The Show Must Go On

Choirs fill in for strike-bound symphony

by James Leonard

posted 3/10/2011

"I'm in full 'punt' mode," U-M conductor Jerry Blackstone emailed in February. For more than five months, Blackstone had been rehearsing the Choral Union for a pair of March performances of Mahler's Eighth--the biggest, longest, loudest symphony in the standard repertoire. It was a huge effort, enlisting not only the Choral Union but also the U-M's University Choir, Chamber Choir, and Orpheus Singers, and even the MSU Children's Choir. But the production's linchpin was the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the DSO, caught in a bitter musicians'

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