A New Era: The Max M. Fisher Music Center
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra entered a new era on October 11, 2003 with the opening of the Max M. Fisher Music Center. “The Max” became a new music center complex combining the restored and modernized Orchestra Hall (the Orchestra's home once again since 1989) and a 135,000-square-foot facility that includes The Music Box, a 450-seat second performance hall with variable configurations, the Jacob Bernard Pincus Music Education Center, which supports the DSO’s Civic Youth Ensembles and other educational activities, and additional performance, backstage, administrative, and rental spaces.
Directly behind the Max is the Detroit School for the Arts, completed in 2005. This magnet public high school and broadcast technology complex also features the home of WRCJ 90.9 FM, Detroit’s classical and jazz music station that is managed by Detroit Public Television.
The opening of the Max sparked the development of Woodward Avenue and Detroit's Midtown neighborhood that continues today. All around the Max new commerical, residential, educational and cultural facitlies are opening with a pace unrivaled in modern Detroit history.
The Max ushered in one new era but also marked the end of another: acclaimed and jovial Estonian conductor Neeme Järvi, Music Director of the DSO since 1990, stepped down from his post at the end of 2005. Esteemed conductor Leonard Slatkin, called "America’s Music Director" by The Los Angeles Times, became the DSO’s 12th Music Director in 2008 and conductor, trumpeter, and arranger Jeff Tyzik was appointed Principal Pops Conductor in 2012.
While the DSO's home remains at the Max and Orchestra Hall, its committment to accessiblity brings it to venues all across southeast Michigan through its Neighborhood Residency Initiative and to music lovers worldwide via the free Live from Orchestra Hall webcast series at dso.org/live, the only such offering by any orchestra on the planet.