Salle: Orchestra Hall, Detroit

DSO music director Jader Bignamini leads his ensemble in the glory of Beethoven’s Ninth, prefaced by a recent work written as a companion piece to the symphony.

The French conductor leads a “Salome-centric” concert high on drama and color, joined by Nicolas Altstaedt in presenting a cello concerto new to American audiences.

Enrique Mazzola conducts an intriguing combination of a French work and a Russian work with a French title focusing on turn-of-the-century France.

DSO plays Florence Price's Five Folksongs in Counterpoint and performs the world premiere of Tyshawn Sorey's For Marcos Balter for violin and orchestra with Jennifer Koh. 

Donald Runnicles conducted an imaginative chamber version of Strauss' testamentary Lieder, plus Elgar's own take on the concerto grosso form in his Introduction and Allegro.

In one of his first assignments as Music Director in Detroit, Bignamini conducts rarely-heard works by two Americans, along with an 18th-century Classical symphony by the Chevalier de Saint-Georges.

An uninspired evening of classics, that nonetheless showed off the many sides of Shostakovich.

Expertly sung and conducted, this Mahler Second proved highly enjoyable and truly memorable.