Detroit Symphony Orchestra history

Money troubles, that bane of all symphonies, killed the DSO’s first incarnation in 1910.

Four years later, ten prominent Detroit women raised the money to hire young organist and conductor Weston Gales, and the orchestra returned to the Opera House on February 26, 1914.

The orchestra quickly rose to prominence after the 1917 appointment of Ossip Gabrilowitsch.

The appointment of the Russian pianist Ossip Gabrilowitsch as music director in 1918 brought instant status to the new orchestra.

Famed Detroit architect C. Howard Crane designed the building, construction began in the summer of 1919, and four months later the acoustical marvel Orchestra Hall was ready.

Solidifying the national reputation of the orchestra, the DSO performed the world’s first radio broadcast of a live symphony in 1922 in partnership with WWJ-AM.

In 1928 it performed at Carnegie Hall and made its first recording.

Gabrilowitsch was music director until his death in 1936.

In 1939, three years after Gabrilowitsch's death, the orchestra moved from Orchestra Hall to the Masonic Temple Theatre due to major financial problems caused by the Great Depression.

Opened with a concert by Louis Armstrong on December 26, 1941, the Paradise Theatre hosted superstars like Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Pearl Bailey, and many more.

Further impacted by the United States’ entry into World War II, the DSO disbanded in 1942.

It would take 19 years to raise the $7 million necessary to renovate the hall, which Ganson says “looked like London after the blitz, or Berlin after 1945.”

In 1946, the orchestra moved to the Wilson Theater which was renamed Music Hall.

After years of bickering with their colleagues, Reichhold and Kreuger resigned from the DSO in 1949 and the symphony disbanded again.

In 1956, the orchestra moved to Ford Auditorium on the waterfront of the Detroit River, where it remained for the next 33 years.

“That makes it the fourth-oldest orchestra in the U.S,” says Ganson, who among his other accomplishments, was the musician who in 1970 spearheaded the successful drive to rescue Orchestra Hall, which had been abandoned for years.

DSO returned to Orchestra Hall in 1989

Further renovations to the hall were completed in 2003, including a $60 million addition and a recital hall and education wing, the Max M. Fisher Music Center.

A fine arts high school, the Detroit School of Arts, was added to the DSO campus in 2004.

After a five-year search, the DSO announced on October 7, 2007, the appointment of Leonard Slatkin as its twelfth music director.

A labor dispute prompted DSO musicians to strike on October 4, 2010.

Following a six-month strike, the musicians and management reached an agreement on April 3, 2011.

On October 7, 2012, the DSO webcast its first Pops concert, 'Cirque de la Symphonie', which was also projected onto the building for the general public for the orchestra's first ever, larger-than-life "MaxCast".

In 2013, the DSO returned to Carnegie Hall for the first time in 17 years to perform in the Spring for Music Festival.

In January 2014, the DSO announced that board, musicians, and management agreed to a new three-year contract eight months before the current one expired.

In June 2018, Jader Bignamini first guest-conducted the DSO, as an emergency substitute for Slatkin.