Riley: Detroit Symphony Orchestra branches out to neighborhoods - outside Detroit

CLOSE

The 2018 Honda Accord was named Car of the Year. The Volvo XC60 was named Utility of the Year. The Lincoln Navigator was named Truck of the Year. Mandi Wright/Detroit Free Press

First, I'm not picking on the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

After hearing the DSO perform the “Home Alone” soundtrack while watching the film over the holidays, I have been feeling the symphony right now, loving the symphony and spreading the word.

Yes, it was a little thing. But I get excited by innovation and creativity.

So, when I saw the glossy brochure announcing the William Davidson DSO Neighborhood Concert Series, I was thrilled!

The pamphlet featured photos of conductors and performers headed to concert venues across the region: a huge, beautiful church in Plymouth, a performing arts center in Clinton Township, a large auditorium at a prestigious high school in Beverly Hills; and a temple in Southfield. 

Touted as “The DSO Comes To You,” the initiative offers multiple concerts in venues down the street from where you live.

Unless you live in Detroit – and your neighborhood is outside the 7.2, the central business district where the city’s renaissance has received the greatest focus, development and praise.

Sure, the symphony’s headquarters is in Detroit, in midtown, but that’s not in a neighborhood out in the city.

The neighborhood concerts aren't new. After the DSO suffered a devastating employees' strike in 2010-2011, DSO President Anne Parsons had to find a way to bring audiences back. The DSO began digital and suburban outreach initiatives to reach their traditional audiences.

This year's concert series comes at a time when Detroit is undergoing a major renaissance that began in earnest with Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert buying and renovating dozens of major buildings and the Ilitch family building a new hockey arena and surrounding midtown neighborhoods.

But city residents outside the bustling 7.2 square miles of downtown and midtown have decried that the renaissance has not reached enough outside of it.

Now we must recognize that it is the responsibility of the DSO to reach out because it is the responsibility of every entity in Detroit to help build bridges. It's not just the mayor's job to change the city vs. suburbs and the Two Detroits mindset that could still derail the renaissance.

Out in Detroit live the residents who held the city up when it was down. They didn't abandon it, but kept it afloat just in time for absent property owners to return and raise rents so high that some longtime residents and commercial entities are being kicked out – growing the talk of the Two Detroits.

The symphony missed a chance at change by offering a concert at Chene Park or Rosedale Park or Second Ebenezer Church, the acoustically glorious east side house of worship, in addition to those in Macomb and western Wayne County.

It had – and still has – a chance to change business as usual.

Parsons said she recognizes how it looks and is game to do something about it.

“I think, particularly, as the world changes locally, context matters – 2011 and 2018 were very different times,” she said. “This neighborhood series was convened at a very different time with different pressures. As it turned out, our business model has gotten healthier every single year, and I am pleased that this institution has earned its way back into being an institution for great service to this community, and I mean everyone.

“I would love to host and have a partner to have a regular concert series … in the city,” she said. “We were in Dearborn, but not in Macomb, so we went to Macomb. So, we are responsive. It can evolve. It would absolutely be great to evolve, to have a partner that raises its hand and says, ‘Let’s do this together. I’m really open to that.”

So perhaps the DSO, a magnificent local asset that deserves our support, can help negate the Two Detroits narrative by connecting with hard-working residents who want what everyone else wants: a piece of the pie.

The symphony isn’t alone, but it can lead the way by reaching out not just to potential audience members in Plymouth, Bloomfield Hills and Clinton Township, but to those in Jefferson-Chalmers, Palmer Woods and West Village.

Unless there is a reason that it cannot.

I love the symphony. I apparently am not alone. Ticket sales are growing in Detroit every year, Parsons said. And the symphony does much work with city youth, including hosting thousands in music programs and doing small concerts at city schools.

It's time for more. 

For decades, Detroit was a city in isolation, surrounded by a ring of towns, many of whose leaders held separatist attitudes. Yes, those attitudes were matched by those of some city leaders. But those days must be over – on all sides.

Everyone must work on this mission. But perhaps the DSO – and a partner – can step up and show others how it’s done.

Contact Rochelle Riley: rriley99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @rochelleriley. Get tickets for the launch party for her book "The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery" here.