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Leafing through the 1997 program book for a March event, this concert struck me because of two things: a letter written by Gerald R. Ford and a picture of Gustav Mahler.

You’re invited to join a small informal discussion after you see Uncle Vanya on Sunday, March 28. We’ll provide light food and drinks at a restaurant near the venue immediately after the show, you provide the conversation. No strings attached—just a chance for you to talk with others who saw the same performance. Think “book club” but instead of a book we’ll be talking about Uncle Vanya.

Way back in January (it seems especially way back on this beautiful 63-degree day!), UMS was approached by Michigan Productions about being profiled on a TV show called “Out of the Blue”…

To dispel confusion: he is not the Albert Spalding who was a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher and who founded the sports equipment company. That Spalding (the pitcher) was Spalding’s (the violinist) uncle

As a member of the UMS Choral Union for the past three years, I have thoroughly enjoyed performing some of the great masterpieces of choral music: Handel’s Messiah, Verdi’s Requiem, and Beethoven’s…

There are a few musicians with whom I’d love to sit down and have a conversation. Bach, certainly, to ask him how he wrote such incredible counterpoint. Mozart, just to joke around with (although I also have a bone to pick with one of his doublings in the last movement of the D major K. 499 string quartet). Some I’d just be content to hear play: Paganini, for instance, or Joseph Joachim. Rubinstein fits into both categories: by all accounts his playing was arresting (certainly the recordings I’ve heard are), and, judging by his memoirs My Young Years, quite an entertaining companion as well.

As part of the upcoming residency with the San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas will lead a conducting master class on Sunday, March 21 at 10am with members of Kenneth Kiesler’s U-M…

In Ann Arbor last month, Cyro Baptista appeared with Luciana Souza.  During the concert, he had the audience in stitches, especially when he showed why Home Depot should consider endorsing him. He…

I’m writing with some disappointing news related to the three March Chamber Arts Series concerts.  We learned that violinist JULIA FISCHER is canceling her two upcoming UMS concerts, both of which were…