Jader Bignamini and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in performance.
“It was an exuberant, whirlwind stretch for Jader Bignamini in late January, when the young conductor was unveiled as new music director for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra,” writes Brian McCollum in Sunday’s (4/26) Detroit Free Press. “The world is a far different, darker place than it was when Bignamini celebrated his DSO appointment…. So there’s a poignant undercurrent as Bignamini hosts the DSO’s latest online watch party at 3 p.m. Sunday, revisiting that January performance at Orchestra Hall. The DSO … has held regular online events [during] the coronavirus lockdown … tapping the Orchestra Hall archives for watch parties hosted by musicians…. Bignamini … for now is quarantining with his wife and two children in Toronto, where he was to have guested with the Canadian Opera Company until that city’s ban on public events…. Bignamini is scheduled to make his formal debut as DSO maestro Dec. 10-13, conducting Beethoven’s 9th and its joyous choral movement.” Of the January DSO concert, Bignamini says, “We were playing with joy…. We were so happy…. It was one of the best concerts I’ve conducted… Music and concerts generally are so important but now even more. Because it can give people happiness, joy and good thoughts.”
