Most Memorable UMS Performance Contest

By UMS

1. Laurie Anderson, last at UMS in 10/11 Season. 2. Philadelphia Orchestra, 1976 May Festival.

What’s your most memorable UMS performance experience? Tell us about it & win.

Describe a live UMS performance that still holds strong feelings or memories for you years later and explain why it does.

How to enter: Tweet about your most memorable UMS performance during the contest period using the hash tag #faveums, or comment on UMS’s Facebook page during the contest period. You must describe your UMS performance experience and use the hashtag #faveums. Your contest entry should be original.

Eligibility: Only open to @UMSNews followers on Twitter or fans of UMS on Facebook.

Contest period: Sept 12^th-23rd

Winners: Winners will be selected at about 5PM E.T. Friday, September 16th & 23rd by a panel of judges on UMS staff. Entries will be judged based on creativity and memory-evoking ability. Winners will be contacted via Twitter or Facebook respectively, and if winners do not reply within 5 days, new winners will be declared.

Prizes: Winners will receive an iTunes gift card, plus a pair of tickets to a performance of their choice this season. Two runners up will also receive an iTunes gift card.

Congrats to last week’s winner, Colleen McClain! Her most memorable UMS performance was her first:

“[My most memorable UMS performance] was also my first, as a wide-eyed freshman: Renee Fleming in Strauss’s Daphne. I listened in awe, and after the opera turned to my roommate in the balcony– vowing that I would sing on the same stage she had just commanded before graduation. Six months later, I accomplished that goal (much less beautifully!), thinking of her moving performance the entire time. The energy, sense of community, and beauty that was so much a part of Fleming’s performance has stuck with me each time I’ve stepped onstage or into a seat at Hill since.”

Roger Garrett was the runner-up. His memory is of UM & UMS in 1978, and includes a run-in between the Philadelphia Orchestra and the victors:

“In the fall of 1978, I was a freshman music major. Both my parents had attended UM and told me that if I became an usher for the UMS concerts, I could hear some really great performances for free. I did just that. During my first year I heard the New York Phil, the LA Phil, and the Philadelphia Orchestra (among others). The performance that stands out the most was the Philadelphia Orchestra – for several reasons. 1) – I met Eugene Ormandy and Anthony Gigliotti (Principal Clarinetist) after the concert back stage; 2) They played the Love of Three Oranges Suite by Prokofiev, and Ormandy conducted from memory. He was older at this point in his career, so it was obvious when he began the upbeat for one of the movements in a slow and dramatic tenuto gesture and gave the downbeat, he had forgotten which movement was next because the orchestra came in perfectly together and precise at a very fast tempo. He adjusted right away and joined them, but it was clear that he had forgotten the order of movements. Finally – they played The Victors, and when they reached the trio and the Celli played in a liquid, legato style, almost sappy, everyone laughed! Great concert.”

Our round two winner is KarenZaruda!

“That’s easy: February 2009, the Kodo concert with my family. My son, who was 10 years old, had recently began taking drum lessons. He was enthralled, as were we all! The auditorium felt like the walls were throbbing, and I would have sworn our internal organs were thrumming right along. The climax of the concert involves an extremely fit fellow wearing a loincloth (and little else!) facing a huge drum and playing it with his limbs splayed, arms over his head, beating that thing with unbelievable force. It was as if all the energy in his body flowed from him into the drum. It gave me a new appreciation for the path my son was starting on in his pursuit of music, the bodily connection that a drummer can feel with his instrument. Such a memorable night!”

Molly Elizabeth Mardit was the runner-up:

“During the Winter semester of 2009, I went with a friend to the newly renovated UMMA and experienced Mohammed Bennis and the Hmadcha Ensemble’s performance. What a night! I was especially pumped for this, as the ensemble is from Fez, Morocco, a place I had visited and loved so much, just one year before. I knew it was going to be an experience when my friend and I entered the space, and were told that we could sit anywhere. “Anywhere” ended up being right in the front row, atop pillows and fluffy carpeting that had been brought in especially for the performance. The ensemble had a way of captivating the audience, and soon enough, we were all on our feet, dancing and trancing together. I got such a high that night. :D”

Thanks for entering !

PS. Yes we read & love the New Yorker.