Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Detroit

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) is an American orchestra based in Detroit. Its primary performance venue is Orchestra Hall at the Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit's Midtown neighborhood. The orchestra's current president and chief executive officer is Anne Parsons, since 2004. Jader Bignamini is the current music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Leonard Slatkin, the previous music director, is the orchestra's current music director laureate. Neeme Järvi, music director from 1990 to 2005, is the orchestra's current music director emeritus.

The DSO performed the first concert of its first subscription season at 8:00 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 19, 1887 at the Detroit Opera House. The conductor was Rudolph Speil. He was succeeded in subsequent seasons by a variety of conductors until 1900 when Hugo Kalsow was appointed and served until the orchestra ceased operations in 1910. The Detroit Symphony resumed operations in 1914 when ten Detroit society women each contributed $100 to the organization and pledged to find 100 additional subscribers. They soon hired a music director, Weston Gales, a 27-year-old church organist from Boston, who led the first performance of the reconstituted orchestra on February 26, 1914, again at the old Detroit Opera House.

In 2013, the DSO returned to Carnegie Hall for the first time in 17 years to perform in the Spring for Music Festival. In January 2014, the DSO announced that board, musicians, and management agreed to a new three-year contract eight months before the current one expired.

In June 2018, Jader Bignamini first guest-conducted the DSO, as an emergency substitute for Slatkin. Bignamini returned in October 2019 for a further guest-conducting engagement with the orchestra. In January 2020, the DSO announced the appointment of Bignamini as its next music director, effective with the 2020–2021 season, with an initial contract of 6 seasons.