Celebrating our Diamond Jubilee this year, the Dearborn Symphony continues to be one of the region’s strongest and most talented community symphony orchestras. Steven Jarvi, Music Director and Conductor, has an exciting season planned to commemorate 60 years of special music. Behind the scenes, the DSO Board of Directors and its loyal group of corporate supporters, service organizations, community leaders, and donors are what enable Dearborn and area residents to continue enjoying its outstanding concert series. Membership in the orchestra is open and new musicians are welcomed through audition. Originally, many principal positions were held by members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, who provided leadership to the various sections. In addition to the adult musicians, the orchestra often includes a few very talented scholarship winners. Steven Jarvi is the principal conductor and music director of the Dearborn Symphony. He has vast experience as guest conductor for orchestras across the United States, Canada and Europe. Raised in Grand Haven, Michigan, Steven Jarvi holds a Bachelor's degree in Music Theory from the University of Michigan where he studied with Kenneth Kiesler, Martin Katz and Jerry Blackstone, along with a Master's in Orchestral Conducting from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with the legendary conducting pedagogue, Gustav Meier. At the age of 21, Steven traveled to Austria at the invitation of Claudio Abbado for study with the maestro and the Berlin Philharmonic at the Salzburg Easter Festival. Former New York Philharmonic Music Director, Kurt Masur, later selected him to appear in a weeklong master class and concert. As the Seiji Ozawa Conducting Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, Steven was one of two conductors selected to study under then Boston Symphony and Metropolitan Opera Music Director, James Levine, along with Kurt Masur, Stefan Asbury and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. While at Tanglewood, Jarvi conducted critically praised performances with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, and the Mark Morris Dance Group. Jarvi won the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Award while the Associate Conductor of the Kansas City Symphony, and previously served as the Conducting Fellow with Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, an Associate Conductor for New York City Opera at Lincoln Center, and the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Conductor with the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center.
“I am delighted to be leading this wonderful group of musicians and to bring my passion for live orchestral music to Dearborn and surrounding communities,” Jarvi shared. “I was very taken by, not only the orchestra’s high level of musicianship, but also by their enthusiasm and dedication to the future of the Symphony. I go to work with the mindset that I became a musician to express myself as an artist and to have fun! The Dearborn Symphony musicians reflect the same sentiment.”
