Introducing the 23/24 Season
Watch our 30-second trailer.
Be Present.
Dazzling debuts. International superstars. A focus on Arts & Resistance. Welcome to UMS’s 145th season.
or browse season highlights below
For Our Patrons & Season Ticketholders
Season ticket packages are on sale now! Learn more or flip through our interactive season brochure.
Individual event tickets will go on sale Tuesday, August 2.
For the Press
View Full Press Release (PDF)
View Chronological List of Events (PDF)
Season Highlights
An Opening Week to Remember
Snarky Puppy
The 23/24 Season opens with two electrifying, genre-defying ensembles in Hill Auditorium.
- Superband Snarky Puppy returns with songs from their 2023 Grammy-winning album Empire Central (Sun Sep 10, 2023)
- UMS presents the 50th anniversary tour of Shakti, featuring John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, and Shankar Mahadevan, with very special guest Béla Fleck (Thu Sep 14, 2023)
Choral Union Series Events in Hill Auditorium
Klaus Mäkelä and Orchestre de Paris
The 11-concert Choral Union Series features a world premiere, orchestral and conductor debuts, and pianos galore!
- Luminous soprano Renée Fleming in her first appearance since 2011, in recital with pianist Inon Barnatan (Thu Sep 28, 2023)
- Mexico City’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería debuts with conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto and pianist Gabriela Montero, who performs her own Piano Concerto No. 1 (Fri Oct 27, 2023)
- Violinist Maxim Vengerov returns to Ann Arbor for a recital during Thanksgiving weekend (Sun Nov 26, 2023)
- Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Michael Feinstein join forces in a program of piano solos, duos, and vocals, including Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (Sun Dec 10, 2023)
- Pianist Hélène Grimaud makes her pandemic-postponed recital debut (Thu Jan 18, 2024)
- Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos, and Yo-Yo Ma return in an all-Beethoven program of piano trios (Tue Jan 30, 2024)
- UMS presents the world première of Nkeiru Okoye’s When the Caged Bird Sings, in partnership with the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance (Sat Feb 10, 2024)
- Pianist Igor Levit presents a recital of transcriptions by Beethoven and Mahler (Fri Mar 8, 2024)
- Impressive young conductor Klaus Mäkelä makes his UMS debut with Orchestre de Paris, alongside 2022 Van Cliburn-winning pianist Yunchan Lim (Thu Mar 14, 2024)
- Yannick Nézet-Séguin and The Philadelphia Orchestra close out the 23/24 season with two different programs: Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 and Florence Price’s Symphony No. 4; and Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem with the UMS Choral Union (Apr 20-21, 2024)
Chamber Arts in Rackham Auditorium
Akropolis Reed Quintet
A six-concert Chamber Arts Series mixes exciting debuts with perennial favorites.
- The Jerusalem Quartet will appear with Inon Barnatan, who closes out his week of residency activities with this concert (Thu Oct 5, 2023)
- Ann Arbor’s own Akropolis Reed Quintet presents Pascal Le Boeuf’s Are We Dreaming the Same Dream?, a blend of classical, jazz, and contemporary music that explores the variety of perspectives concerning the unity of the American experience (Sun Nov 12, 2023)
- Following a 2020 UMS Digital Presentation, violinist James Ehnes performs in recital alongside faculty and students from the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance (Fri Feb 16, 2024)
- The Isidore Quartet, 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant awardees, make their UMS debut (Sun Mar 10, 2024)
- Jazz trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire makes his UMS debut with pianist Sullivan Fortner, in a program unique to UMS (Fri Mar 22, 2024)
- The Takács Quartet presents a program that nods to the natural world, including a new quartet and UMS Co-Commission by Nokuthula Ngwenyama (Fri Apr 12, 2024)
Arts & Resistance at Michigan
DakhaBrakha
The U-M College of Literature, Science & the Arts has announced that Fall 2023 will be the “Arts & Resistance” theme semester. Several of UMS’s presentations were programmed to fit into this theme.
- Ann Arbor is one of only two cities in the US to host the Irish theater company Druid, and their immersive trilogy of Sean O’Casey’s plays focused on the period immediately before and through the Irish Civil War (Oct 18-21, 2023)
- UMS is proud to welcome back Ukrainian folk-punk quartet DakhaBrakha, who made their UMS debut in 2017 (Fri Nov 3, 2023)
- British-Iranian theater maker Javaad Alipoor, whose The Believers Are But Brothers was featured as part of UMS’s No Safety Net festival in 2020, returns with his newest work, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (Nov 15-18, 2023)
Dance in Ann Arbor and Detroit
Batsheva Dance Company
- LaTasha Barnes, who appeared as part of Caleb Teicher’s SW!NG OUT in 2022, brings The Jazz Continuum, a new dance production that centers the prolific artistry of jazz music and dance as a cornerstone of Black American culture and community (Jan 19-20, 2024)
- The Martha Graham Dance Company presents two performances featuring Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo, a new work set to music by Rhiannon Giddens, and Graham’s final work, Maple Leaf Rag. (Feb 17-18, 2024)
- UMS collaborates with Detroit Opera to bring the Israeli company Batsheva and its new production MOMO to Detroit (Mar 23-24, 2024)
Traditions from Around the Globe
Mariachi Herencia de México and La Marisoul
In addition to DakhaBrakha and the Shakti 50th anniversary tour, the 23/24 season features:
- Mariachi Herencia de México with La Marisoul, the lead singer of La Santa Cecilia who fronts the ensemble with her powerful and captivating vocals in Hill Auditorium (Tue Nov 14, 2023)
- Master oud player Marcel Khalifé and his son Rami Khalifé, a classically trainer jazz pianist and composer, join together for a program called Legacy (Thu Apr 11, 2024)
Holiday Programming for the Family
Jake Shimabukuro
Two holiday performances in December include the annual presentation of Handel’s Messiah with the UMS Choral Union and Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra (Sat-Sun Dec 2-3, 2023) and ukulele superstar Jake Shimabukuro, who brings his Holidays in Hawai’i program to Ann Arbor (Fri Dec 8, 2023).
A Concert Experience You Can’t Refuse
The Godfather
UMS is partnering with the Grand Rapids Symphony to present The Godfather Live. Francis Ford Coppola’s epic film will be presented with John Varineau conducting the Grand Rapids Symphony in Nino Rota’s Oscar-nominated score. (Sun Jan 7, 2024)
Discover all upcoming events at ums.org/season. Additional 23/24 Season programming — including School Day Performances, UMS Digital Presentations, and our Fall residency at the Ypsilanti Freighthouse — will be announced over the coming months.
