Brazilian jazz, Mussorgsky on DSO bill

By Lawrence B. Johnson

Exotic Brazilian jazz in a lush symphonic setting awaits patrons of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s third annual weekend of outdoor concerts at the Edsel and Eleanore Ford House in Grosse Pointe Shores.

Friday night’s Brazilian fare gives way Saturday to a classical program featuring Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony and works by Bizet, Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky. Both concerts will be conducted by Carolyn Kuan, music director of the Hartford (Conn.) Symphony…..

Sharing Friday’s solo spotlight will be Julien Labro, a French-born Detroiter and master of the accordion-like bandoneon. Metro jazz buffs know Labro, a graduate of Wayne State University, as co-leader of the Django Reinhardt-inspired Hot Club of Detroit.

Labro says he got hooked on the bandoneon the first time he heard the instrument as a boy in France…..

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