In Friday’s (7/3) Detroit Free Press, Mark Stryker reports, “The Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s first tour with music director Leonard Slatkin will take the ensemble to Florida next year for concerts in six cities from Feb. 9-14. The tour—which includes stops in Vero Beach, West Palm Beach, Naples, Longwood, Sarasota and Miami—marks the DSO’s first out-of-state trip since a 2 1/2-week European sojourn in October 2001. The DSO’s only previous trip to the Sunshine State was a five-concert tour in early 2001. … Florida, an increasingly important market for East Coast and Rust Belt orchestras anxious to reach new audiences and connect with their snowbird donors, is a strategic maiden voyage for the Slatkin-DSO partnership. … The repertoire includes Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 because the DSO-Slatkin recording of the piece—the first in a series of Rachmaninoff recordings planned for the Naxos label—is slated for release shortly before the tour. The repertoire also includes music by two Americans, Peter Mennin’s Concertato for Orchestra (‘Moby Dick’) and Samuel Barber’s Cello Concerto with rising young soloist Sol Gabetta in honor of the centenary of Barber’s birth—a reflection of Slatkin’s passion for homegrown composers.”
Photo credit: Matthew H. Starling
Posted July 9, 2009
