DSO renames the Max to honor Fisher generosity

What's in a name? $25 million and counting.

To honor the Fisher family's cumulative gifts of $25 million to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra — including $15 million in new and recent gifts announced today — the orchestra has renamed its home along Woodward Avenue.

The Max M. Fisher Music Center is now the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center.

The move puts an exclamation point on the extended Fisher family's support — particularly the leadership of the family matriarch — for the orchestra's programming, endowment and capital needs. (When annual operating support from Fisher family members is included, the figure is much higher than $25 million.)

No single family has had a broader impact on the DSO in the past quarter century.

The late industrialist and philanthropist Max Fisher famously prodded orchestra leaders to think big when it came to renovating historic Orchestra Hall, pushing for a blueprint that would be transformational for both the orchestra and the city. He then provided the lead $10-million bequest to dramatically expand that footprint and impact of the DSO with a $32-million office building and a $60-million addition to Orchestra Hall that opened in 2003 and quickly became known as the Max.

(The Detroit School of Arts also was built on adjacent land donated by the DSO.)

Since Fisher's death in 2005, his wife, Majorie, has become increasingly close to the institution, wrapping its leaders and musicians in a kind of familial hug — supporting everything from touring to education programs and more.

On another front, the Fishers' son, Phillip, and son-in-law, Peter Cummings, have both served as DSO board chair, providing institutional and fund-raising leadership. The Fishers' daughter Jane Sherman also serves on the board.

"I think the two points of legacy that Mr. and Mrs. Fisher have brought to the institution is, first his immortal words, that 'you're not thinking big enough,' " said Paul Hogle, DSO executive vice president. "Mrs. Fisher's generosity is about what happens inside the building — the people and students and what they're accomplishing."

The extended Fisher family's $15 million in recent support has come at a critical time for the DSO, which is in the quiet phase of an endowment campaign that orchestra leaders say needs to reach $125 million in new funds by 2023 to ensure long-term financial stability.

Julie Cummings, the Fishers' daughter, said the family's support of the orchestra had not reached its endpoint. "Some people name buildings and that's it," she said. "We believe in the institution, we believe in the administration, we believe in Leonard Slatkin, and my mother is so passionate about these musicians."

Cummings said that her father — who was a champion of Detroit but was not a music aficionado — would be gratified to see how the DSO's audiences have broadened to reach a far larger cross-section of metro Detroit and how the Max has evolved into a key anchor in Midtown. Cummings said her mother continues to see the DSO "as a beacon of hope."

Marjorie Fisher, 91, lives in Palm Beach, Fla., but Cummings said she still calls Detroit her home.

Contact Mark Stryker: 313-222-6459 or mstryker@freepress.com