American city in Michigan. Founded in 1701, the city had little significant musical life before 1850. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1824 brought settlers from the east, but almost 25 years passed before a sustained civic interest in music became evident. This interest grew during the 1850s, subsided during the Civil War, then re-emerged with new vigour. Although older than many midwestern cities, Detroit lagged behind in musical activities. Perhaps the years of greatest development were the 1850s and the late 1860s, and, in the 20th century, the tenures with the Detroit SO of Ossip Gabrilovich, Antal Dorati and Neeme Järvi.
The first local attempts at opera were unstaged Italian works presented by the Detroit Philharmonic Society in 1855. Lortzing’s Zar und Zimmermann, given by the Harmonie Society in 1866, was the first opera staged by local performers. In 1869 the Detroit Opera House was built; with a seating capacity of over 2000, it was the largest hall the city had known. It was demolished in 1966, after which various theatres were used for operatic performances. The Masonic Auditorium (built in 1928) was also used for many musical events, among which was an annual visit by the Metropolitan Opera (discontinued after the 1985 season). Thaddeus Wronski organized the Detroit Civic Opera Company in 1928; it was later associated with the Detroit SO in productions that were also presented in New York and Chicago, and continued until 1937. The Piccolo Opera Company, organized in 1961 for the purpose of performing operas in English for schools and other organizations, remained active for several years. In 1971 David Di Chiera founded the Michigan Opera Theatre (MOT) and became its artistic director. In 1993, after a 25-year search for a permanent home large enough for world-class operatic and dance productions, MOT secured funding to begin work on a Detroit Opera House. The old Capitol Theatre, built as a cinema in 1922, was purchased and restored at the cost of $24 million. On 21 April 1996 the hall was opened with a benefit concert featuring Pavarotti and other world-famous artists. With its own orchestra, the 2700-seat Opera House has become the venue not only for MOT operatic performances, but also many other events staged by various touring companies. In addition, the MOT opera-in-residence programme places members of the company in high schools for a week where they assist students with the production of an opera.
The first significant choral society was the Detroit Philharmonic Society (1855–9), directed by an Italian immigrant, Pietro Centemeri. Among the city’s many choral societies the most notable have been the Harmonie (founded 1849), the Detroit Symphony Choir founded by Ossip Gabrilovich (1921–40), the Rackham Symphony Choir, formed in 1949 (as the University of Michigan Extension Choir) by Maynard Klein, and the Kenneth Jewell Chorale (1962), which, as the Detroit Symphony Chorale, became the nucleus of the 120-voice Detroit Symphony Chorus, formed in 1985.
Among the early instrumental ensembles was the Stein and Buchheister Orchestra (1855–65), organized by two members of the Germania Musical Society, who settled in Detroit in 1854 when the society disbanded. As early as 1875, musical groups calling themselves the Detroit Symphony Orchestra appeared. The present Detroit SO was founded in February 1914 when Weston Gales organized 65 local musicians for an experimental symphony concert. Ossip Gabrilovich, who had been a guest soloist with the orchestra, was made permanent conductor in 1916. During his tenure he conducted the first complete symphony concert to be broadcast on radio (station WWJ) on 10 February 1922. He inaugurated the radio concert series known as the ‘Ford Sunday Evening Hour’ in 1934; the programme was broadcast nationally on CBS from 1936 to 1942. After Gabrilovich’s death in 1936, Franco Ghione served as conductor from 1937 to 1940. The following season was shortened, and the orchestra ceased operation during the 1942–3 season. In 1943 it was reorganized as the Detroit Orchestra with Karl Krueger as conductor, but within six years it lapsed again. The Detroit SO was re-formed in 1951, when Paul Paray became permanent conductor. He retired in 1963 and was succeeded by Sixten Ehrling (1963–73), Aldo Ceccato (1973–7) and Antal Dorati (1977–81). The orchestra achieved new standards of excellence and worldwide recognition under Dorati: he organized festivals commemorating Beethoven (1977), Schubert (1978), Brahms (1980) and Bartók (1981); initiated televised concerts; arranged for the orchestra to resume recording, which it had ceased to do after Paray’s tenure; and took the orchestra on its first European tour. Dorati resigned in a dispute with management over orchestra financing. The Israeli conductor, Gary Bertini, was appointed interim music adviser for two seasons, but in the following season the orchestra was without a permanent conductor and had to rely on guests, among them Dorati. Gunther Herbig became music director in September 1984, and was succeeded in 1990 by Neeme Järvi. Under Järvi the orchestra has flourished and has extended its recording activities, with an emphasis on contemporary and American music.
Since its foundation the Detroit SO has been a pioneer in presenting young people’s concerts. It offers one of the largest public service programmes of any American orchestra through its school concerts and annual tours of the state. The orchestra gained recognition for summer concerts inaugurated at Belle Isle (an island in the Detroit River) in 1922 and at the Michigan State Fair Grounds in 1945. It served as the official orchestra for the annual autumn Worcester Music Festival in Massachusetts from 1958 to 1974, and in 1964 became the resident orchestra at the summer Meadow Brook Festival at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. In 1970 the orchestra instituted the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra to provide a training ensemble for talented young musicians. More recently, the African-American Composers Forum has been held annually in Detroit, with the orchestra giving the world première of the winning composition. In addition to its classical series the Detroit SO also offers a pops series, a jazz series and two series for children.
Detroit’s first concert hall was Firemen’s Hall, an upstairs room of the fire station built in 1851 and seating 1000. The city’s most famous concert hall, the 2100-seat Orchestra Hall, known for its fine acoustics, was built in 1919 at the insistence of Gabrilovich as a home for the Detroit SO. Lack of funds forced its abandonment in 1939. A group of musicians from the Detroit SO launched a drive to restore the hall, and the first concert in the renovated building took place in the spring of 1976. In 1979 the Detroit SO returned to Orchestra Hall to play a concert marking the hall’s 60th anniversary and the 40th anniversary of the orchestra’s last appearance there. With the opening of Orchestra Hall, the orchestra moved from the Henry and Edsel Ford Auditorium (opened 1956; cap. 2900) back to the hall Gabrilovich had built.
The Detroit Women’s Symphony, founded in 1947, has remained active.
Attempts were made in 1818 to establish music schools, but lack of support doomed these to a short existence. However, in 1874 Jacob H. Hahn founded the Detroit Conservatory of Music, which lasted almost a century (until 1967). Among its directors was Francis L. York, who later became dean of the Detroit Institute of Musical Arts, founded in 1914. Since 1972 the facilities of the Institute have been shared by the Detroit Community Music School, which began in 1926 as the Music Settlement School. Detroit Teachers’ College began offering music instruction in 1918; it merged with several other colleges to form a single institution that in 1934 became known as Wayne University and in 1959 as Wayne State University. It offers the BA, BM, MA, MM and doctoral degrees.
In 1943 the Detroit Public Library acquired the E. Azalia Hackley Collection, the largest collection in the USA devoted to black musicians and performing artists; that year the library also initiated an annual series of concerts featuring music by black composers.
In 1851 Adam Couse, a friend of Stephen Foster’s, issued the first music published in Detroit. Other important publishers of the period were Stein & Buchheister, J. Henry Whittemore and Clark J. Whitney. Detroit was known in the 1890s for a vast output of ragtime hits from the publishers Whitney–Warner, Belcher & Davis and others. In the early years of the 20th century Jerome H. Remick was one of the world’s leading publishers of popular music. The Clough & Warren Organ Co., which was established as a melodeon factory in 1850, achieved world fame in the early 1880s when it built an organ for Liszt, to his specifications. In the 20th century the name of Grinnell Brothers, a leading music shop, was also associated with the manufacture of pianos; the firm went out of business in 1977.
For more than 30 years, Detroit was the home of one of the last Sousa-style community bands. The Detroit Concert Band was organized in 1946 by its conductor Leonard Smith to play summer concerts on Belle Isle. It offered annual concerts until 1980 when the season was cancelled due to lack of funds. The recording company Motown was founded as Tamla Records in Detroit in 1959, promoting black American soul music. Although the company moved to Los Angeles in 1971, the Detroit building where it all began has become the Motown Historical Museum, opened in 1988. In 1980 the Montreux-Detroit International Jazz Festival, an annual summer event (renamed the Montreux-Detroit Kool Jazz Festival in 1982), was inaugurated in Detroit. Concerts are given throughout the city, some aboard the Bob-Lo excursion boats on the Detroit River. The local interest in jazz became evident in the early years of the 20th century. The famous Graystone Ballroom, opened in 1922, became one of the greatest dance and concert halls in the country. Historic documents that record its heyday in the 1920s, 30s and 40s are exhibited in the Graystone International Jazz Museum and Hall of Fame which opened in downtown Detroit in 1991.
M. Teal: Musical Activities in Detroit from 1701 through 1870 (diss., U. of Michigan, 1964)
L. Mattson: A History of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (diss., U. of Michigan, 1968)
J. Barron: ‘New Life for the Detroit Symphony’, New York Times (14 April 1985)
MARY TEAL