The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is releasing a new album of music composed by jazz and classical music legend Wynton Marsalis.
Marsalis wrote Blues Symphony in 2009, and it’s now the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s first album release under the leadership of Music Director Jader Bignamini. The album is also just the second recording of Marsalis’ seven-movement musical trip through the connections between classical music and American blues.
The recordings were made over the course of three concerts in December of 2023. In the production phase, crowd noise and applause were removed.
Bignamini says Marsalis was on tour at the time and couldn’t be in Detroit, but they exchanged recordings and notes during that week.
“Every day, he listened to everything,” Bignamini explained. “We had a very good conversation about the mood, about the feeling, and I was extremely happy to have, every day, a lot of time with him.”
Bignamini says his musicians appreciated the notes they got from Marsalis since classical musicians don’t always get to interact with the composers of the music they play. And Marsalis is quite particular. Bignamini says minutia like instructing percussionists to hit the edge of a cymbal here or closer to the top of it there was conveyed to orchestra members.
Bignamini is a fan of the various styles presented in the piece’s seven movements, saying “every movement has a particular sound, a particular soul.”
He’s especially pleased with the orchestra’s performance of the seventh and final movement, Dialogue in Democracy.
The movement’s fast tempo is demanding. Bignamini says it’s a pace that drives home the point that democracy, like great music, requires collaboration.
“They win when we are able to listen to each other, and this last movement of the symphony is a perfect description of this kind of thing and how to have the perfect democracy.”
This is Bignamini’s first music release with the Detroit Symphony, but it won’t be the last. Their next album has already been recorded and is now in the production phase, and the maestro is plotting an ambitious concert and recording slate for the next couple of seasons.
There could ultimately be as many as two or three new albums a year. He says these projects are contagious to the enthusiasm felt by DSO musicians.
“Doing these kinds of difficult and demanding pieces, for the orchestra, is an incredible challenge,” Bignamini said. "I have to say that every time, my musicians win the challenge.”
Bignamini says it was worth the challenge to record Marsalis: Blues Symphony, calling it “a masterpiece of our times.”
