Detroit Symphony Orchestra executives say the organization is grief-stricken by the passing of Paul Ganson, a longtime DSO musician who spearheaded the preservation of Orchestra Hall.
Ganson, who had lived in Appleton, Wisconsin, since retirement, AD: Launch Diagnostic Tool. died Jan. 2. He was hospitalized Christmas Eve amid complications from a recent heart surgery, said George Troia Jr., president of the Detroit Federation of Musicians.
Ganson was the DSO's assistant principal bassoon from 1969 to 2004 and later served as director emeritus. But he was best known as the founder of Save Orchestra Hall, a campaign launched in 1970 to preserve and restore the historic venue, ultimately leading to the creation of the Max M. and Marjorie Fisher Music Center in 2003.
"Paul's extraordinary impact on the DSO cannot be overstated - he stands with (founding director) Ossip Gabrilowitsch and very few others as a giant in the history of our orchestra," the organization wrote in a letter to musicians and staff. "We literally would not be where we are today without Paul."
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The DSO described Ganson as the orchestra's "unofficial historian." He was co-author of the 2016 book "The Detroit Symphony Orchestra: Grace, Grit, and Glory," published by Wayne State University Press.
Ganson's legacy will be celebrated by the DSO "once we are all back together," the letter read.
The below 2003 profile of Ganson, by Mark Stryker, was published in the Free Press ahead of the Max opening.
(By Mark Stryker. Originally published in the Detroit Free Press on Sept. 28, 2003.)
There are many heroes behind the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's $60-million Max M. Fisher Music Center, and there are many red-letter dates in the epic history of the project. But D-Day was Sept. 17, 1970.
It was a Thursday afternoon, five minutes after 4 by Paul Ganson's recollection, when the phone rang. "Are you sitting down?" asked the agitated voice on the other end of the line.
"Yes," Ganson replied.
"Because Orchestra Hall is coming down!"
Orchestra Hall, the DSO's historic home on Woodward Avenue, known for its superb acoustics, had been sold to a Pennsylvania fast-food chain and was slated for demolition in two weeks. Ganson, who had joined the orchestra a year earlier as the assistant principal bassoonist, had fallen in with a tiny group of Detroiters who were fantasizing about renovating the decaying, beloved concert hall the DSO had abandoned in 1939.
It was the day before Ganson's 29th birthday when that fateful call came, and it changed not only the life of this erudite newcomer to the DSO but also the fate of the orchestra and the cultural history of Detroit.
Ganson became the leader of the Save Orchestra Hall movement, the critical organizer and moral force behind the 20-year grassroots drive that ended with the DSO's return in 1989. That success laid the foundation for the DSO's artistic rebirth under music director Neeme Jarvi and the ambitious, decade-long Orchestra Place redevelopment project that reaches its apex with the opening of the Max M. Fisher Music Center on Oct. 11.
"The beginning of it all is Paul," says DSO board chairman Peter Cummings.
THE MAX, as the new building has been nicknamed, is a 135,000-square-foot addition to Orchestra Hall that includes a 450-seat recital hall, an education center, a four-story atrium lobby and long-needed amenities -- elevators, coat checks, concession areas, musicians' dressing rooms and lockers, and kitchen and catering facilities. Novi-based Epoch Events, a division of the company that operates the restaurants Tribute and Forte, has signed on as the in-house caterer.
In addition to the Max, the Orchestra Place campus includes an office building that opened in 1997 and a Detroit Public Schools performing arts high school to open in 2005. All told, the project represents $220 million in investment in the neighborhood.
"It's going to be a while before I can comprehend the complete wonder and joy of it all," says Ganson, 62. "When I go in the Max, I never fail to be ...

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