Hill Auditorium : All posts

'A Prairie Home Companion' brought Lake Wobegon to Hill Auditorium on Saturday

Garrison Keillor performing during the live radio broadcast of his variety show, "A Prairie Home Companion," at Hill Auditorium on June 1, 2013.

Photo by Courtney Sacco | AnnArbor.com

Listen to 'A Prairie Home Companion' broadcast from Hill Auditorium on Saturday

photo by Velenchenko

The show will air a second time on the same station on Sunday, June 2 at noon.

event preview

'A Prairie Home Companion' actress offers behind-the-scenes glimpse before Hill Auditorium show

Sue Scott plays all the female roles on the radio program, "A Prairie Home Companion."

Photo provided by APHC

with gallery, video: Experts describe what makes Hill Auditorium special, on its 100th birthday

The University of Michigan’s pre-eminent performance space, Hill Auditorium—which turns 100 years old today, May 14, 2013—is enjoying the extra love and attention that comes with a milestone anniversary.

Ticket office explains long will-call line for David Sedaris appearance

Satirist David Sedaris' show at Hill Auditorium on Saturday was delayed due to a long will call line.

concert preview

with video: Classical trumpet star Alison Balsom making Hill Auditorium debut

Alison Balsom

photo by Mat Hennek | EMI Classics

Or, more precisely, to Hill Auditorium Saturday evening, along with the Scottish Ensemble, courtesy of the University Musical Society.

If you haven’t heard of, or simply heard, Balsom, you’re in for a treat. This lissome 30-something British trumpeter is not simply another pretty pair of lips. The blood good looks don’t hurt, but it’s the playing—clean, smooth, sweet, pure, silvery and technically totally at ease—that’s earned her two “Female Artist of the Year” at the Classical BRITs and the lead slot, in 2009, at one of classical music’s most celebrated concerts: the last night of the BBC Proms, which reached its biggest ever global TV audience, an estimated 200 million. Lest it need saying, the Scottish Ensemble, the UK’s only professional string orchestra, is no slouch either.

concert preview

with video: Bobby McFerrin reflects on inspiration, new album ahead of Hill Auditorium concert

Bobby McFerrin

photo by Carol Friedman

He's best known, of course, for his sing-songy, playful 1988 hit, "Don't Worry, Be Happy." But he's also collaborated with jazz giants like Chick Corea and classical heavyweights like Yo Yo Ma, and has conducted orchestras as well.

And on his new album, McFerrin—who comes to Hill Auditorium on Thursday for a show presented by the University Musical Society—connects with one of his earliest influences. The album, "spirityouall," slated for May 14 release, largely plumbs the traditional Negro spirituals he heard as a child, when his father, Robert McFerrin Sr., was a well-known opera singer and interpreter of those old spirituals (and was also the first African American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York City.)

concert review

with gallery: Ben Folds thrills Hill Auditorium fans with energetic benefit concert

If Ben Folds was really faking his way through his performance at Hill Auditorium on Thursday, as he more or less admitted he was, probably every band in the nation should cancel next week’s rehearsal.

Because winging it seems to be the way to fans’ hearts.

Loose and lively, funny and smart, Folds delivered a powerhouse, 90-minute set featuring just himself and Hill’s Steinway, capitalizing on the singer-songwriter’s charm, while showcasing his inventive and engaging tunes.

concert preview

U-M's Men's Glee Club to celebrate 153rd anniversary with a concert at Hill Auditorium

The year is 1859. Oregon has just been admitted as the 33rd state. "A Tale of Two Cities" and "The Origin of Species" are published. And on the U-M campus, the Men's Glee Club came together. To celebrate, they will hold their 153rd Spring Concert at Hill Auditorium on Saturday.

concert preview

Ben Folds concert to benefit student-funded scholarships at U-M

Ben Folds

The concert, sponsored by Michigan Hillel, is being presented by MUSIC Matters (Michigan Undergrads Serving In the Community), a student organization at the U-M whose mission is to offer a yearly concert on campus, with the proceeds donated to charity.

With the money raised from the Folds show, MUSIC Matters will endow one of the first-ever student-funded scholarships at the U-M, said Phillip Schermer, MUSIC Matters founder and president.

music review

University of Michigan, UMS present a challenging 'Oresteia of Aeschylus'

The ad might have looked something like this:

Cast wanted: to bring to life three epic pieces of music, rarely performed; music requires epic forces—full complement of vocal soloists, huge chorus, giant orchestra plus massive percussion ensemble; recounts epic Greek drama, from the murder of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra to the exoneration of their son, Orestes, for her murder. Sung in French.
Sounds like a job for a good—no, make that great—school of music.

It was the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance that took on the job—resurrecting Milhaud’s “Oresteia of Aeschylus”—and Thursday evening at Hill Auditorium a cast of more than 400, students and professionals both, conducted by the U-M’s Kenneth Kiesler, crowded the stage for a three-hour, I-can’t-believe-they-did-the-whole-thing performance of a score that even those who know it well—and they are few—call challenging.

UMS, U-M presenting epic 'Oresteia of Aeschylus' trilogy, with album release planned

Back in 2004, a package arrived at conductor Kenneth Kiesler’s studio at the University of Michigan School of Music. It contained three huge scores along with a note from the publisher: “Sent at the request of William Bolcom.”

Thus began a musical odyssey that culminates Thursday evening at Hill Auditorium with a rare, first complete U.S. performance of Darius Milhaud’s “Oresteia of Aeschylus” trilogy. Naxos will record the approximately three hours of music live for release on CD.

Milhaud’s three works, for chorus, orchestra, vocal soloists and speakers—he didn’t like to call them operas, but that’s more or less what they are—are based on Aeschylus’s “Oresteia” trilogy, as translated into French (from English, not Greek) by Milhaud’s contemporary, the literary titan and diplomat Paul Claudel.

concert preview

with video: Unique double bill to feature 2 sides of Iraqi music

Hamid Al-Saadi

Trumpet player / composer ElSaffar leads the Two Rivers group, and he also plays santoor (an Iraqi hammered dulcimer) and provides backing vocals in the Iraqi Maqam Ensemble.

Maqam is traditional Iraqi music, so the opening set by Al-Saadi's ensemble will be strictly devoted to that traditional style. But ElSaffar’s Two Rivers group has created a heady, unique, innovative integration of Maqam and jazz. The show is being presented by the University Musical Society.

concert review

Yo-Yo Ma, Silk Road Ensemble bring a world of amazing music to Hill Auditorium

Yo-Yo Ma publicity photo

Post-superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who may be the best proselytizer ever for an instrument, that’s an outmoded question. And with shows like Saturday evening’s by Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, the questions: “What’s a kamancheh? What’s a shakuhachi? What’s a gaita? may be equally done for.

Promoting the cross-fertilization of the world’s cultures, musical and otherwise, is the goal of the Silk Road Project Ma has directed since he founded it in 1998. Saturday he and ensemble members from 8 countries were on hand not only to play for rapturous patrons in a sold-out Hill Auditorium, but to receive the University Musical Society Distinguished Artist Award, which goes to Ma and the Silk Road Project this year.

concert review

Anne-Sophie Mutter, Lambert Orkis present exciting recital at Hill Auditorium

Anne-Sophie Mutter publicity photo

But you know, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and pianist Lambert Orkis, who played a dazzling recital Thursday evening at Hill Auditorium under University Musical Society auspices, are a cool pair, the model of grace and unruffled calm under pressure. No histrionics, no over-emoting. And certainly no sweating. It’s a beautiful thing to see.

Ben Folds to play Hill Auditorium in charity concert; tickets on sale Friday

Note: The start time for online sales has been changed to 4 p.m. Friday, March 15.

Ben Folds performs at the 2008 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee

AP file photo

Tickets start at $20, $35, $50 and $55, and go on sale at 11 a.m. March 15 at the Michigan Union Ticket Office, in the basement of the Michigan Union on State Street. They will be available online at www.michiganmusicmatters.com/tix starting at 4 p.m. that day.

The concert is presented by MUSIC (Michigan Undergrads Serving In the Community) Matters and sponsored by Michigan Hillel. This is the group's second year producing a charity concert; proceeds will benefit need-based scholarships for high school students to attend U-M.

concert preview

Yo-Yo Ma talks about Hill Auditorium program, Silk Road Project - and UMS

Yo-Yo Ma

photo by Todd Rosenberg

If the ensemble’s programs take their cue from the mixing of cultures on the ancient Silk Road, they also reflect the cross-fertilization our present world permits. said Ma in a recent phone interview from Cambridge, Mass.

You get musicians like Iranian kamancheh virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor, Galician gaita player Cristina Pato and Indian tabla master Sandeep Das coming together. You get a composer and shakuhachi player like Kojiro Umezaki—Danish father; Japanese mother; raised in Tokyo, teaching in California—on the same bill as John Zorn, a downtown American composer whose “Suite from ‘Book of Angels’ the ensemble has arranged.

And you get highly interesting contradictions.

“So basically, here’s something weird, so on the one hand a lot of the music we play comes from very ancient sources,” said Ma, “but the other part is that the oldest piece of music of music we’re playing is 13 years old. We like mixing tradition and innovation. They sit well together. The idea of constant evolution in culture is as necessary as in nature.”

Anne-Sophie Mutter talks about program - sophisticated to 'crazy' - coming to Hill Auditorium

Anne-Sophie Mutter and Lambert Orkis

photo by Harald Hoffman

All that sounds very high minded—and it is. But Mutter, who returns to Ann Arbor Thursday, with pianist Lambert Orkis, for her sixth University Musical Society performance since her 1989 appearance here with the Leipzig Gewandhaus, is as irrepressible of spirit as she is deep and earnest. You gotta love an artist who joyously likens part of the Saint-Saens first violin sonata to “two squirrels running on a hot stove.” You get the musical picture right away.

Delivering the music honestly and vividly is something Mutter and Orkis have been doing for just about 25 years now as recital partners. And in talking about the pieces on their UMS program—the Mozart Sonata in G Major, K. 379; the Schubert Fantasy in C Major, D. 934; the Lutoslawski Partita; and the Saint-Saens Violin Sonata No. 1—Mutter provides commentary just as lively and insightful.

David Sedaris to appear at Hill Auditorium in April

David Sedaris

Photo by Anne Fishbein

A students-only presale starts Tuesday for $10 via the Michigan Union Ticket Office. Additional presales start Monday, March 4, via Ticketmaster.com; tickets go on sale to the general public on March 8 via MUTO and Ticketmaster.

concert review

with poll: New York Philharmonic wraps up Ann Arbor residency in grand style at Hill Auditorium

New York Philharmonic publicity photo

photo by Chris Lee

Here it is, I thought, as the New York Philharmonic finished an encore of Stenhammar’s lovely chorale-like “Interlude from ‘Sangen’“ Sunday afternoon at Hill Auditorium: a top-notch visiting orchestra that doesn’t need to play “The Victors” to woo hearts and show the love.

Wrong. Back onstage came Conductor Alan Gilbert, with a blue baseball cap with a big maize M blaring like a trumpet above the brim; up rose the brass to blaze our local chorale. But with what panache: one verse only, with Gilbert taking a seat on the “bleacher” (aka the podium) facing the brass, as if he were in the Big House, not the Big Hall. I call that style. And style was something the entire concert, the second of two New York Phil appearances this weekend under University Musical Society auspices, had very much going in its favor.