Martha Graham Dance Company returned to the Power Center stage to celebrate its 100th anniversary with three unforgettable performances and a dynamic lineup of events. The week brought together company dancers, U-M students, and audiences from beyond campus through a special lobby art installation, a book signing, and dance workshops for all skill levels. From stage to studio to shared spaces, the Martha Graham Dance Company made its presence unmistakable. Take a look back at this action-packed week.

Three Different Programs, Featuring U-M students

To highlight the breadth of Martha Graham’s repertoire, the company presented three distinct programs over the course of the weekend. Friday and Sunday performances featured Panorama, performed by 30 first-year University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance students, while Sunday’s program also included Appalachian Spring accompanied by live music from the U-M Contemporary Directions Ensemble. With a different program each night, audiences were inspired to return—35 households attended all three performances, and 78 households experienced two.

School Day Performance

In addition to their public performances, the company performed Appalachian Spring and We the People for 600+ K-12 students from nine Southeast Michigan schools.

Lobby Installation

Peter Sparling, U-M professor emeritus and former Martha Graham principal dancer, celebrated the company’s visit with Doom-Eager: Paintings for Martha, a Power Center lobby exhibition inspired by Night Journey and Graham’s tragic heroines.

Martha Graham at 100 Book Signing

A special book signing at Literati Bookstore celebrated Martha Graham Dance Company: 100 Years, the photography book by Ann Arbor natives Deborah Ory and Ken Brower of NYC Dance Project, with remarks from the photographers alongside Sparling.

You Can Dance!

Rehearsal Director Blakeley White-McGuire and MGDC dancer Meagan King led a free You Can Dance! workshop for community members of all ages and skill levels, exploring movement inspired by Martha Graham’s iconic style in an accessible, welcoming environment.

Masterclasses and Workshops

Artist facilitators Seycon Nadia and Cara Graninger brought Martha Graham’s legacy to life in 12 school workshops across Southeast Michigan, guiding students to create their own pieces inspired by her innovative dance style. MGDC artists engaged with students across multiple academic contexts through performances, conversations, and classroom visits. White-McGuire participated in a 30-minute moderated conversation in the course Community Matters, exploring the intersections of community engagement and community impact through dance. MGDC apprentice dancer Grace Sautter visited both the American Culture course Dance in America and the UMS-sponsored Engaging Performance class, leading Q&A sessions with students in each setting. In addition, SMTD dance majors participated in a masterclass hosted by White-McGuire and observed a portion of an MGDC rehearsal on the Friday prior to the performance.

Thank You to Our Sponsors

UMS first presented the Martha Graham Dance Company in 1970, and they remain one of our closest artistic partners. We are grateful to our generous supporters who helped make this residency possible.

Title Sponsor

The Ehrenberg Family Charitable Foundation

Principal Sponsors

Herbert S. and Carol L. Amster Endowment Fund

Ken Fischer Legacy Endowment Fund

Supporting Sponsors

Ilene H. Forsyth Theater Endowment Fund

Claire L. Turcotte

Funded in Part by

Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation

Media Partners

Michigan Public

Martha Darling and Gil Omenn

Martha Darling and Gil Omenn have lived in Ann Arbor for more than 25 years and have been avid arts supporters in our community, serving on the boards of UMS and the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and a fixture at performances. Their 25/26 season support includes a performance sponsorship of the Fauré Piano Quartets on Thursday, February 12, featuring violinist James Ehnes, violist Jonathan Vinocour, cellist Raphael Bell, and pianist Inon Barnatan. We spoke to Martha and Gil about their background in the arts and many years of friendship with James Ehnes, who they affectionately know as “Jimmy.”

What were early performing arts experiences that helped form your love for the arts today?

Martha Darling (MD): I grew up in Los Angeles, where the year-round weather allowed kids to be outside playing games and sports. But I do remember going to downtown Los Angeles for the Civic Light Opera to see Broadway shows from the time that I was about 12. Touring and remounting shows then was a big deal, and we went to 6-8 shows a year. I think my first show was Peter Pan with Mary Martin, and we also saw first-class runs with the stars of the day: Damn Yankees with Jerry Lewis, a lot of Rogers and Hammerstein, including South Pacific with Mary Martin, and Lerner and Lowe. It was live music, and looking back I realize how terrifically lucky I was to have these experiences. I took the “statutory” three years of piano when I was a kid, but I was a swimmer and not really interested in music until I got to Reed College, where friends introduced me to Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and so on, opening my eyes to discovery.

Gil Omenn (GO): I came to music much earlier. I started with piano from both of my parents, then clarinet, oboe and alto sax throughout school. In high school, I played oboe in the Youth Orchestra connected to The Philadelphia Orchestra and alto sax in the Bands of Tomorrow Competition of Greater Philadelphia. I played clarinet in the Princeton Marching Band and even made the cover of Sports Illustrated! Then I played piano for the Second Year Show at Harvard Medical School. I served on the boards of the Seattle Symphony and the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. After coming to Ann Arbor in 1997 as Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs and CEO of the University of Michigan Health System, I helped start the Life Sciences Orchestra, which just played its 25th anniversary concert in Hill Auditorium.

Martha, you met violinist James Ehnes when you lived in Seattle. How did you end up there?

MD: After college in Oregon, I did graduate work at Princeton in international economics. After a brief stint working as a field organizer for Movement for a New Congress, I spent four years in Paris doing consulting work for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an outgrowth of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation, which managed European reconstruction through the Marshall Plan. One of the things I explored as part of that work was the policy implications of the role of women in the economy. After four years, I was ready to return to the United States and took a position at a think tank in Seattle. A few months before I left Paris, a friend made a connection to a friend of his from Seattle who was passing through Paris as part of his White House fellowship. That was how I met Gil over 50 years ago. We were in Seattle for a few years, then moved to DC, and then back to Seattle in 1982 for 15 years before we came to Ann Arbor.

And James Ehnes?

We’ve known him so long we call him “Jimmy.” When he was 19, he came to the Seattle Chamber Music Festival (SCMF), which was founded by a good friend of ours, Toby Saks, a cellist who had been with the New York Philharmonic. Toby had a vision to create a chamber music festival and invite young musicians who had just graduated from the country’s leading music schools. Jimmy made his first appearance in 1995.

The festival continues to be terrific for both the musicians and the audiences. So many artists we’ve seen at UMS were people we first saw at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival — Inon Barnatan, Anton Nel, Richard O’Neill (now with the Takács Quartet), and many others. Jimmy became the artistic director of the Festival eight years ago, and we still spend every July in Seattle for it.

James Ehnes performing with pianist Inon Barnatan:

Do you have a favorite memory of James Ehnes, whether in concert or personally?

We used to play softball together — Jimmy is a great baseball fan! Last summer, the SCMF put together a small ensemble to play the National Anthem at a Seattle Mariners game, and Jimmy got to throw the first pitch — a dream come true for him! Just like with music, he practiced a lot to ensure that his throw made it to the catcher without bouncing. We were thrilled for him. He recently joined the faculty at Indiana University as a violin professor.

Those of us who were in the audience for James Ehnes’s concert in Rackham a couple of years ago remember how delightful and engaging he was in introducing each piece and really developing a great rapport with the audience.

I think you’ll see that in their performance this month, too. The four members of this quartet all know each other from Seattle.

Funny that you mention that — Inon Barnatan told us that they first performed one of the Fauré quartets together there, and they had such a great time that they decided to take the concert on the road. It’s not part of a larger tour, so we were thrilled to be able to find a date when all four of their calendars aligned.

They are always interested in exploring the works of new and lesser-known composers and know how to spread the joy about music. Each year, Jimmy commissions a new work for the festival — the last one was a duo for violin and mandolin with Chris Thile — and he loves to introduce people to pieces they haven’t heard before. Our horizons have been stretched throughout the past 40 years because of a range of outstanding composers that have appeared on the SCMF and UMS programs.

All of us at UMS thank Martha Darling and Gil Omenn for their ongoing support of great music in our community. We invite you join them (and Jimmy!) in our wonderful presentation of French masterworks by Fauré on Friday, March 13, 2026.

More Info & Tickets

Miles and Trane on Record: A Critic’s Favorites

Mark Stryker is the writer and producer of the documentary film The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit (2025, now streaming on Prime Video). He is also the author of Jazz from Detroit (2019, University of Michigan Press). An updated edition will be published in paperback on Feb. 11, 2026.

Here is a YouTube playlist of my favorite Miles Davis and John Coltrane recordings. I avoided posthumous box sets since large compilations run contrary to the spirit of the game. These are not my picks for the “greatest” or “most influential” records, through everything here is great and influential. These are my 10 desert island picks for each as a leader, presented in reverse order. Because I am making the rules, I allowed myself bonus tracks, too, to include individual performances I couldn’t leave out.

— Mark Stryker

Read More:

Miles Davis and John Coltrane at 100

Miles Davis

10. ‘Round About Midnight (1955-56), Columbia.

Miles’s debut on Columbia presents the finest group of its era throwing down in a perfectly programmed LP, leading with a stunning reading of Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight.” With Coltrane on tenor sax, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Beautifully recorded too by Columbia’s ace engineer Frank Laico.

9. Jack Johnson (1970), Columbia.

Embracing his inner Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix, and James Brown, Miles ditched the murky sprawl of Bitches Brew for a streamlined band and a funk-rock knockout punch. Miles floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. By design, much of Miles’ ‘70s electric music sounds in a state of becoming, but Jack Johnson has the bracing clarity and expression of music fully arrived.

8. Bag’s Groove (1954), Prestige.

Two dates in one. First, Miles, tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, and pianist Horace Silver on the brink of stardom; the exceptional rhythm section of Silver, bassist Percy Heath, and Kenny Clarke swing with pristine unity. Second, the pellucid perfection of the title blues in two takes, with pianist Thelonious Monk and vibraphonist Milt Jackson.

7. Nefertiti (1967), Columbia.

Iconic material abounds by saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, and drummer Tony Williams. Shorter’s title track, a miracle of lyric melodic-harmonic expression sums up ‘60s post-bop. The performance still startles: The horns keep repeating the melody; the rhythm section, including bassist Ron Carter, gets loose as Williams improvises a drum concerto.

6. The Lost Quintet (1969), Sleepy Night.

Taped in Rotterdam, 11/9/69, the final document of the band with tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Jack DeJohnette without extra players. The concert sounds like the end of the world. Audaciously free, wild, incendiary, amped up to 11. Good God. Dubbed the “Lost Quintet” because it was never recorded commercially.

5. Miles Ahead (1957), Columbia.

Miles’s first large-scale collaboration with arranger Gil Evans unfolds like a luminous hallucination, a concerto for Miles (on flugelhorn) that segues between numbers in the manner of a suite. The ballads vibrate with the warm breath of human feeling, the swingers bloom like roses. Evans’s insanely creative writing is gorgeously textured, translucent. Miles plays like a God.

4. Relaxin’ (1956), Prestige.

Best of the five Prestige LPs by the First Great Quintet. “If I Were a Bell” is THE defining track by the band: Miles’s muted trumpet dancing, the contrast with Trane’s brash tenor. Red Garland’s grooving. Paul Chambers’s purr and melodic walking. Philly Joe Jones’s fire. Melody in “2,” solos in “4.” The recurring tag. Swing! Plus, Miles’s voice: “I’ll play it and tell you what it is later.”

3. Miles Smiles (1966), Columbia.

Spontaneous perfection. The Second Great Quintet coming into its own, widening its play of formal abstraction, redefining improvised music every night on the bandstand and in the studio. Everything here remains state-of-the-art 60 years later: The compositions (including Wayne Shorter’s immortal minor blues, “Footprints”), exploratory solos, group dialogue, overarching aesthetic.

2. My Funny Valentine (1964). Columbia

A true peak, especially epic ballads “Stella by Starlight” and “My Funny Valentine.” The expressive control of Miles’s sound and solos are a high bar; he didn’t start with chops but sure as hell developed them. Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams equal a magic triangle of intuition and intellect. “Stella” is saxophonist George Coleman’s shining hour; Herbie on “All of You”!

1. Milestones (1958), Columbia.

I can’t say it any better than Tony Williams: “Milestones is the definitive jazz album. If you want to know what jazz is, listen to that album. It embodies the spirit of everyone who plays jazz.” The closing “Straight No Chaser” is EVERYTHING. Miles, Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones fulfilling their swinging destiny at the highest level.

Bonus Track 1: “Country Son” (1968).

An extended, suite-like track, encompassing furious, harmonically open swing, a premonition of funky jazz-rock, and dreamy rubato sections. Composed by Miles, from Miles in the Sky, the most underrated of his ‘60s LPs.

Bonus Track 2: “I Waited for You” (1953).

I adore Miles on the Blue Note label (1952-54). Still struggling to wean himself from drugs, his sound smolders with wounded vulnerability. This plaintive ballad includes lovely support from pianist Gil Coggins.

Bonus Track 3: “Love for Sale” (1958).

Euphoric swing! Kind of Blue sextet breaks loose. Dig how Miles phrases the melody, especially the tension-and-release of the dotted quarter notes floating behind the beat starting at 51 seconds. Peak ebullience from alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley.

John Coltrane

10. Soultrane (1958), Prestige.

The best of Coltrane’s 11 LPs made for Prestige in 32 months from 1956-58. Sharp execution, a gleaming tenor sound, a fabulous program of swinging standards, bebop and ballads, and the A+ trio that Coltrane favored in those days: pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Art Taylor. Trane’s three choruses on “You Say You Care” roar out of the gate like a Triple Crown winner.

9. Interstellar Space (1967), Impulse!

Lucid, deeply moving duets in rubato time with drummer Rashied Ali that reveal how much control Coltrane had over his horn and materials. The music may sound totally free at first, but defined structural arcs, thematic and motivic development, and key centers unify the polymodal flurries of scales, variegated sonics, and orchestral effects. “Venus” is pick of the litter.

8. Coltrane’s Sound (1960), Atlantic.

Giant Steps and My Favorite Things get the most ink of the Atlantic LPs, but potent originals, a famous arrangement of “Body and Soul” with pedal points and “Giant Steps” substitutions, and a definitive “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” capture the early Coltrane Quartet discovering its greatness. With pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Steve Davis, and drummer Elvin Jones.

7. The Mastery of John Coltrane, Vol. II: To the Beat of a Different Drum (1963
and 1965), Impulse!

Fantastic 2-LP compilation from 1978 collecting performances with drummer Roy Haynes, who subbed occasionally for Elvin Jones. The 1963 Newport set transcends: “I Want to Talk About You,” “Impressions,” “My Favorite Things.” Haynes’s chattering way of breaking up the
beat provides a trampoline for Coltrane, compared to Jones’s enveloping tornado of rhythms.

6. Ballads (1962), Impulse!

A record with bedroom eyes, this romantic LP provided a powerful argument against conservative critics who accused Coltrane of being anti-jazz. He sings these love songs on tenor with tenderness, patience, and sensitive lyricism, especially when he slides into his high register where the notes float softly among the clouds. McCoy Tyner’s piano accompaniment is to die for.

5. Blue Train (1957), Blue Note.

Quintessential hard bop and a high point of Coltrane’s early discography. Four alluring originals include two challenging tunes that became standards (“Moment’s Notice,” “Lazy Bird”). The groovy title blues launches one of Trane’s most memorable recorded solos. With trumpeter Lee Morgan, trombonist Curtis Fuller, pianist Kenny Drew, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Philly Joe Jones.

4. Crescent (1964), Impulse!

The most sublime and elegantly proportioned of the Coltrane Quartet’s masterpieces. Keatsian poetry bathes the title track and “Wise One.” The jaunty “Bessie’s Blues” captures a universe in 3-½ minutes. The heartfelt “Lonnie’s Lament” brings pianist McCoy Tyner and bassist Jimmy Garrison to the fore. Not a note is wasted, even on “The Drum Thing” for Elvin Jones.

3. Live at the Half Note: One Down, One Up (1965), Impulse!

A holy grail bootleg tape until commercially released in 2005, this music captures the Coltrane Quartet at its most incendiary. The combustible, 28-minute version of “One Down One Up,” an exploration of whole tone and augmented scales, is from another planet; Coltrane and Elvin Jones speak in tongues during their ultimate saxophone- drums duet.

2. Transition (1965), Impulse!

A valedictory statement, taped mostly in June 1965, pushes the quartet to the outer limits of its language and intensity. The title track is a wild fever dream. Coltrane’s tenor strains to reach as high as he can go, climaxing in a beautiful nightmare of screams—yet the music never stops swinging or loses touch with the blues. Some days I even prefer this LP to A Love Supreme.

1. A Love Supreme (1964), Impulse!

After living with this music for 45 years, what strikes me most has little to do with the Aristotelian unity of its four movements, musicological insights, or the elevated technical resources and intellect of the quartet—and everything to do with the overwhelming power of its impassioned expression: It represents the peak of human feeling in art. Hearing it often brings tears to my eyes.

Bonus Track 1: “Bye Bye Blackbird” (1962), Pablo.

An irresistible swinger captured in concert in Stockholm. The 5-½ minute tag starting at 12:25 is some of my favorite music ever. Trane and Elvin! To paraphrase Amiri Baraka, they sound like the wild pulse of all living.

Bonus Track 2: “They Say It’s Wonderful” (1963), Impulse!

A gift for lovers of singers and song, the one-off LP collaboration between Coltrane and suave baritone Johnny Hartman lands like Cupid’s arrow. Romance is in the air. They say it’s wonderful, and they’re not wrong.

Bonus Track 3: “But Not for Me (1960), Atlantic.

I love the elation the quartet achieves in this swinging version of a beloved Gershwin tune, reharmonized with “Giant Steps” substitutions.
The extended tags capping each solo and the final tenor ride out at the end really sends me.

Bonus Tracks 4 and 5: “Impressions” and “Chasin’ the Trane (1961),
Impulse!

Gotta have these extended, volatile performances from a landmark run at the Village Vanguard. They set new standards for improvisation, group dynamics, and extended saxophone techniques. A Coltrane anthem at a racehorse tempo, “Impressions” explores the same modal territory as Miles Davis’s “So What.” The swift “Chasin’ the Trane” an ad-lib, 12-bar blues in F, is taken to extremes of abstraction. Coltrane mostly goes it alone with Jimmy Garrison and a maniacal Elvin Jones, whose elevated volume and aggressive dialogue on drums erases distinctions between foreground and background.

Detroit-based author and jazz historian Mark Stryker shares some historical context behind the lasting legacies of Miles Davis and John Coltrane in advance of UMS’s presentation of a  centennial tribute to the great jazz icons on Sunday, February 15, 2026, by Terence Blanchard and Ravi Coltrane.

American jazz musicians Miles Davis and John Coltrane play together on stage at the Blue Note jazz bar in Chicago, IL, 1950s.

Walk into almost any jazz club in 2026, from Ann Arbor to New York to Berlin to Tokyo, and the ghosts of trumpeter Miles Davis and tenor and soprano saxophonist John Coltrane will be hovering ringside like hip guardian angels. Invisible to the eye but audible to the ear, their spirits pulsate through the music — as instrumentalists, improvisors, composers, bandleaders, and conceptualists.

Sometimes their influence resonates on the surface. Sometimes it wafts up faintly from the lower frequencies, braising within the collective unconscious of jazz history. One way or another, however, a century after Davis and Coltrane were born in 1926, their innovations remain an everyday presence in contemporary American music. Equally remarkable, in an age in which jazz and popular culture are rarely on speaking terms, Davis and Coltrane retain broad cultural currency and cache.

Stars during their lifetimes, they remain strikingly popular. Davis died in 1991 and Coltrane in 1967, but the public can’t get enough of an endless stream of their reissues, previously unreleased material, audiophile vinyl, and luxury box sets. Madison Avenue employs their music and likenesses to sell the Chrysler Jeep Grand Cherokee and Lexus RZ electric vehicle. Even listeners whose primary allegiance is to rock, country, hip hop, or classical music recognize Miles Davis and John Coltrane as brand names.

Recordings such as Davis’s Kind of Blue (1959) and Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (1964), revered as masterpieces by musicians, connoisseurs, and critics, were also bona fide hits upon release and rank among the best-selling jazz records in history. Certified lifetime sales have now passed five million for Kind of Blue (which includes Coltrane) and one million for A Love Supreme. Both LPs regularly top lists aimed at novices that purport to identify the best jazz records of all time.

Bonus Playlist

Miles and Trane on Record: A Critic’s Favorites
Mark Stryker selects his top 10(ish) records of Miles Davis and John Coltrane

Common touch, emotion, charisma

Davis and Coltrane owe their mass appeal to a unique confluence of music and culture. Most importantly, their music moves people emotionally. It retains a common touch through nearly every period in their stylistic development.

The moody lyricism of Davis’s trumpet tone, whether open horn or tightly muted, manifests a seductive marriage of vulnerability and virility. Signature ballads like “My Funny Valentine” and “Stella by Starlight” unfold in plaintive eloquence and erotic shivers. His melodic ideas at swinging tempos make virtuoso use of the negative space of dramatic silence. Davis is rarely prescriptive; he leaves room for listeners to find their own way into a sound world of feints and parries, arresting honesty, and the biting blues of an African American man at midcentury who knows the score about race relations and refuses to suffer fools.

Coltrane’s laser-like sound on tenor and soprano saxophone compels attention. He takes listeners on a trip, elevates the spirit, offers catharsis. On anthems like his epic reinvention of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s waltz “My Favorite Things” or his scorching original “Impressions,” Coltrane rides the turbulence of drummer Elvin Jones’s crashing waves. His saxophone tone splinters into expressive squalls and split tones. He plays with the energy and passion of a Black Pentecostal preacher in the pulpit. The sheer intensity was never for everyone, and dissenters still walk among us. But for true believers, Coltrane remains a pied piper of the most profound sort.

Davis and Coltrane also embody a certain celebrity charisma that speaks to the masses. The trumpeter as the ultimate avatar of cool: Black, proud, badass, rebellious, handsome, taciturn, admired by Bohemians and the intelligentsia, speaks in a famously raspy growl, drives a red Ferrari, wears natty Italian suits and seersucker back in the day that land him on Esquire’s Best Dressed list. He dates Juliette Gréco, pals around with Richard Pryor and Prince, marries Cicely Tyson, appears in an episode of “Miami Vice.”

Coltrane as the humble, relentless seeker of truth and transcendence. Though never linked to Hollywood royalty like Davis, his stature in the culture has only grown since his death. A hero and metaphor to Black scholars like Cornel West, there is even a church founded in his honor, the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox in San Francisco.

Both Davis and Coltrane accrued street cred from the multiple generations of rock bands, singer-songwriters, rappers, producers and others who cited them as favorites and influences, among them: the Byrds, Grateful Dead, MC5, Joni Mitchell, Carlos Santana, J Dilla, Yasiin Bey (Mos Def), John Legend.

Searching for the new

Davis and Coltrane were prophets in their day and ours. Each remade modern jazz fundamentals in their own image, disseminating their vision through nightclub performances, concerts, and recordings. They led landmark ensembles resembling laboratories stocked with some of the finest musical minds of their time, players who connected on a cellular level of craft, chemistry, creativity, adventure, originality, emotional expression, groove, and swing.

Students in and out of conservatories have for decades studied their music like scripture. A huge swath of the jazz mainstream—the common-practice language governing improvisation, rhythm, harmony, melody, form, repertoire, group interaction, even the literal sound of the trumpet and saxophone—is still defined by what Davis and Coltrane played with their groups in the 1950s and ‘60s. (This includes the roughly five years Coltrane spent as a sideman in Davis’s band between 1955 and 1960.)

Davis and Coltrane model careers that define jazz as a never-ending quest for new avenues of expression. They each reinvented their music myriad times, sometimes radically. The mythology of jazz elevates the relentless drive to innovate as a sine qua non, and Davis and Coltrane stand as primary architypes, although this is by no means the only path to enlightenment or immortality.

After forging new ground, many jazz pioneers have concentrated on refining their artistic victories rather than willfully seeking new stylistic mountains to conquer. Examples include heroes as diverse as trumpeters Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie, pianist Bill Evans, and drummer Art Blakey.

But Davis and Coltrane, no less than Stravinsky and Picasso (and Duke Ellington for that matter), were wired differently. For them, artistic growth demanded shedding styles the way snakes shed their skin. The modernist charge to make it new coursed through Davis’s veins. He described his obsessive need to change as a curse; the blessing for the rest of us is that Davis, as he once put it, changed music five or six times.

Coltrane’s headstrong experimentation and practice regime—he sometimes fell asleep with the horn in his mouth—was the result of an intrinsic need to dig as deeply as possible to see how much more there was to discover, not only about music but about himself. He linked self-knowledge, musical evolution, and spiritualism into a homegrown cosmology that blended strains of Western and Eastern religions and saw the unity in all things.

Every new stylistic shift in Davis and Coltrane’s music either opened a new chapter in jazz history or made defining contributions to important developments already under way.

Miles Ahead

After apprenticing in the mid-1940s with alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, the Prometheus of bebop, Davis inaugurated the so-called Birth of the Cool by leading a series of record sessions in 1949-50. He fronted a gossamer nonet that featured meticulously orchestrated arrangements by Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, and others. The music turned down the temperature of bebop; it simmered rather than boiled. Though recorded in New York, Davis’s records created a blueprint for West Coast cool jazz, which emerged in the 1950s. They also foreshadowed the trumpeter’s majestic and beloved orchestral collaborations with Evans, Miles Ahead (1957), Porgy and Bess (1958), and Sketches of Spain (1959-60).

Lacking an explosive technique, Davis developed a nuanced style in which he created maximum feeling with minimum fuss. He played far fewer notes yet always seemed to land on the most expressive ones. He solidified his influence as a sound innovator, creating a new sonic template for the trumpet—dark, intimate, smokey, introspective (especially with the Harmon mute) yet girded by deceptive strength, with little vibrato and redolent of a plea for truth and beauty in a world gone mad.

Davis formed his First Great Quintet with Coltrane, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones in 1955. Fueled by the tightest, hippest rhythm section in jazz, the band was at the forefront of hard bop, a stout and extroverted reaffirmation of the African American values of blues and swing: a counter-reformation to the cool jazz that Davis had inspired in the first place. The group towered over its era, especially when it grew into a sextet in 1958 with the addition of alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. The records? Start with Milestones, Relaxin’, and ’Round About Midnight.

With Kind of Blue, Davis codified modal jazz—improvisation based on static harmony and scales rather than the recurring chord cycles of bebop. He also doubled down on melody and an existential lyricism with an assist from the poetic Ravelisms of his new pianist, Bill Evans. The simple, 32-bar structure of “So What,” for example, is 16 bars of D minor, followed by 8 bars of E-flat minor and a final 8 bars of D minor; Davis’s improvised solo, one of his most memorable on record, is pure song. The LP’s alluring vibe, sophisticated simplicity, and all-star cast makes it nearly every critic and fan’s No. 1 recommendation for newcomers to jazz.

Modalism would become a foundational sound of 1960s jazz; Coltrane was a prime exponent. Davis himself left the development of modal ideas largely to others until his Second Great Quintet coalesced in 1964 with a new generation of innovative sidemen: saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams.

The quintet transformed familiar standards and penetrating originals into cubist abstractions of harmony, rhythm, and group interaction. The balance of freedom and form on records like Miles Smiles, Sorcerer, and Nefertiti remade the idiom. Davis’s trumpet playing grew increasingly aggressive. Where he was once said to sound like a man walking on eggshells, he was now able to power his way through high and fast passages with the potency he brought to ballads.

In the late ‘60s, Davis’s ears turned toward electric instruments and amalgamations of jazz, rock, soul, funk, and eventually even European avant-gardist Karlheinz Stockhausen. Bitches Brew (1969), a mysterious sprawl of billowing densities, launched the jazz fusion era. Starry plugged-in bands of the ‘70s such as Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, and Chick Corea’s Return to Forever sprouted from its roots. Davis’s electric period, a diverse progression of bands and ideas, from the brilliant to the banal, lasted the rest of his life, save the five years he was off the scene from 1976-1980.

Express Trane to the future

While Davis remained a pacesetter for 45 years, Coltrane packed his innovations into a dozen years, from 1955-67. The swiftness of his development is a miracle. The basic sonic profile of his tenor sax, an ardent and metallic cry, was in place when he joined Davis, but he still sometimes stumbled over his ideas.

Coltrane rebooted his career in 1957: He kicked a debilitating drug habit (as Davis had done several years earlier), experienced a spiritual awakening, and worked extensively with pianist-composer Thelonious Monk, a musical architect of the first order. The focused clarity of the saxophonist’s sound, execution, improvising, and composing on Blue Train (1957) make it a tour de force of hard bop.

In the late ‘50s, Coltrane’s solos became thick and textural. He dissected harmony, stacking chords on top of chords. This led to wall-to-wall, scale-based passages, often asymmetrical, played at supersonic speed. Critic Ira Gitler memorably dubbed these “sheets of sounds.” Back with Davis in 1958-60, Coltrane found the freedom to experiment with his complex harmonic ideas, as well as the nascent modal landscape that promised liberation from the potential tyranny of chords.

Davis knew the dramatic rewards of yin and yang, of showcasing a saxophonist whose brash sound and volubility contrasted sharply with his own economy. He teased Coltrane playfully in print: “He is beginning to leave more space—except when he gets nervous.”

Coltrane worked on both sides of the street. The lickety-split title song on another masterwork, Giant Steps (1959), is a harmonic obstacle course that challenges musicians to this day. Meanwhile, the beautiful melody of “Naima” unfolds over serene and slow-moving chords anchored by sustained bass notes known as pedal points—another inescapable sound of ‘60s modal jazz and beyond.

Other facets of Coltrane’s playing continue to shape the sound and mechanics of today’s saxophonists: multiphonics (playing more than one note at a time); using the overtone series to produce new timbres and vocalized effects including split-tones, and screams; extending his range into the altissimo register high above the conventional limits of the saxophone; helping revive the soprano saxophone; standard-setting technical command; and the literal sound of his tenor as he tamed his early brittleness with additional colors, depth, and resonance
through the 1960s.

Coltrane formed his own quartet in 1960, and the personnel soon solidified as McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. As with Davis’s Second Great Quintet, every member of the Coltrane Quartet was an innovator, and the group’s aesthetic victories, like those of Davis’s band, were foundational to ’60s post-bop and entered the DNA of jazz. The Freedom Principal became paramount.

On epochal records like Impressions, Live at Birdland, Crescent, and A Love Supreme—the latter a suite in four movements inspired by Coltrane’s spiritual beliefs—the foursome breathed as one. The group explored modal harmony and forms, pedal points, and incantatory improvisations that embodied a search for the infinite. A single song might last an hour and include a 30 or 40-minute saxophone-and-drums duet. The quartet’s vehement performances get most of the attention, but Coltrane grew into an exceptional balladeer (“You Don’t Know What Love Is,” “I Want to Talk About You,” “Dear Lord”). He also remained an exceptionally soulful bluesman, who never lost touch with jazz fundamentals (“Bessie’s Blues.”)

By mid-1965, Coltrane, the most influential jazz musician of his time, leaned increasingly into the avant-garde. He pursued a free jazz that dispensed with steady time in favor of volatile rhythm and unrelenting extremes of texture, dissonance, color, and emotion. Recorded with an 11-piece ensemble, Ascension (1965) is an audacious and cacophonous group improvisation lasting 40 minutes.

Before his classic quartet broke up, Coltrane recorded Meditations (1965), a five-movement suite with enfant terrible Pharoah Sanders as a second tenor saxophonist and Rashied Ali as a second drummer. The most rewarding of Coltrane’s late-period ensemble recordings, it exhibits formal unity and poetry that elude much of Coltrane’s other work in his final chapter. The simple written material on Meditations is tonal and melodic; it frames and balances explosive, atonal improvisation.

By early 1966, Coltrane’s final quintet included his wife, pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane, Sanders, Garrison, and Ali—though at many appearances, Coltrane invited others to sit in with the group for open improvisations. His final great recording, Interstellar Space, an astounding set of clarified and deeply felt saxophone-drum duets with Ali, was taped in February 1967, five months before Coltrane’s tragic death in July at age 40 from liver cancer.

Where Coltrane might have taken his music had he lived remains sadly unknowable. Many have noted that his death left a hole that has never been filled. Davis’s most adventurous music was clearly behind him at his death at 65, but it’s still enticing to wonder what kind of elder statesmen he might have become had he lived another decade. But enough. We are lucky to have had Davis and Coltrane for as long as we did, and if there is one thing clear about their monumental legacies at 100, it is that their influence will still be with us in force at 200.

Mark Stryker is the writer and producer of the documentary film The Best of the Best: Jazz from Detroit (2025), now streaming on Prime Video). He is also the author of Jazz from Detroit (2019, University of Michigan Press). An updated edition will be published in paperback on Feb. 11, 2026.

Hear Terence Blanchard and Ravi Coltrane celebrate the Miles Davis and John Coltrane Centennial, live in Hill Auditorium, Sunday February 15, 2026.

Get Tickets

Tickets start at just $20 (+ fees); $15-20 student tickets available.

Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir

On Friday, February 13, 2026, Hill Auditorium will reverberate with some of the most deeply spiritual and profoundly moving choral music of the past half-century as the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir presents an all-Pärt program in honor of Arvo Pärt’s 90th birthday.

Learn more about Pärt’s uniquely minimalist compositional style and preview some of the works that will be performed:

The Man Behind the Music

Arvo Pärt was born in 1935 in Paide, Estonia, and over his long career has become one of the most influential and widely performed living composers in the world. Early in his life he studied and experimented with serialism and avant-garde techniques, even writing atonal and 12-tone works in the 1960s, but these styles eventually felt constricting to him. In the early 1970s he entered a period of deep reflection and study, immersing himself in Gregorian chant, early polyphony, and Renaissance music, that transformed his artistic trajectory.

Out of this period emerged the signature compositional language that defines his music today: tintinnabuli, a term Pärt coined from the Latin tintinnabulum, meaning “a little bell.”

What Is Tintinnabuli?

At its heart, tintinnabuli is about reduction and clarity. Instead of dense harmonic complexity, Pärt builds his music from a few simple elements (often a melody line and a supporting voice that arpeggiates the triad), creating an almost hypnotic interplay of sound and silence. The effect is minimalist in the purest sense: every note matters, and every pause shapes meaning. In Pärt’s own words, “I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me.”

This technique has made his music highly distinctive — meditative, luminous, and, for many listeners, deeply spiritual.

Choral Works That Transcend Time

This concert program taps into the full range of Pärt’s choral genius, ranging from ancient liturgical texts to works that feel entirely timeless.

Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen – A set of short prayers that frame the traditional “Magnificat” text with luminous, bell-like sonorities.

Missa Syllabica – A unique setting of the mass ordinary that showcases Pärt’s ability to blend meditative restraint with profound emotional weight.

Summa – Originally a secular vocal work, this piece exemplifies Pärt’s ability to find sacred resonance even outside liturgical texts.

The Deer’s Cry – Later choral work that unfolds as prayers and invocations set to music of astonishing stillness and depth.

Magnificat – Pärt’s setting of the ancient Latin text, a work that marries chant-inspired lines with his signature tintinnabuli harmonies to create an exquisitely balanced reflection on joy and supplication.

Other selections like Nunc dimittis further extend his choral palette, drawing on both Christian liturgical tradition and a more universal sense of spiritual yearning.

A Rare Performance

Hearing these works live with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, under the direction of Tõnu Kaljuste, is a rare opportunity. This ensemble has become synonymous with Pärt’s music, as they have premiered and recorded many of these works and are especially attuned to the subtle interplay of tonality and silence that defines his style. Named by BBC Music Magazine as one of the world’s top choirs, their sound is at once radiant and introspective, perfect for revealing the emotional and spiritual layers beneath Pärt’s deceptively simple scores.

Pärt’s music invites us to slow down, to listen more closely, and to let sound and silence work together to open spaces inside ourselves. Join us Friday, February 13 for an unforgettable, transcendent concert experience.

Get Tickets

Tickets start at just $20 (+ fees); $15-20 student tickets available.

Bonus: Estonian Pronunciation Guide

Ever wonder how to properly pronounce the ‘ä’ in Pärt? This handy 5-minute guide will help you brush up on your Finnish and Estonian composer names! (Jump to the 2:50 mark to skip to “Arvo Pärt”)

What does it sound like to put the heartbeat of a city into music? To capture the complexity of a metropolis where dazzling energy, deep inequalities, collision and connection live side by side? That’s the ambition behind Wynton Marsalis’s Symphony No. 4, “The Jungle,” and it’s coming to life in a one-of-a-kind collaboration, Friday, February 6 in Hill Auditorium. Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra will be joined by the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Kenneth Kiesler.

Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and premiered in 2016, “The Jungle” is one of Marsalis’s most daring works: a full-length symphony scored for “jazz ensemble and symphony orchestra” that draws its inspiration from New York City’s vibrant, turbulent, electrifying pulse.

A Musical Mosaic of City Life

Marsalis has said that New York is “the most fluid, pressure-packed, and cosmopolitan metropolis the modern world has ever seen,” and “The Jungle” is his musical portrait of a dense mosaic of cultural collisions and contradictions.

Rather than a conventional symphony rooted purely in classical traditions, “The Jungle” blurs boundaries. It weaves big band jazz rhythms, blues inflections, improvised passages, and orchestral color into a tapestry that evokes both the grit and the romance of the city. The symphony unfolds in six movements, each capturing a different facet of urban life:

The Big Scream (Black Elk Speaks) — an explosive opening that feels like the voice of the city itself

The Big Show — a movement that revels in spectacle and restless motion

Lost in Sight (Post-Pastoral) — a reflective interlude amidst frenetic activity

La Esquina – a nod to the multicultural corners that make urban neighborhoods come alive

Us – a moment of shared humanity and collective voice

Struggle in the Digital Market – a driving, incisive finale that speaks to competitive modern life

Together, these movements paint an immersive sonic world that’s equal parts raw energy and deep reflection, as a soundtrack for the modern condition.

A Meditation on Humanity

Beyond its musical innovation, “The Jungle” is a work with social conscience. As Marsalis himself has noted, it doesn’t shy away from paradoxes of urban life: the wealth alongside poverty, hope tinged with struggle, and the pressing question of how we live together in an increasingly complex world.

In a time when many of us think about cities not only as physical spaces but as crossroads of culture, conflict, aspiration, and imagination, “The Jungle” feels deeply relevant as a sonic exploration of society itself.

Experience It Live

“The Jungle” has been performed only a handful of times in the United States since its premiere. Its ferocity, precision, and soul will be on display in this live performance at Hill Auditorium on Friday February 6, 2026.

More Info & Tickets

Duke Ellington

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis returns to Hill Auditorium on Saturday, Feburary 7, 2026, with an unforgettable tribute to one of jazz’s greatest figures and cultural explorers, Duke Ellington. Their Duke in Africa program celebrates the legacy of Ellington’s groundbreaking music and his transformative 1966 trip to Dakar, Senegal.

Discover the history and sounds behind this historic musical journey.

Why Dakar Mattered

In the spring of 1966, Duke Ellington and his orchestra embarked on a journey that would become one of the most inspiring chapters in his long career. They traveled to Dakar, Senegal, to perform at the First World Festival of Negro Arts (Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres), a monumental cultural gathering that brought together artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers from Africa and the diaspora.

Founded under the leadership of Senegalese president and poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, the festival was conceived as a celebration of Black creativity and cultural achievement at a time when many African nations were recently independent and reasserting identity on the world stage. The event featured luminaries such as Josephine Baker, Aimé Césaire, James Baldwin, and Wole Soyinka, and Ellington was among the musical heroes who helped define the festival’s sound and spirit.

For Ellington, the trip was a musical homecoming. Years before, he had been composing jazz that drew from African musical ideas, long imagining the rhythms and textures of the continent in his work. In his own writings and recollections, Ellington described arriving in Africa as a profound affirmation: after decades of writing music influenced by African sounds, standing in Africa itself was a revelation.

Listen to a 1966 interview with Duke Ellington in UNESCO’s archives. (26 minutes)

Music Born from the Journey

The Dakar experience fueled Ellington’s creativity in ways that echo through jazz history, as the trip intensified his engagement with African themes and rhythms. Pieces like Afro-Bossa and Togo Brava Suite, which blend jazz orchestration with global influences, embody the sense of musical cross-pollination that Ellington championed.

Ellington’s composition African Flower (originally titled “La Plus Belle Africaine”) has been directly linked to his conceptualization of African influence in his music and was associated with the festival in Dakar.

Experience Duke’s Legacy Live

This February, hear the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra channel Duke Ellington’s adventurous spirit with precision, energy, and deep reverence for jazz’s roots. Don’t miss this special opportunity to journey through Ellington’s most evocative compositions with some of today’s greatest jazz musicians!

Get Tickets

Tickets start at just $26 (+ fees) with $15–20 student tickets available.

UMS is delighted to host México’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería for their return to Hill Auditorium on January 21, along with Venezuelan trumpet virtuoso Pacho Flores for his UMS debut. Together, they will perform Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major and Paquito D’Rivera’s Latin Grammy-winning Venezuelan Concerto. The program will also feature major composers Silvestre Revueltas, Alberto Ginastera, and Arturo Márquez.

Recognized internationally as one of the most exciting brass soloists of his generation, Flores seamlessly connects the worlds of classical tradition, contemporary music, and Latin-American influence. Flores first rose to global prominence with an incredible series of competition wins, including First Prize at the Maurice André International Trumpet Competition — regarded as the most prestigious trumpet competition in the world — as well as First Prizes at the Philip Jones and Città di Porcia competitions.

Photo by Juan Martinez

Trained in Venezuela’s acclaimed El Sistema (Orchestra System for Youth and Children), Flores has been widely celebrated for his performances, recitals, and recordings as a soloist. He is confident in both classical and popular styles, bringing vibrant energy to every interpretation.

As a soloist, Flores has appeared with many of the world’s leading orchestras — including the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo, and Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra — and has graced famed venues such as Carnegie Hall, Salle Pleyel in Paris, and Opera City in Tokyo.

Flores has a stunning recording career as a Deutsche Grammophon recording artist. Most notable of his career is his album Cantos y Revueltas. Hear Flores perform the title composition, which he also composed, with the Real Filharmonía de Galicia:

Flores’s impressive range also extends into writing and performing his own transcriptions. In March 2024, he joined the Minnesota Orchestra for a Latin-American program, performing his own transcription of a showpiece originally for violin — Pablo de Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen.

In addition to his solo work, Flores is a founding member of the Simón Bolívar Brass Quintet, bringing his alluring musicianship to brass chamber music worldwide. He has also served as principal trumpet in top orchestras such as the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and the Saito Kinen Orchestra, working with iconic conductors including Claudio Abbado, Sir Simon Rattle, Seiji Ozawa, and Gustavo Dudamel.

Flores is also a dedicated educator, serving as the founding director of the Latin-American Trumpet Academy in Venezuela, where he mentors young players and champions contemporary repertoire through premieres and commissioned works.

UMS patrons will get an exclusive opportunity to witness his flexible virtuosity from Haydn to D’Rivera right in Hill Auditorium. Witness this magical experience on Wednesday, January 21, 2026 at 7:30 pm for an enthralling program.

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2025 delivered unforgettable memories to UMS audiences, both on and off our stages! As the year comes to a close, let’s take a look back at some of our favorite moments:

Seong-Jin Cho’s Debut

Seong-Jin Cho in Hill Auditorium, February 7, 2025. Photo by Peter Smith Photography.

Renowned pianist Seong-Jin Cho made a spectacular Ann Arbor debut to a sold-out audience in Hill Auditorium, performing the complete solo piano works of Maurice Ravel. UMS was proud to be the only Midwest presenter of his limited U.S. tour, which complemented the release of his acclaimed Ravel album (streaming now on Apple Music and Spotify).

An Engaging No Safety Net

Audience member playing asses.masses in the Walgreen Drama Center. Photo by Peter Smith Photography.

UMS’s biennial No Safety Net series concluded with two interactive theatrical experiences that tackle issues relevant to our time.

Nate — A One Man Show, starred creator Natalie Palamides in drag, provocatively engaging the audience with themes of toxic masculinity and consent. The brilliant show premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was later released as a Netflix special produced by Amy Poehler.

Audience members enjoyed asses.masses as a spectator, a player, or both, in a 7+ hour gaming-as-theater event! Created by Milton Lim and Patrick Blenkarn, asses.masses is an experience that confronts modern-day challenges — labor, technophobia, and sharing the load of revolution — wittingly told through unemployed donkeys that demand humans surrender their machines and give them their jobs back.

A Legend Returned

Left to Right: Marcel, Rami, and Sary Khalife in Hill Auditorium, April 5, 2025. Photo by Peter Smith Photography.

Legendary Lebanese composer, singer, and oud master Marcel Khalife returned to Ann Arbor for the first time in 20 years, joined by his son, virtuoso pianist Rami Khalife, and his nephew, cellist Sary Khalife. The cross-generational trio performed a selection of Marcel’s revered classics that endeared him to millions in the Arab World, alongside original works, and the program was streamed to a global audience on YouTube. Watch on Demand

Going for the Gold

Yunchan Lim in Hill Auditorium, April 23, 2025. Photo by Peter Smith Photography.

Since winning gold at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022, Yunchan Lim has risen to stardom in the musical world. In his much-anticipated UMS recital debut, he magnificently presented Bach’s Goldberg Variations — a remarkable feat by a pianist so early in his career!

This performance marked only the fifth time in UMS’s 146-year history that the Goldbergs have been played. Previous performances were by Glenn Gould in 1959 (who was only 27 at the time!), William Doppmann in 1965, Murray Perahia in 2000, and András Schiff in 2013. Each artist brought insight and maturity to this intricate, deeply expressive piece.

Celebrating the Ypsi Community

Detroit Party Marching Band. Photo by Peter Smith

To conclude our April 2025 residency at the Ypsilanti Freighthouse, UMS joined forces with the Riverside Arts Center and FestiFools to create a free artistic celebration that perfectly encapsulated the love and support of the Ypsi community. In a puppet-accompanied processional alongside the Detroit Party Marching Band, the crowd journeyed from Riverside to the Freighthouse, where the party continued with live music by Djangophonique.

Art-Making…Under Pressure!

Flint Print-Making Block Party. Photo by Cliff Hughes.

On May 10, The Flint art community came together to celebrate printmaking on large and unique scales. Curated and produced by Janice McCoy, UMS’s Flint Artist-in-Residence, the event showcased the design work that artists throughout the region have carved into plywood using various techniques, including traditional hand tools and precision laser cutting. During the event, the artists collaborated to apply black ink to the blocks and then prepared them for press on muslin under the force of a steamroller!

Verdi’s Requiem with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Verdi’s Requiem with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and UMS Choral Union. Photo by Peter Smith Photography.

The 25/26 season kicked off with an electrifying presentation of Verdi’s Requiem from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and UMS Choral Union. The performance featured five exciting UMS debuts by international artists: the DSO’s Italian music director Jader Bignamini, South African soprano Vuvu Mpofu, American mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, Mexican American tenor René Barbera, and Chinese bass-baritone Shenyang.

Nigamon/Tunai

Waira Nina and Émilie Monnet laugh during post-show Q&A. Photo by Peter Smith.

Nigamon/Tunai brought a voice to the natural world on the Power Center stage. Audience members sat up close and personal on stage with artists Émilie Monnet and Waira Nina and became immersed about Indigenous ancestral knowledge. The week also had the artists participating in multiple events during U-M’s climate week, with Monnet and Nina leading a guided walk at Harvest Vest, contributing to a discussion on approaches to art-making in an environmentally just world, and Monnet speaking at the Penny Stamps Speaker Series.

Movement with Ballet BC

High school students pose with Ballet BC dancers after class visit.

Vancouver’s trailblazing Ballet BC thrilled audiences with its highly anticipated UMS debut this past October, delivering two programs that earned standing ovations. Beyond their captivating performances at the Power Center, company members engaged deeply with the Ann Arbor community, sharing their passion for dance across campus and beyond. From masterclasses and classroom visits to a school-day performance and a community dance workshop, Ballet BC made a memorable and inspiring impact on dancers and dance lovers of all ages! Read more about their Ann Arbor visit

Philharmonia + VR Experience

Community member participates in VR experience at Cahoots. Photo by Eric Woodhams.

Patrons could take the stage themselves and experience the Philharmonia Orchestra’s “Virtual Orchestra” in several public opportunities, exploring the symphony from a musician’s-eye view and hearing music from different perspectives through Spatial Audio.

Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock points out to the crowd at Hill Auditorium. Photo by Peter Smith.

Legendary jazz and funk pianist Herbie Hancock returned to Hill Auditorium, performing a mix of iconic hits and innovative compositions that showcase his decades-long influence on acoustic and electronic jazz. An audience member says, “One of the best experiences of my life. I grew up listening to Herbie on Sunday mornings with my dad. To be able to take him to the show and co-experience joy in that way was absolutely priceless!”

Scott Hanoian’s 10th UMS Messiah

December 2025 saw UMS Choral Union music director Scott Hanoian celebrating his 10th UMS performance of Handel’s Messiah, marking over a decade of inspiring leadership, innovative projects, and community-building efforts. Read more

UMS tour to Edinburgh, August 2023

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is one of the world’s largest celebrations of live performance, transforming Scotland every August into a whirlwind of new ideas, bold artistry, and global creativity. Each year, members of the UMS team travel to Edinburgh to immerse themselves in the festival, discovering innovative performances and forging relationships with artists whose work might one day make its way to Michigan.

In August 2023, UMS had the joy of leading a special donor tour to the Fringe. Among the many wonderful performances our group experienced, one production was a particular standout: Dimanche, created by the Belgium-based companies Chaliwaté and Focus.

A masterful blend of puppetry, physical theater, video, and clowning, Dimanche approaches the realities of climate change with wit, wonder, and deep humanity. It’s inventive and laugh-out-loud funny, yet emotionally resonant in the same way that makes the film WALL-E so charming and beloved. It’s a story that sneaks up on your heart, even as it sparks your imagination.

This season, we’re thrilled to finally bring Dimanche to Ann Arbor for six performances at the Power Center, January 7–11, 2026. Below, enjoy reflections from participants on the 2023 Fringe tour and get a first look at the production’s trailer — a glimpse of the unforgettable experience that awaits.

“Seeing Dimanche was truly a unique theatrical experience. Most climate change awareness pieces are full of talk. This one has none! Only real action and wondrous surprises. Mime, puppetry, acting, and stagecraft deliver the message of our changing climate — touching our spirits and minds through the range of our senses! Don’t miss it.” — Neil Hawkins

“Dimanche is one of the most visually inventive stage productions I have ever seen, blending, physical theater, miniature sets, and precise puppetry. It is a brilliant statement about the world sliding toward climate catastrophe. The darkly comic presentation is both wonderfully entertaining and thought provoking.” — Laurence Baker

“When we saw Dimanche in Scotland, it blew us away. The artists use all the tools that make a night out at a live performance truly special. And the stories they tell tackle serious subjects with humor while also making you think.” — David Leichtman

“Climate Change can be difficult to discuss and sometimes words fail me but words were not needed to convey emotion and open us to the questions they raise. Dimanche immerses us in their world with vignettes that explore our changing climate. We really enjoyed their show when we saw it in Edinburgh and are thrilled that audiences, including students, will get a chance to experience it and think about the issues they raise.” — Bill Phillips

Thank You to Our Performance Sponsors

Presenting Sponsor
Stephen and Rosamund Forrest Family Foundation, in support of programming focused on climate change and the environment

Principal Sponsors
Neil and Annmarie Hawkins

Supporting Sponsors
Victor J. Strecher and Jeri L. Rosenberg

This weekend marks a milestone for UMS Choral Union music director and conductor, Scott Hanoian, as he takes the podium for his 10th UMS presentation of Handel’s Messiah, a tradition that has been at the root of UMS since its founding in 1879.

Please enjoy these messages of congratulations from the UMS community:

Scott made his UMS debut on December 5, 2015 as conductor and music director of Handel’s Messiah, leading the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra (A2SO) and UMS Choral Union at Hill Auditorium. Only six years later, Scott would unexpectedly find himself navigating choral singing in one of the first public UMS presentations coming out of the COVID-19 Pandemic in December 2021.

Scott has inspired audiences — and artists — in memorable performances of Western Classical choral works presented at Hill Auditorium, including last March’s UMS presentation of Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky Live with the UMS Choral Union and A2SO, marking Scott’s conducting debut synchronizing film and accompanying score; 2019’s Britten War Requiem with the UMS Choral Union, A2SO, and Ann Arbor Youth Chorale; and 2016’s mixed-choral program, Love is Strong as Death.

Throughout the past 11 years, Scott has remarkably served as chorus master of the UMS Choral Union, delivering exciting choir preparations for esteemed international conductors including Jader Bignamini, Dennis Russell Davies, Iván Fischer, Alan Gilbert, Earl Lee, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jeffrey Schindler, Leonard Slatkin, Alain Trudel, and Osmo Vänskä.

At the heart of Scott’s work is his commitment to community. Summer Sings, a UMS series of community music-making events leading as many as 250 singers from southeastern Michigan, northern Ohio, and Canada in great choral repertoire with some of the nation’s most respected choral conductors and outstanding soloists, exemplifies his commitment. Scott has worked tirelessly to develop relationships between chorus members and audiences and to value an investment in community on an equal platform at his acclaimed presentations.

His passion — and humor — on the podium has resulted in Scott being an especially beloved leader of the 150+ members of the UMS Choral Union. Scott annually gifts homemade pickles to UMS Choral Union staff at every Messiah and has even welcomed a service animal into the chorus, a Samoyed named Maya.

Please join UMS in congratulating Scott on his myriad accomplishments and artistic successes in serving the UMS Choral Union over the past 11 years!

UMS’s annual presentation of Handel’s Messiah is a beloved holiday tradition for the Ann Arbor community. This year, we are especially excited to welcome back four outstanding singers who first graced the Hill Auditorium stage together in 2022. Our 2025 performances will joined by Sherezade Panthaki, Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, Miles Mykkanen, and Enrico Lagasca.

Learn more about their incredible voices below, and hear them December 6-7 in Hill Auditorium!

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Sherezade Panthaki, soprano

Sherezade Panthaki, soprano, enjoys ongoing international collaborations with conductors Nicholas McGegan, Masaaki Suzuki, Mark Morris and more. Recent engagements include early music and oratorio performances with the New York Philharmonic, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Bach Collegium Japan, Wiener Akademie (Austria), NDR Hannover Radiophilharmonie (Germany), the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Early Music Festival, and the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra (Canada).

Born and raised in India, Ms. Panthaki holds graduate degrees from the Yale School of Music and the University of Illinois. She is a founding member of the Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble, celebrating racial and ethnic diversity in performances and educational programs of early and new music. Ms. Panthaki is a renown clinician, has taught voice at Yale University, and currently heads the Vocal program at Mount Holyoke College.

Listen to Sherezade Panthaki sing “Rejoice Greatly, O Daughter of Zion” from Handel’s Messiah here:

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, countertenor

Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen brings his “astonishingly beautiful,” “golden toned” (The Guardian) instrument to a broad range of repertoire spanning the Baroque to the contemporary. Acclaimed as both a “young star” and “complete artist” by the New York Times and as “extravagantly gifted… poised to redefine what’s possible for singers of this distinctive voice type” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Mr. Nussbaum Cohen’s passion for creating performances of great vocal beauty and dramatic intensity have earned him a reputation as “a redefining force in the countertenor field” (Limelight).

Mr. Nussbaum Cohen finds a close affinity between the ancient musical traditions of his Jewish heritage and the Baroque works composing much of his operatic repertoire. Equally invigorated performing new works, Nussbaum Cohen’s first commercial recording project – the world premiere of Kenneth Fuchs’ “Poems of Life” performed with the London Symphony Orchestra under JoAnn Falletta – was honored with a GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Compendium in 2019; and his interpretation of the Refugee’s aria from Jonathan Dove’s Flight provided the centerpiece for his extensive catalogue of competition successes, including winning the Grand Prize at the 2017 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, top prizes in Houston Grand Opera’s Eleanor McCollum Competition and the Dallas Opera Guild Competition, a George and Nora London Foundation Award, the Richard Tucker Study Grant and Career Grant, and in 2024, top prize in the Gerda Lissner Foundation’s International Vocal Competition.

Listen to Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen sing “Dull Delay, in Piercing Anguish” from Handel’s Jephtha here:

Miles Mykkanen, tenor

The career of exuberant young Finnish-American tenor Miles Mykkanen was launched with a national win of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition in 2019. He has since impressed with a series of important debuts on the world’s major stages, including the Metropolitan Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Canadian Opera Company, and Royal Opera House Covent Garden, where The i declared his performance “the most beautiful singing of the evening” and Opera Magazine dubbed it “so striking and brilliant” that “he managed toturn the Steersman into a principal character.”

In a pivotal 25/26 season, Mykkanen stars as Sam Clay in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay for the Metropolitan Opera’s opening night gala and house premiere run, conducted by Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Mykkanen returns to the house after this season as The Groom in the first Met production of Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence. Elsewhere, he makes two dual house and role debuts: as Leukippos in Strauss rarity Daphne at Seattle Opera, and as Tamino in Barrie Kosky’s silent film-inspired production of The Magic Flute at LA Opera. He also brings his flexible tenor to Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 with Cleveland Orchestra, led by Franz Welser-Möst, and to Handel’s Messiah with Chicago’s Music of the Baroque, conducted by Dame Jane Glover, and the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor. He marks his first appearance at the Maastricht Festival in the Netherlands as soloist in a unique Carmina Burana featuring acclaimed piano duo Lucas and Arthur Jussen, among other appearances still to be announced.

Hear a selection from Miles Mykkanen below:

Enrico Lagasca, bass-baritone

Filipino-American bass-baritone Enrico Lagasca is an in-demand vocalist – having performed more than a hundred oratorios, new-music works, opera roles, song cycles, and collections. His “smooth, dark bass voice” can be heard on six Grammy Award-nominated recordings.

Amid the wide-ranging demands of his repertoire, critics note Enrico’s larger-than-life presence. “Bass-baritone Enrico Lagasca summoned nearly as much volume as everyone else onstage put together.” Storytelling is at the center of his artistry. He has been described as having “an oratorio voice that strikes fear of God in the hearts of the audience.” His performance of St. Matthew’s Passion at Saint Thomas’s Church was described as “an outpouring of devotion and grief as elegant as it was moving.”

Soloist highlights of recent seasons include Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with Voices of Ascension in New York, Handel’s Messiah at Ann Arbor’s University Musical Society and at Carnegie Hall with Musica Sacra, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at Washington Bach Consort, and Mendelssohn’s Walpurgisnacht with the St. Louis Symphony. Enrico has collaborated with conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, Pablo Heras-Casado, Nicholas McGegan, Jane Glover, John Butt, John Nelson, Matthew Halls and Carl St. Clair.

Enrico’s passion extends beyond performing. He is dedicated to advocacy for the Queer community and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. As a member of the Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble, a musical group committed to diversity and social justice, he participates in creative outreach programming for various communities with limited access to the arts. His performances of Craig Hella Johnson’s Considering Matthew Shepard reflect Enrico’s dedication to works that address the LGBTQ+ community.

Hear Enrico Lagasca perform The Trumpet Shall Sound from Handel’s Messiah:

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U-M students attending Fight Night. Photo by Peter Smith Photography.

TL;DR

A U-M course where students attend live music, theater, and dance shows, meet artists, and explore how performance shapes everyday life — no experience needed!

Students say: it opens your eyes to new art, shows that anything can be a performance, and changes how you see expression, identity, and meaning in the world.

What is Engaging Performance?

Engaging Performance, a class that brings together resources from U-M and UMS, connects undergraduate students directly to the world-class touring artists who perform music, theater, and dance on the U-M campus. Students enrolled in the course attend live performances, talk with artists and arts administrators, and explore how the performing arts are an integral part of our lives and the world. No previous arts experience needed!

From Students

“This class really changed how I see the performing arts and their role in my life. I got to experience performances I probably wouldn’t have gone to on my own, and it showed me how exciting it can be to try something new. I learned that every performance means something different, and it’s up to each viewer to find their own perspective.”

“Engaging Performance has taught me so much about the performing arts and how they surround our lives. Since taking this course, I’ve started noticing performances in everyday life that I never paid attention to before. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that performing is a natural part of daily life, but it also takes incredible time and effort to do what the artists we saw were able to do. While this class hasn’t raised any major questions for me, I’m excited to keep learning about performance art and see how my understanding continues to grow.”

“Participating in Engaging Performance has significantly reshaped how I understand the role of performance in my life, both inside and outside the classroom. Before this class, I thought of performance mostly in terms of staged art—something done by trained professionals, separate from everyday life. Now, I see performance as a powerful mode of communication, protest, identity formation, and meaning-making that exists all around us. It’s not just about acting on a stage; it’s about how we express who we are, how we show up in social spaces, and how we challenge or reinforce systems of power.”

“I learned that performance, whether individual or group, is a deeply collaborative process. It involves a lot of brainstorming and hidden elements that aren’t always discussed. Every show—and even every moment on stage—requires incredible effort. It was amazing to gain a vocabulary that lets me look at a performance and explore what it might mean—healing, grief, protest, entertainment, and more.”

“Engaging Performance has positively changed how I see the performing arts in my life. After this class, I feel more knowledgeable about different types of performance and have grown to truly appreciate performance as a distinct art form. The biggest lesson I learned is that anything can be a performance. On the second day of class, we discussed the idea that everyone is performing in their everyday lives, which made me see the people around me in a new way—I’m really grateful for that perspective. A major question this class has raised for me is the meaning behind a single performance. Throughout the semester, we constantly discussed and debated the meaning of specific performances, which I think is one of the key points of performance: to make its audience think and wonder about what they are seeing and hearing.”

Winter 2026 Class Information

Term: Winter 2026 // Course Name: Engaging Performance
Course Listing: MUSPERF 200, ALA 260, ENGLISH 290
Instructor: Jason Fitzgerald
Credits: 3 Credits (Humanities Distribution)
Class Schedule: Tuesdays & Thursdays from 11:30 am – 1 pm

Course Listing

Students will attend live performances of:

• Martha Graham Dance Company – Friday, January 16
• Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band – Thursday, January 29
• Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir – Friday, February 13
• Karajan Akademie – Friday, March 13
• GATZ – Friday-Sunday, March 27-29
• Jeremy Nedd – Friday-Saturday, April 3-4

These performances constitute the course’s primary “texts,” and the full package of tickets is available to students enrolled in the course for the reduced rate of $115. Additional funds are available to support students who cannot cover this cost.

Joe Malcoun is an early stage tech investor and co-founder of Cahoots, a coworking and event space in downtown Ann Arbor designed for connection and community. He’s also co-owner of The Blind Pig, a small but legendary Ann Arbor music venue that’s hosted a wide range of musicians over the years, from local up-and-coming acts to John Lennon to Nirvana.

Earlier this Fall, Joe and his wife, Caitlin Klein, sponsored UMS’s presentation of Nigamon/Tunai, an intimate, immersive theater work inviting audiences to listen and understand the knowledge and struggles of both the Anishinaabe people of the Great Lakes and the Inga peoples of the Colombian Amazon – a beautiful example of the power of the arts to transcend boundaries and connect people and ideas across cultures.

Joe joined the UMS Board of Directors in July 2025. We had the pleasure of chatting with Joe about the role the arts play in our community, what drew him to UMS, and what inspiration he offers to his peers.

What was your first experience with UMS?

You are really challenging my memory here, but I believe it was the Royal Shakespeare Theater performance in 2001. I was a grad student at U-M and a friend who was an English major was required to attend. He roped me in and I remember thinking, “This is a much more profound performance than I was expecting for a school assignment.”

What inspired you to begin to donate to UMS?

One night at dinner, Matthew VanBesien was sharing that he wanted to support some less conventional regional artists for a residency. One of the artists he mentioned was Tunde Olinarian, someone that my wife, Caitlin, and I have always been a fan of. We thought it was a great opportunity to make a more substantial contribution than we ever had previously. It was such an awesome project to be a part of. It pulled us into the UMS atmosphere and we saw how there are always performances that may be harder to sponsor, but programmatically significant and important. We just made that our thing.

We know you both are passionate about improving the quality of life in our community. How do you see your support of UMS aligning with this goal?

It’s so hard to articulate to people how incredibly impactful this very unique organization is on our community. Trying to describe the sophistication of performers and artists UMS is able to attract to our relatively small “market” is just so difficult to fully express. The access and exposure to events which otherwise would only be available to students and residents by traveling to larger markets is such an incredible gift.

Community members participating in Philharmonia Virtual Reality Experience at Cahoots, Joe’s event space.

What do you see as the role of the arts in community life?

[The arts] total enrichment of every other community activity and overall quality of life. Its impact ranges from advancing knowledge to pure recreation and is so important for us to build a thoughtful, supportive and productive community. Art is not a “nice to have.” History has fully proven it’s an absolute necessity and breeds innovation, creativity and community.

You’ve stated that you’re committed to engaging more younger professionals in the arts and in supporting local arts institutions. What message would you want to say to your peers?

We tend to obsess over the downside of getting older, [but] there happen to be some very awesome things about having more grey hairs in my beard. One of them is I actually have enough life experience—good and bad—to share with younger people, and it feels really good to do so. I’ve been so fortunate to have some spectacular mentors—in this community and elsewhere. Having the opportunity to be the mentor rather than the mentee has kept me excited about what’s next and hopeful that younger generations will right a lot of things we got wrong.

Vancouver’s innovative Ballet BC made its much-anticipated UMS debut this October, culminating in two programs that brought packed audiences to standing ovations. In addition to their stunning performances in the Power Center, company members shared their love of dance both on and off campus, and with community members of all ages. From masterclasses to classroom visits, a school day performance, and a community dance workshop, Ballet BC certainly left its mark on Ann Arbor! Enjoy a look back on an unforgettable week:

Classroom Visits and Masterclasses

Two of Ballet BC’s dancers, Sarah Pippin and Rae Srivastava, visited three classes across U-M’s campus, including courses in engineering, psychology, and literature. Sarah and Rae provided an overview of the company, their performance history, and the repertoire presented while in Ann Arbor. They also led masterclasses at the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Henry Ford High School, and the Flint School of Performing Arts, teaching students excerpts of Pieces of Tomorrow, choreographed by Ballet BC artistic director Medhi Walerski.

School Day Performance

Ballet BC’s School Day Performance of PASSING introduced grade 4-12 students to choreographer Johan Inger’s powerful exploration of human connection and emotion. Set to an evocative score, the piece moved through themes of vulnerability, relationships, and shared experience, with the audience laughing and delighting in the humorous moment when one dancer “gives birth” to 18 company members.

You Can Dance!

Along with the class visits and masterclasses, Ballet BC dancer Luca Afflitto hosted a free You Can Dance! event at Riverside Arts Center in Ypsilanti, welcoming community members of all ages and skill levels! Luca, from Genova, Italy, started dancing at 11 and trained at the Academie de Danse Princesse Grace in Monte Carlo. After performing with Ballett Zürich and earning the company’s Dance Prize, he joined Ballet BC in 2022, where he’s been lighting up the stage with works by some of today’s top choreographers—now heading into his fourth season with the company!

A Fond Farewell

Ballet BC dancers shared the joy and love of their craft with audiences well beyond our Power Center performances, and we hope to welcome the company back to Ann Arbor in future seasons. Until then, we invite you to follow Ballet BC on Facebook and Instagram.

Thank You to Our Sponsors

Ballet BC’s debut performances were funded in part by the Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation.

Nicknamed “Iceland’s Glenn Gould” by The New York Times and praised as “breathtakingly brilliant” by Gramophone, pianist Víkingur Ólafsson makes his much-anticipated UMS debut on October 24 with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London.

Ólafsson grew up in Reykjavík surrounded by music with his mother, Svana Víkingsdóttir, as his first piano teacher. In his youth, he also studied with Erla Stefánsdóttir and Peter Máté, before moving to New York City to study at The Juilliard School, where he earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees under Jerome Lowenthal and Robert McDonald.

Ólafsson has become one of the most sought-after and heard classical artists of his generation, with his recordings amassing over a billion streams. His recent album of Bach’s Goldberg Variations captured a 2025 Grammy for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. Among his accolades, he is a past recipient of Album of the Year at the BBC Music Magazine Awards (2019), Artist of the Year at the Gramophone Awards (2019), and has received national recognition and the Order of the Falcon from his home country.

Víkingur has established a career that both respects tradition and embraces the new, with a command for repertoire that spans from J.S. Bach to Philip Glass.

Beyond his technical brilliance, Ólafsson brings a deeply personal, almost philosophical approach to the his playing, with interpretations described as “uncommonly sensitive” (Gramophone) and “mesmerizingly original” (The Guardian). With a reputation for performances that balance crystalline clarity with deep emotional insight, Ólafsson will be a perfect virtuosic match for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

The famous “Emperor” concerto opens with thunderous, kingly chords and unfurls into music of radiant strength and introspection — signatures of Beethoven’s “heroic” period of grand works. Preview its triumphant finale movement, in this recording by Glenn Gould:

Alongside the Philharmonia Orchestra and conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Ólafsson will join a long list of legendary pianists who have set foot on the stage of Hill Auditorium. Join us on October 24 to hear a meeting of brilliant minds across centuries: Beethoven’s revolutionary fire and Ólafsson’s modern mastery, united in one unforgettable performance.

Tickets start at just $26 (+fees), with many student ticket discount opportunities available.

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More to Explore

Ólafsson appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk series in 2024:

In an earlier 2020 interview with NPR, Ólafsson describes having synesthesia — an association of musical pitches with colors. 

Ólafsson signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon in 2016, and his debut DG album was devoted to the music of Philip Glass (whose etudes are making an appearance later in UMS’s 25/26 season).

Ólafsson was interviewed by Rick Rubin, Grammy-winning record producer and co-founder of Def Jam Recordings: