DSO KICKS OFF 2026–27 SEASON WITH OPENING NIGHT GALA AND CONCERT, SEPTEMBER 26
Please contact:
Jamie Delas, DSO Public Relations
313.421.8731 (m) | jdelas@dso.org
The DSO presents Opening Night Gala featuring red carpet arrivals, cocktail reception, seated dinner, and afterglow for gala patrons
Concert in Orchestra Hall conducted by Music Director Jader Bignamini, includes GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell in Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole
The 26–27 Opening Night Gala honors Phillip Wm. Fisher
Concert and gala tickets on sale at dso.org
Detroit, (September 18, 2026) – The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) and Music Director Jader Bignamini will welcome internationally acclaimed, GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell to Orchestra Hall to open the 2026–2027 season at the Opening Night Gala on September 26. The event will honor community leader, philanthropist, and DSO Chair Emeritus, Phillip Wm. Fisher, who alongside his wife, Lauren, and his family, has been a longstanding champion of the DSO, helping to strengthen the organization as both a musical and civic institution.
The black-tie gala will begin at 5 p.m. with a red-carpet entrance featuring photo opportunities and entertainment provided by 7 Stone, along with cocktails, a spirit tasting provided by Lone Light Spirits, and a Detroit Harmony table showcasing student musicians. The pre-concert reception is open to all concert and gala attendees.
The concert will begin at 7 p.m. in Orchestra Hall, as Bignamini leads the DSO in a program featuring Édouard Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole with Bell, as well as Emmanuel Chabrier’s bubbly España and Alberto Ginastera’s Four Dances from Estancia. Following the concert, gala supporters and sponsors will enjoy a formal seated dinner and afterglow.
The Opening Night Gala supports the DSO’s mission to ensure young people have access to music education and a path to all that is possible. During the concert, students from the DSO’s Civic Youth Ensembles will perform on stage alongside the orchestra during a special guest appearance.
Concert-only tickets for Opening Night Gala start at $69 and include pre-concert reception access. Tickets are limited and can be purchased at dso.org or by calling the Box Office at 313.576.5111, open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets for the full Opening Night Gala experience start at $1000, and can be purchased by contacting Alex Anderson, Manager of Advancement Events, at aanderson@dso.org or by calling 313.576.5448.
The title sponsor of the DSO’s Classical Series is PVS Chemicals, Inc. The DSO thanks Mr. & Mrs. Stanley Frankel, Lauren & Phillip Fisher, Applebaum Family Philanthropy, Hon. David & Jennifer Fischer, Marjorie S. Fisher Fund, Huntington Bank, Morgan & Danny Kaufman, Edward C. Levy Jr., Gwen & Evan Weiner, Drs. Bernadine & David Wu, Terese & Paul Zlotoff, Julie & Peter Cummings, Penny & Harold Blumenstein, Marjory Winkleman Epstein, Amanda Fisher & Ben Hubert, Gilbert Family Foundation, Henry Ford Health, Dr. Steve & Laurel Kalkanis, Nancy & James Grosfeld, Nancy Katzman & Randy Wertheimer, Jill & Steve Miller, Christine & David Provost, Jane & Edward Schulak, A. Alfred Taubman Foundation, Rachel & Yoni Torgow, and Jim Vella for their sponsorship of Opening Night Gala.
About Phillip Wm. Fisher
Founder of Mission Throttle (est. 2009), Phillip Fisher drives philanthropic culture toward acceptance of innovative capital to accelerate community change. As a capitalist and philanthropist, he leads sustainable strategies to connect, collaborate, and deploy effective market-driven solutions to evolve community capital, human resources, and impact investing. Mission Throttle’s current priority is accelerating the advancement of the Impact Investing ecosystem.
Fisher’s experiences span both for-impact and for-profit organizations. He is Chairman Emeritus of the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation and serves on the Legacy, Impact Investing, and Early Childhood Committees. Fisher is Chairman Emeritus of The Fisher Group, the family’s single-family office, and serves as the Chair of the Executive Compensation Committee and on the Investment Committee. He is Chairman Emeritus of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Co-Chairs the DSO Impact Campaign. He serves on the Board, Executive, Futures, and Investment Committees for the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan.
About Jader Bignamini
Jader Bignamini was introduced as the 18th music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in January 2020, commencing with the 2020–21 season. His infectious passion and artistic excellence set the tone for the seasons ahead, creating extraordinary music and establishing a close relationship with the orchestra. During his tenure in Detroit, Bignamini has collaborated with such artists as Branford Marsalis, Daniil Trifonov, Yo-Yo Ma, Hilary Hahn, Alisa Weilerstein, and Yuja Wang, as well as composers Michael Abels and Carlos Simon, and conducted major symphonic works by Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler, and also Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, Florence Price, and Margaret Bonds. A jazz aficionado, he has immersed himself in Detroit’s rich jazz culture and the influences of American music. In 2023, the DSO extended Bignamini’s contract for a second five-year term, through 2031.
A native of Crema, Italy, Bignamini studied at the Piacenza Music Conservatory and began his career as a musician (clarinet) with Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, later serving as the group’s resident conductor. In the years since, Bignamini has conducted many of the world’s most acclaimed orchestras and opera companies in venues across the globe.
About Joshua Bell
With a career spanning four and a half decades, Grammy Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell CBE is one of the most celebrated artists of our time. He has performed with virtually every major orchestra in the world, and regularly appears as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, conductor, and as the Music Director of London’s Academy of St Martin in the Fields. In 2025, he was awarded an honorary Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
In 2026-27, Bell leads ASMF on extensive tours of Asia and Europe. In his second season as Principal Guest Conductor of the New Jersey Symphony, he plays and conducts all-Beethoven programs marking the bicentennial of the composer’s death. Other highlights include playing and conducting the New York Philharmonic; concertos with the Orchestre de Paris and the Boston, Atlanta, and Detroit Symphonies; and a European recital tour with pianist Peter Dugan.
Bell has been nominated for six Grammy awards, named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America, selected as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, recognized with the Avery Fisher Prize, and honored as an “Indiana Living Legend.” His many collaborators include Emanuel Ax, Chris Botti, Renée Fleming, Josh Groban, Lang Lang, Dave Matthews, Anoushka Shankar, Regina Spektor, Sting, Daniil Trifonov, and the late Chick Corea. Bell has given a TED Talk and performed for three American presidents and the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. After participating in former president Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities’ first cultural mission to Cuba, he headlined the subsequent Emmy-nominated PBS Live from Lincoln Center special.
Bell performs on the 1713 Huberman Stradivarius violin.
About the DSO
The acclaimed Detroit Symphony Orchestra is known for trailblazing performances, collaborations with the world’s foremost musical artists, and a deep connection to its city. Led by Music Director Jader Bignamini since 2020, the DSO makes its home at historic Orchestra Hall within the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center, offering a robust performance schedule that features classical, pops, jazz, and family concerts, plus community performances. Enrico Lopez-Yañez was named Principal Pops Conductor in 2023, trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard serves as the orchestra’s Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair, and Tabita Berglund began her tenure as Principal Guest Conductor in the 2024–25 season. A dedication to broadcast innovation and technology began in 1922, when the DSO became the first orchestra in the world to present a live radio broadcast of a concert and continues today with the groundbreaking Live from Orchestra Hall series of free livestreams.
The DSO’s distinguished history of recordings—many led by its renowned music directors—spans nearly a century, beginning with the orchestra’s first 78 rpm singles with Ossip Gabrilowitsch released on the Victrola label in 1928. A steady recording output has continued since then, with highlights including more than 20 releases with Paul Paray for Mercury’s Living Presence series, and 27 under the baton of Neeme Järvi, mostly on the Chandos label. In the 1970s, the DSO took part in the historic Black Composers Series for Columbia Records led by its then-Associate Conductor Paul Freeman and later made several acclaimed recordings with Antal Doráti for the Decca label. More recently, under the direction of Leonard Slatkin, the DSO recorded music by Rachmaninoff, Copland, and John Williams for the Naxos label, earning its first GRAMMY® nomination in 2017 for Copland’s Third Symphony / Three Latin American Sketches. The first recording with Jader Bignamini, of Wynton Marsalis’s Blues Symphony, was released in March 2025 on the Pentatone label. Their second recording together, of Orff’s Carmina Burana was released in June 2026, also on the Pentatone label.
Since its first school concerts a century ago, and particularly since the founding of the Civic Youth Ensembles in 1970, the DSO has been a national leader in bringing the benefits of music education to students, teachers, and families in Detroit and surrounding communities. The DSO remains committed to expanding its participation in the growth and well-being of Detroit through programs like its Detroit Neighborhood Initiative—cultural events co-created with community partners and residents—and Detroit Harmony, a promise to provide an instrument and instruction to any student in the city who wants to learn. With unwavering support from the people of Detroit, the DSO actively pursues a mission to impact lives through the power of unforgettable musical experiences.