INTRO: The Christmas season is no longer upon us but some of the music is still ringing in ears around Detroit. The new Director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra has made his mark on dozens of kids in his first 3 weeks. And in the new year, parents could fall under the director’s spell too. Michigan Now’s Chris McCarus reports.
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TRX1: The huge billboard you see on Woodward Avenue says The Legend Begins….indeed he was director of symphonies in St. Louis, Cleveland, Washington and at the BBC. Now Leonard Slatkin has come to Detroit.
AX1: “I know there are people who like predictability. They want to know exactly what’s going to be happening. We’re not about that. Arts institutions are about what you don’t know. As the great jazz drummer Shelly Mann says we never play any piece the same way once.”
TRX2: Slatkin performs at Orchestra Hall. Box seats are carved out of wood, gargoyles are carved out of stone. They hold up the walls and angels hold up the ceiling in gold green and red.. The theatre has been restored to its 1919 grandeur. Now it has a maestro who’s just as grand.
AX2: “To some degree I think that’s the real statement about what the arts are about. You can look at a painting. Attend a ballet. Go to a play. Hear a concert. When you walk into that hall you shouldn’t know what to expect and it should always be like the first time.”
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TRX3: A holiday concert featured five different teenage girls on solo piano. They were backed up by the 50 piece Civic Youth Orchestra.
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TRX4: Leonard Slatkin grew up in Los Angeles in a family of classical musicians. He says if you can’t get music in your life that way then keep the radio on.
AX3: “The best thing parents can do in terms of exposing their children and grand children to music is to listen to what the kids are listening to.”
TRX5: And listen even if rappers like Ludacris are playing.
AX4: “I have a 14 year old. So he and I share music together. If we’re in the car I listen to what he listens to. He comes to concerts and hears what I do. Does he like everything about what I’m conducting? Nope. Do I like everything about what he’s listening to? Nope. But we listen to it together. We share it.”
TRX6: Techno is prerecorded music mixed with old LP’s on turntables. Detroit is known for it. And Slatkin’s son Daniel wants to be a DJ and play it.
TRX7: This Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Leonard Slatkin conducts the Detroit Symphony doing An American in Paris. That’s Gershwin. They’ll twist it up with some banjo, double bass and tabla drum from India.