Among fans of Cuban music, the city of Matanzas has long been known as a cultural mecca. Founded in 1693 by the Spanish as a port for the sugar cane industry, the city quickly became home to tens of thousands of African slaves....
Read MoreAsked to list their hometown's world-class attractions, most Ann Arborites could easily rattle off several, but very few would name one of Ann Arbor's most remarkable annual events: the U-M Powwow. Every March (March...
Read MoreModern dance is a tricky term, often used as a catchphrase for nearly every nonclassical (read: nonballetic) theatrical dance style in Europe and America since the early twentieth century. Twyla Tharp challenges even that...
Read MorePoet is almost too limiting a term to describe Anne Waldman: she seems to be a force of nature! She came from a family steeped in bohemian culture and moved quite easily into the artistic ferment of New York City in the...
Read MoreUncle Earl is the brainchild of two women, K. C. Groves and Jo Serrapere. Serrapere writes blues-tinged originals and made local music headlines last December when she won a slot on the Hill Auditorium program of Garrison...
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The discovery of a new work by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi is big news. In his twenty-six years of life poor Pergolesi wrote only a handful of works, a disproportionate number of which have established themselves as...
Read MoreEuropean improvised music is becoming well known in this country. German, Swedish, British, and Dutch jazz artists have found different routes to original styles, having long ago abandoned the imitation of American models, and...
Read MoreI hate to do it, but I can't talk about Laura Kasischke's new novel, The Life before Her Eyes, without giving something important away — the beginning. Two young women, inseparable best friends, juniors in high...
Read MoreThe Bird of Paradise has been serving jazz seven nights a week for more than fifteen years, and throughout that time a trio led by bassist Ron Brooks, who owns the club, has been a featured attraction. But the band antedates the...
Read MoreI've never quite understood why Valentine's Day, being in February, is such a big thing. May, June — now those would be prime months for the coy deliverance of cards, chocolates, flowers, and protestations of...
Read MoreThe high-quality exhibit Contemporary Artists of Ann Arbor at the Art Oasis on Main Street tempted me to take one of the classes held in the studio space behind the gallery. If I did, I realized, some of my fellow students would...
Read More"Oh, I have seen the David," sings Guy Clark. "Seen the Mona Lisa, too. And I have heard Doc Watson sing 'Columbus Stockade Blues.' " My own favorite Doc Watson moment is more modest. It came the last...
Read MoreWhat do you get when you cross a metaphysically inclined German tough guy with a liberté et égalité French orchestra? Beautiful music? Maybe. Maybe not. Christoph Eschenbach is the metaphysically inclined German tough guy....
Read MoreEarly in Burnt Offerings, his second collection of poetry, Timothy Liu writes: “All my life / the sound I’ve been trying to hear is the sound / of my own voice.” It is perhaps too easy to put that as a kind of...
Read MoreA few days after George Harrison’s funeral I saw the Starlight Drifters at the Tap Room in Ypsilanti, and it was, believe me, very easy to imagine a world in which the Beatles had never existed, despite being told...
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