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Press Releases
June 26: Detroit Symphony Orchestra Releases New Live Recording of Carmina Burana on PENTATONE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contacts:
Katy Salomon | Primo Artists
katy@primoartists.com | 646.801.9406
Hannah Engwall Elbialy | Detroit Symphony Orchestra
hengwall@dso.org | 313.576.5137
Detroit Symphony Orchestra Captures Monumental Forces of Orff’s Carmina Burana in New Live Recording
Music Director Jader Bignamini Leads DSO, International Soloists, Dual Choruses, and Expanded Forces in One of the Most Iconic Works of the 20th Century
Featuring Chen Reiss, Reginald Mobley, and Andrzej Filonczyk alongside Audivi and the Detroit Opera Youth Chorus
Out June 26, 2026 on PENTATONE
Pre-Release Single Out June 5 – “Tempus est iocundum” (Duet)
Detroit, MI (April 7, 2026) – On Friday, June 26, 2026, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Jader Bignamini release a new recording of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana on PENTATONE. This new live recording captures the immense scale and theatrical power of the work, featuring soprano Chen Reiss, countertenor Reginald Mobley, and baritone Andrzej Filonczyk alongside the Detroit-based vocal ensemble Audivi and the Detroit Opera Youth Chorus, with expanded forces including two pianos, celesta, and a prominent percussion section.
The duet from “Tempus est iocundum” will be released as a single on June 5.
Bignamini shares, “Recording Carmina Burana with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a live concert setting was an unforgettable experience. The power of the music, combined with the artistry of the DSO and the strength of human voices, created something truly extraordinary in the hall. Performing this work with two choruses and three outstanding vocal soloists gave the piece an immense scale – grand, dramatic, and deeply emotional.
“For a conductor, Carmina Burana demands total engagement. It is music sustained by connection – between conductor, musicians, singers, and audience. In a live recording, that connection feels especially immediate, shaped by every nuance of sound and silence. This recording captures not only a performance but a shared artistic journey. The result is thrilling.”
One of the most electrifying and recognizable works of the twentieth century, Carmina Burana draws on 13th-century manuscripts from the German monastery Benediktbeuern Abbey, transforming the irreverent poetry of medieval students and clerics into a monumental scenic cantata. From the iconic opening chorus “O Fortuna” to exuberant dances, tavern scenes, and courtly love interludes, the work unfolds as a vivid exploration of fate, desire, and human experience, driven by elemental rhythms and striking orchestration.
As noted in the album’s liner essay by Andrew Kohler, the work is unified by its central image of fate: “The collection opens with an illustration of the Wheel of Fate, representing an inexorable cycle of luck and tragedy, which is the subject of Orff’s opening and closing chorus, ‘O Fortuna.’”
Structured as a sweeping cycle framed by the return of “O Fortuna,” Carmina Burana moves through scenes of springtime renewal, raucous tavern life, and the rituals of love, balancing diatonic simplicity with rhythmic intensity. The work’s recurring musical motifs evoke the inexorable Wheel of Fate, binding together its contrasting worlds of humor, satire, sensuality, and spiritual reflection.
Recorded live at Orchestra Hall in Detroit in November 2025, this release captures the immediacy and visceral power of a concert performance, bringing together orchestra, chorus, and soloists in a unified, large-scale artistic statement.
This release follows the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s acclaimed recording of Wynton Marsalis’s Blues Symphony, released on PENTATONE in March 2025.
Orff: Carmina Burana Tracklist
Carl Orff (1895–1982) – Carmina Burana (1937)
Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
1. O Fortuna [2:33]
2. Fortune plango vulnera [2:49]
I. Primo vere
3. III. Veris leta facies [4:54]
4. IV. Omnia Sol temperat [2:26]
5. V. Ecce gratum [2:36]
Uf dem anger
6. VI. Tanz [1:43]
7. VII. Floret silva nobilis [3:05]
8. VIII. Chramer, gip die varwe mir [3:24]
9. IX. Reie [4:45]
10. X. Were diu werlt alle min [0:51]
II. In taberna
11. XI. Estuans interius [2:21]
12. XII. Olim lacus colueram [3:37]
13. XIII. Ego sum abbas [1:38]
14. XIV. In taberna quando sumus [3:07]
III. Cour d’amours
15. XV. Amor volat undique [3:29]
16. XVI. Dies, nox et omnia [2:17]
17. XVII. Stetit puella [1:53]
18. XVIII. Circa mea pectora [2:01]
19. XIX. Si puer cum puellula [0:57]
20. XX. Veni, veni, venias [0:57]
21. XXI. In trutina [2:07]
22. XXII. Tempus est iocundum [2:04]
23. XXIII. Dulcissime [0:38]
Blanzifor et Helena
24. XXIV. Ave formosissima [1:59]
Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi
25. XXV. O Fortuna (reprise) [2:44]
Total Time: 61:06
Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Jader Bignamini, conductor
Chen Reiss, soprano
Reginald Mobley, countertenor
Andrzej Filonczyk, baritone
Audivi, chorus
Detroit Opera Youth Chorus
About the Detroit Symphony Orchestra
The acclaimed Detroit Symphony Orchestra is known for trailblazing performances, collaborations with the world’s foremost musical artists, and a deep connection to its city. Led by Music Director Jader Bignamini since 2020, the DSO makes its home at historic Orchestra Hall within the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center, offering a robust performance schedule that features classical, pops, jazz, and family concerts, plus community performances. Enrico Lopez-Yañez was named Principal Pops Conductor in 2023, trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard serves as the orchestra’s Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair, and Tabita Berglund began her tenure as Principal Guest Conductor in the 2024–25 season. A dedication to broadcast innovation and technology began in 1922, when the DSO became the first orchestra in the world to present a live radio broadcast of a concert and continues today with the groundbreaking Live from Orchestra Hall series of free webcasts.
The DSO’s distinguished history of recordings—many led by its renowned music directors—spans nearly a century, beginning with the orchestra’s first 78 rpm singles with Ossip Gabrilowitsch released on the Victrola label in 1928. A steady recording output has continued since then, with highlights including more than 20 releases with Paul Paray for Mercury’s Living Presence series, and 27 under the baton of Neeme Järvi, mostly on the Chandos label. In the 1970s, the DSO took part in the historic Black Composers Series for Columbia Records led by its then-Associate Conductor Paul Freeman and later made several acclaimed recordings with Antal Doráti for the Decca label. More recently, under the direction of Leonard Slatkin, the DSO recorded music by Rachmaninoff, Copland, and John Williams for the Naxos label, earning its first GRAMMY® nomination in 2017 for Copland’s Third Symphony / Three Latin American Sketches. The first recording with Jader Bignamini, of Wynton Marsalis’s Blues Symphony, was released in March 2025 on the Pentatone label.
Since its first school concerts a century ago, and particularly since the founding of the Civic Youth Ensembles in 1970, the DSO has been a national leader in bringing the benefits of music education to students, teachers, and families in Detroit and surrounding communities. The DSO remains committed to expanding its participation in the growth and well-being of Detroit through programs like its Detroit Neighborhood Initiative—cultural events co-created with community partners and residents—and Detroit Harmony, a promise to provide an instrument and instruction to any student in the city who wants to learn. With unwavering support from the people of Detroit, the DSO actively pursues a mission to impact lives through the power of unforgettable musical experiences. Learn more at www.dso.org.
About Jader Bignamini
Jader Bignamini was introduced as the 18th music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in January 2020, commencing with the 2020–21 season. His infectious passion and artistic excellence set the tone for the seasons ahead, creating extraordinary music and establishing a close relationship with the orchestra. During his tenure in Detroit, Bignamini has collaborated with such artists as Branford Marsalis, Hilary Hahn, Daniil Trifonov, Yuja Wang, Yo-Yo Ma, and Alisa Weilerstein, as well as composers Michael Abels and Carlos Simon, and conducted major symphonic works by Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, and Strauss, plus Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, Florence Price, and Margaret Bonds. A jazz aficionado, he has immersed himself in Detroit’s rich jazz culture and the influences of American music. In 2023, the DSO extended Bignamini’s contract for a second five-year term, through 2031.
A native of Crema, Italy, Bignamini studied at the Piacenza Music Conservatory and began his career as a clarinetist with Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, later serving as the group’s resident conductor. Captivated by the works of legends like Mahler and Tchaikovsky, Bignamini explored their complexity and power, puzzling out each instrument's role in creating a larger-than-life sound. In the years since, Bignamini has conducted some of the world’s most acclaimed orchestras and opera companies in venues across the globe, including working with Riccardo Chailly on concerts of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in 2013 and his concert debut at La Scala in 2015 for the opening season of La Sinfonica di Milano.
Recent highlights include debuts with Opera de Paris, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra, and the Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Minnesota symphonies; The Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Festival; and at the Grand Teton Festival. He has also appeared with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and London Philharmonic; with the Metropolitan Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Vienna State Opera, Dutch National Opera, and Bayerische Staatsoper; in Montpellier for the Festival de Radio France; and had return engagements with Oper Frankfurt and Santa Fe Opera. In Italy, Bignamini has conducted numerous operas at the Arena of Verona, Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera, Teatro Massimo in Palermo, the Verdi Festival in Parma, Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, and La Fenice in Venice.
Bignamini also has a great career in Asia, including Japan where he has conducted the Osaka Philharmonic, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, and opera productions of Andrea Chenier at NHK and La Traviata by Sofia Coppola with costumes by Valentino in Tokyo and on tour with Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera that is available on Blu-ray.
One of Bignamini’s greatest passions is working with the next generation of musicians, and during the summer, he is a regular guest of the Interlochen Center for the Arts with the DSO and of the Asian Youth Orchestra, leading tours featuring the most talented young musicians from Asia. Learn more at https://www.jaderbignamini.it/.
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