Culture

All people who regularly attend classical music concerts in Ann Arbor know the excellence of the U-M music school faculty and student performers. They have gone to the piano-shaped music school building to hear the brass’s...

The short story, like any other art form, responds to fashion. The dominant fashion at the moment — a certain genuine wittiness that exposes a gently bizarre character often at swim in a sea of commodities — has...

Darol Anger and Mike Marshall play music that starts at the meeting point of bluegrass and jazz — and can find its way into a classical concert hall without too much trouble. The genre doesn't really have a name apart...

When I’m checking out local performers, I so enjoy seeing their parents or grandparents in the audience. The evening feels somehow more wholesome and meaningful with the older folks tuning in to the next generation’s...

Comedian George Carlin pointed out years ago that baseball's goofy, childlike soul (Caps! Parks!) contrasts starkly with football's martial combat (Helmets! Stadiums!). And perhaps the game's playful quality is what...

Despite the continuing U.S. sanction against any cultural exchange with Iran, the U-M Museum of Art plans to open Persian Visions: Contemporary Photography from Iran on Saturday, September 29. The first major body of Iranian...

Rumi has been the best-selling poet in America for the past twenty years. Books of his poems have sold over half a million copies. Fantastic, for poetry. Fascinating, for a poet born in Afghanistan 800 years ago. His words seem...

I often picture an old man, at peace, walking slowly or sitting in the park. He holds a teapot, a birdcage, a fan — and whistles, savoring a tune from Chinese opera. — Shen Wei Shen Wei is one of the most acclaimed...