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Here’s a special behind-the-scenes video of the Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan artist residency. Yesterday, Alberto Alfaro (violinist in Mariachi Vargas) accompanied two youth Mariachi singers, Sebastien de la Cruz and Karenn Lazo (both were winners in the 2009 Mariachi Vargas Extravaganza Competition) on the Craig Fahle radio show on WDET 101.9 FM Detroit.

By the numbers…one of the busiest weeks all season!

This past August, UMS Interim Director of Education Claire Rice made an interesting proposition: research and design a tour of the most important ONCE Festival-related sites in Ann Arbor. Of course, many of the original venues that housed ONCE performances or served as hangouts for the city’s artistic and political revolutionaries have been replaced or, even worse, erased. Thus the project became an exercise in excavation and imagination, as I set off to recreate, revisit, and remember some of the local sites that helped shape—and were shaped by—the artistic and political upheaval so prevalent at that time.

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. Each week, we pull together a list of interesting stories and share them with you. Welcome to UMS’s Arts Round-up, a weekly collection of arts news, including national issues, artist updates, local shout-outs, and a link or two just for fun. If you come across something interesting in your own reading, please feel free to share!

“Once” signals intensity, a singularity of purpose. Never a thing, once is always in action: a fleeting opportunity to be seized in time and witnessed. Once is energy, excitement, ambition, possibility, community. Every art, in its broadest sense, aspires to once. Performance catalyzes intent to transform time into communication: while materials may be reused—performer, audience, and context are always in motion, always changing, and thus artistic expression occurs in precisely the same way only once.

Editor’s note: Sankai Juku return to Ann Arbor on October 23-24, 2015. Sankai Juku was here in town this past weekend with their show, Hibiki, and I thought it’d be fun to…

With next Wednesday’s “Seasons Project” featuring the Venice Baroque Orchestra and violinist Robert McDuffie performing both Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Philip Glass’s “American” Four Seasons in Hill Auditorium, we thought you might…

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. This week’s round-up includes a charming video of a three-year-old conducting Beethoven’s 5th, Ann Arbor native Nicholas Phan preparing for his Carnegie Hall debut, controversy over the latest Chopin Competition winner, and clips from the Hot Club of Detroit.

You never know WHO you’ll meet at a UMS concert! Take for example longtime UMS patrons Henry and Lana Pollack who met during a Choral Union concert in 1960 — and were married three years later in 1963!