Team UMS
Twenty-five years ago, the University Musical Society was drowning in debt.Since its founding in 1879, the group had presented classical music in Ann Arbor under only four leaders: Henry Simmons Frieze through 1889, Francis...
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Ghost Writers
v Keith Taylor usually reviews books here, but he also writes them, mostly poetry and short fiction. He and fellow poet and fiction writer Laura Kasischke gathered together some Michigan writers and asked each to contribute a...
Read MoreThe Wayward Sisters
There are precious few things worth spending a spectacularly beautiful Sunday afternoon indoors for, and if you’d told me that one of them would be a recital by the Wayward Sisters of a program called “Ashes, Ashes:...
Read MoreFranz Wright
When I knew I would write about Franz Wright’s new collection of prose poems, Kindertotenwald, I wrote to my German friend Thilo von Debschitz, whose English is decidedly better than my German, to ask him how he understood...
Read MoreMikrokolektyw
Over the last half-century, jazz has flourished in Central Europe, especially in Poland. Banned by the Stalinist postwar government, it emerged from the underground in the late Fifties to become an important component of...
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Alejandra O’Leary
Welcome to Alejandra O’Leary version 2.0. In early April, the young singer-songwriter introduced a new wrinkle to her already impressive musical repertoire–a backing band. Flanked by Jeremy Frey on bass and Jamie...
Read MoreThe Fishtank Ensemble
The Fishtank Ensemble takes its name from a club called the Fishtank in Oakland, California. When they come to the Ark September 1 (see Nightspots), they’ll be bringing a style of music that hasn’t been heard much in...
Read MoreStrange Percussion
“Anything you could hit that would make a noise would serve our purpose,” says Lev Gartman.On stage in the Angell Elementary School auditorium, seven U-M students stand behind a pair of folding tables as a group of...
Read MoreSaxophonist Janelle Reichman
When the Detroit News named her one of the top twenty high school graduates in the arts in all of Michigan a decade ago, the young saxophone player Janelle Reichman gave her career plans simply as “musician.” By then...
Read MoreEllen Baker
Ellen Baker’s first novel, Keeping the House, has had the kind of success that’s not supposed to be possible anymore. Since it was published in 2007–to good, if occasionally mixed, reviews–its reputation...
Read MorePaul Burch
The songs of Paul Burch are subtle takes on older country music, mostly in its swing- and rockabilly-flavored varieties. They strip traditional country down to its bones, turn it inside out, and build on it anew, asking in the...
Read MoreMusical Pipes
“It’s just like a high-mileage car,” Scott Smith says of the Michigan Theater’s Barton organ. “It runs well but it needs constant attention.” At nearly eighty-four years old, the organ is...
Read MoreDude, Where’s My Play?
As the curtain rose on Consider the Oyster, on two men in football jerseys raptly watching a TV football broadcast, I was suddenly struck–in a way that made me want to cartoonishly smack myself on the forehead–by the...
Read MoreTwo-Wheeled Tour
The Steel Wheels will be rolling out of Ann Arbor, quite literally, following their tour-opening concert at the Ark on August 4 (see Nightspots, p. 44). Members of the four-piece Americana string band are gearing up for their...
Read MoreDragon Wagon
Every summer there’s one band that seems to appear everywhere around Washtenaw County, and if you wanted to track the youth zeitgeist you could start by making a list of them. Right now an old bluegrasser like me can take...
Read MoreJehovah’s Witness…
The Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program has a great band name–and knows how to have a good time. The Ypsilanti duo, featuring Anthony Anonymous on guitar and vocals and Jehan Dough on drums (those are their...
Read MoreArt That Wiggles Its Butt
Asked for his definition of a good poem, Howard Moss, longtime poetry editor of the New Yorker magazine, replied, “One I like.”Artists who submit their work to any of the four Ann Arbor art fairs are likely to...
Read MoreBonnie Jo Campbell
Two years ago, after a couple of decades of hard work, Bonnie Jo Campbell hit it big with American Salvage, a collection of tough stories placed in rural western Michigan–and published by a small university press (Wayne...
Read MoreGoodnight Keith Moon
“It was late 2008,” recalls Bruce Worden. “I’m a fan of old rock ‘n’ roll, and I’d been listening to the Who that day, and when I was reading Goodnight Moon to my son Harrison that...
Read MoreGeorge Bedard 2011
Guitarist George Bedard is a pure local treasure. The unveiling of his new all-instrumental album, Pickin’ Apart the Past, at Top of the Park on July 10 ought to be accorded local holiday status, but he’ll be happy...
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