The prestigious Detroit Symphony Orchestra is another in a series of foreign ensembles that has included Dora Pejačević’s Symphony in its repertoire. For three nights in a row, on February 23, 24 and 25, 2023, the American audience will be able to enjoy the work of the Croatian composer under the baton of the Italian maestro Jader Bignamini, the current music director. At the concert titled Night on a Deserted Mountain, named after Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky’s composition of the same name, which will be performed, the program will include Grieg’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A minor (the soloist on the piano is Alexander Gavrylyuk) and the Symphony in F minor, op. 41 Dora Pejačević, who is announced as “a member of a Croatian noble family, [who] broke gender barriers in classical music in the early 20th Century”! The concert will take place in the Orchestra Hall of the Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is one of the oldest American orchestras, whose history dates back to 1887, with Neeme Järvi and Leonard Slatkin as chief conductors, among others. The last concert, on February 25, 2023, will be broadcast live as part of the Live from Orchestra Hall program, the ensemble’s first free Webcast, launched in 2011. From the rich publishing catalog of the Croatian Music Information Center, Dora Pejačević’s Symphony is one of the most important orchestral works of Croatian music, and undeniably one of the most important orchestral compositions written by women composers of the first half of the 20th century.
Ana Unkić / Jelena Vuković