“Jader Bignamini was onstage with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in May, conducting a brand-new piece as its composer [Veronika Krausas] watched from her seat,” writes Brian McCollum in Sunday’s (6/6) Detroit Free Press (MI). “She promptly spotted something unusual…. He was conducting … from memory…. Fully assimilating a piece, then conducting from memory … as Bignamini does with all his symphonic performances—is just part of the recipe that makes the 44-year-old Italian native special, said [DSO Vice President and General Manager Erik] Ronmark…. Bignamini will conduct 10 of the classical weeks on the upcoming 2021-22 schedule [which] includes plenty of core classical stock…. More than a third of the season’s material is by living composers; more than a quarter of it is by Black composers…. On Tuesday, Bignamini will [conduct] the Michigan Opera Theatre orchestra in … ‘Cavalleria rusticana’ at Meadow Brook Amphitheatre…. As Bignamini and the DSO navigated 2020—staging scaled-down live concerts and deploying the organization’s digital savvy for online events—the masked music director and his socially distanced musicians grew closer…. ‘He showed up. He stuck with us…. When he’s with us, there’s always this sense of music and energy first,’ [Acting Concertmaster Kim Kennedy] said.”
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