Excerpts from the DSO website:

''Designed by noted architect C. Howard Crane, Orchestra Hall celebrated its inaugural concert on October 23, 1919. For the next twenty years, Orchestra Hall played host to the world's most famous composers, conductors and performers. But by 1939, wracked by the Great Depression and encumbered with debt, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra left the Hall for the economy and promise of Masonic Auditorium.''

''On Christmas Eve 1941, new owners Ben and Lou Cohen reopened Orchestra Hall as the Paradise Theatre. The very place that Detroit audiences once went to hear Prokofiev, Gershwin and Horowitz began featuring contemporary talent such as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne and Pearl Bailey. The Paradise Theatre was as important to Detroit as the Apollo Theatre was to Harlem. This golden era came to a close in 1951 when The Paradise closed, another casualty of the waning big band era.''

''Once an acoustical legend, Orchestra Hall fell into disrepair after the Paradise Theatre closed. By 1970, the building was slowly but surely becoming a ruin. Local citizens led by bassoonist Paul Ganson rallied to save the great concert hall. Following a series of marches and sidewalk benefit performances, musicians and friends of the DSO succeeded in saving Orchestra Hall from demolition. After 20 years of restoration, the expense of $6.8 million and thousands of donated hours, the DSO triumphantly moved back into its historic home in 1989.''

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra entered a new era on October 11, 2003 with the opening of the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center. The $60 million project, nicknamed 'The Max,' created a new music center complex consisting of the restored and modernized Orchestra Hall and a 135,000-square-foot facility that includes five additional rental spaces for meetings, weddings, concerts, or other special events.   Read more »