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UMS Programming Director Michael Kondziolka is a man brimming with enthusiasm for the performing arts, and that enthusiasm is infectious.

Finally–the time has come! Thanks to the Ann Arbor District Library, we launched the beginnings of the UMS digital archive!

Welcome to the first in a series of weekly summer blog posts called “UMS Staff Picks”. These posts will feature my interviews with UMS staff members in which they discuss the event…

Michigan Today presents the history of the organ in Hill Auditorium, dating back more than 100 years.

This Day In UMS – May 11, 1963 Hill Auditorium The Philadelphia Orchestra Eugene Ormandy, conductor Isaac Stern, violinist Trumpet Voluntary – Purcell Concerto in e minor for Violin and Orchestra, Op….

To close out this season’s Dance Series, we had three mesmerizing performances by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago on April 22-24. For a long time, members of our staff had wanted to try out the concept of a “post-it wall” in the lobby for a performance. We thought it would be interesting to try this with a dance company because dance can inspire so many different feelings, interpretations, and questions.

When over a thousand teens and adults pile into the Power Center on May 15th, they are expecting the unexpected…whether it is comedic folk, a Chinese guzheng player, a crew of bhangra dancers or avant-garde jazz. Teen curators from the Neutral Zone, with the help of UMS professionals, work all year to mount a successful muti-genre show made up of all teen acts. Only once a year is teen talent featured in such a highly professional way!

I’m always curious when I stumble across pieces that I’d never heard of. I know and love Mozart’s, Brahms’s, Verdi’s, and Victoria’s Requiems (and know and intensely dislike Berlioz’), but I never knew that Dvořák had even written one. I immediately searched for it on YouTube, and am listening to it as I write this; the Introitus sounds like the Lord of the Rings soundtrack.

In March, Alex Ross gave a lecture at the Royal Philharmonic Society in London about the seemingly age-old tradition of not applauding during classical music (as a tradition, it actually dates back…