Blog

We simply couldn’t do business without the support of volunteers, who collectively offer over 45,000 hours each year volunteering for UMS programs.

This week’s news includes the release of Rosanne Cash’s memoir, a look at music copyright enforcement, and coverage of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

We’ve heard the Takács Quartet perform many times here in Ann Arbor (12, to be exact), but I’m also excited to hear them collaborate with other notable musicians: pianist Jeffrey Kahane (who is also music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Colorado Symphony), bassist John Feeney (principal bass of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in New York), and cellist Paul Katz (who performed here three times as cellist of the Cleveland Quartet).

Despite all the diverse interests of the singers in the Choral Union, there is one unifying quality that brings us all together, and makes us more than happy to donate our time: our love of singing and making music as an ensemble.

UMS announces season additions, including superstar Lebanese singer Assi El Helani and six-production series of NT LIVE high-definition broadcasts.

This week’s news includes Wynton Marsalis’s latest project, Wyclef Jean’s run for the Haitian presidency, and Mark Morris’s work with Parkinson’s patients.

I’ve seen two of Martin McDonagh’s plays when they were produced in New York in the mid-late 1990s, and they are simply brilliant pieces, in part because of the way they force you to re-examine your own morals. He sets up these outrageous scenes that are absolutely hilarious, then delivers the knock-out punch that makes you realize you’ve been laughing at something that is, in fact, incredibly tragic.

Here’s an impressive statistic.

Members of the UMS Advisory Committee donated over 7,500 volunteer hours to UMS during the 2009/2010 Season. That adds up to an equivalent of 3.5 full-time staff positions!

Many members of the UMS staff keep a watchful eye on local and national media for news about artists on our season, pressing arts issues, and more. We thought we’d pull together a list of interesting stories each week and share them with you. Welcome to UMS’s Arts Round-up, a weekly collection of arts news, including national and international arts issues, artist updates, local shout-outs, and a link or two just for fun.