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LEONARD SLATKIN

CONDUCTOR | COMPOSER | AUTHOR

LEONARD SLATKIN

CONDUCTOR | COMPOSER | AUTHOR

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Detroit Symphony Orchestra Announces 2018-19 Season
By leonard slatkin
January 26, 2018

Slatkin, now in his 10th and final year as DSO music director, will return in 2018-19 as music director laureate to open the season with concerts featuring violinist Gil Shaham. He will return in Feb. to lead a three-week American Festival and will close the season in June with a program featuring pianist Makoto Ozone.

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Leonard Slatkin’s Conducting School, Lesson Sixteen: Putting It All Together, Part One
By leonard slatkin
January 15, 2018

In this month’s video, Maestro Slatkin offers an in-depth look at Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, explaining the study process a conductor uses to prepare for a performance of this masterwork.

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JUNE 2026

By leonard slatkin

It is that time of year when concert seasons are winding down, and we take a bit of time to get ready for summer activities. May was one of the most exhilarating months I could have ever imagined, and not all the events were about conducting.

The last two weeks of the very long European tour finally arrived. In Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, I was not quite sure what to expect with a truly difficult program. Since we had six rehearsals, Music Director Karel Mark Chichon and I had decided to really challenge the orchestra.

Leonard Slatkin

Internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin is Music Director of the Nashville Symphony, Conductor Laureate of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Directeur Musical Honoraire of the Orchestre National de Lyon, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria. He maintains a rigorous schedule of guest conducting and is active as a composer, author, and educator

A six-time Grammy winner and recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Slatkin also holds the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor. He has been awarded the Lincoln Medal from Ford’s Theatre Society, the Prix Charbonnier from the Federation of Alliances Françaises, Austria’s Decoration of Honor in Silver, and the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton. His debut book, Conducting Business (2012), for which he received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award, was followed by Leading Tones (2017) and Classical Crossroads: The Path Forward for Music in the 21^st Century (2021). His latest books are Eight Symphonic Masterworks of the Twentieth Century (spring 2024) and Eight Symphonic Masterworks of the Nineteenth Century (fall 2024). A second volume of twentieth-century score studies will be published by Bloomsbury in February 2027 as part of this ongoing series.

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