided that we would continue to do those concerts. It could take 35, 45 minutes to get down to the Hall for some, so this way they're playing in their neighborhood, (creating) more of a connection between the orchestra and those audience members.
"Another aspect that I think is changing is the Detroit Symphony's role in education. They mentor and work with over 500 young people who are, in some cases, just starting out. I'm very happy that these elements – the younger audience coming in, the suburban crowd, the education activites and the internet broadcast – these are all things that changed from the time I started to how it is now."
And there are, he said, even more changes.
"The way auditions are held has changed," he pointed out. "The striving for diversity, of course – and that was, in many cases, due to the wonderful work that Sphinx Organization did and how they partner up with the orchestra. But there are other communities to reach, and all of us have to broaden our idea of what an audience means here as we're about to enter the second quarter of the 21st century."
Leonard Slatkin will conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Both performances will take place at Orchestra Hall, 3711 Woodward Ave., Detroit. Tickets start at $20 and can be purchased at dso.org .
Contact Free Press arts and culture reporter Duante Beddingfield at
