[after Orazio Gentileschi’s Young Woman with a Violin (Saint Cecelia) (1612), Collection: Detroit Institute of Art] Collection of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Hall, Detroit, MI
TEXT ON GLASS: 1959. I sit spellbound next to my parents in
a darkened Detroit concert hall. I hear an echo
though I don’t know where it comes from.
Eight o’clock October 23rd, 1919
Ossip Gabrilowitsch strides onstage
to inaugurate Orchestra Hall. He waits for silence
then sweeps his baton upward. His handpicked
musicians raise their instruments. The Maestro
from Russia slices the air. A horn sounds
the ascending first three notes of Weber’s
Overture to Oberon. The strings whisper,
the flutes reply, and the music begins.
Click to READ PRESS RELEASE AND SEE INSTALLATION VIEW in the Max & Marjorie Fisher Music Center, Detroit, Michigan