2025 Grammy Winning UMS Guest Artists

By UMS

Clockwise from left: Drummer Christian Euman with the Akropolis Reed Quintet and composer/pianist Pascal Le Boeuf, jazz vocalist Samara Joy, tenor and U-M alumnus Nicholas Phan, Sō Percussion member Eric Cha-Beach, and banjoist Béla Fleck

The 2025 Grammy Awards ceremony was a particularly memorable celebration for UMS. Seven unique voting categories featured UMS guest artists and ensembles as winners! Discover them all and explore their award-winning music below:

Best Jazz Performance & Best Jazz Vocal Album

Sensational vocalist Samara Joy and pianist Sullivan Fortner both appeared in UMS’s 23/24 season. Joy made her exciting UMS debut in Hill Auditorium, and Fortner joined trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire on the Rackham Auditorium stage.

Samara Joy in her UMS debut, March 2024

Sullivan Fortner with Ambrose Akinmusire in Rackham Auditorium

Joy and Fortner took home a 2025 Grammy for ‘Best Jazz Performance,’ for “Twinkle Twinkle Little Me,” part of Joy’s A Joyful Holiday album. The album ALSO won a Grammy for ‘Best Jazz Vocal Album.’

Listen to the full album on Apple Music or Spotify.

Best Jazz Instrumental Album

In his words, banjoist Béla Fleck explains that the album Remembrance is an emotional final document of the deeply creative and personal relationship that he and the late jazz pianist Chick Corea first explored in The Enchantment, which won a Latin Grammy in 2007.

Listen to the full album on Apple Music or Spotify.

Bela Fleck has performed five times with UMS since 2010, last appearing as a special guest on Shakti’s 50th Anniversary Tour in September 2023.

Béla Fleck in Hill Auditorium, September 2023

Chick Corea, one of the most prolific jazz greats of our time, passed away in 2021. UMS first presented Chick in 1994 at the Power Center and, most recently, in 2019 as part of his ‘Trilogy’ tour with Christian McBride and Brian Blade. In addition to his seven UMS appearances spanning nearly three decades, Chick’s remarkable discography of nearly 90 albums includes a special connection to Ann Arbor and Hill Auditorium.

Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media

Yannick Nézet-Séguin with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Hill Auditorium, in April 2024.

Superstar conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin is no stranger to UMS, having led performances by the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, and multiple tours by The Philadelphia Orchestra across the past 10 years.

Nézet-Séguin coached actor Bradley Cooper in his portrayal of Leonard Bernstein in the film Maestro, and he also led the London Symphony Orchestra in its now Grammy-winning soundtrack.

Listen to the full album on Apple Music or Spotify.

Best Instrumental Composition

Ann Arbor’s own Akropolis Reed Quintet, composer and jazz pianist Pascal Le Boeuf, and celebrated drummer Christian Euman took home the Grammy for “Strands” from the album, Are We Dreaming The Same Dream?.

Listen to the full album on Apple Music or Spotify.

UMS had the honor of debuting this fantastically energetic ensemble and program in the 23/24 season, in advance of the album release.

Akropolis Reed Quintet with Pascal Le Boeuf and Christian Euman in Rackham Auditorium

Best Opera Recording

Tenor Nicholas Phan with pianist Martin Katz in a UMS Live Session digital performance from 2022.

Tenor and U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance alumnus Nicholas Phan performed in the ‘Best Opera Recording’ featuring Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s second opera Adriana Mater, alongside maestro Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony.

Listen to the full album on Apple Music or Spotify.

Phan last joined UMS in 2022 for a special digital-exclusive recital of songs written by women composers. He was accompanied by pianist and distinguished Michigan faculty member Martin Katz, as well as U-M’s Calista String Quartet.

In 2019, the Philharmonia Orchestra of London performed two unique programs led by Salonen, including his cello concerto that had recently been premiered by Yo-Yo Ma.

Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance

Caroline Shaw

Just days after her January 2025 UMS recital with Gabriel Kahane, composer and musician Caroline Shaw won a Grammy alongside Sō Percussion for “Rectangles and Circumstance.”

Listen to the full album on Apple Music or Spotify.

UMS presented Sō Percussion in 2010 in performances at the U-M Museum of Art.