Tag Archives: Music
Mountain Heart shows love for The Ark with first of club’s 50th anniversary shows
By ROGER LeLIEVRE Clearly The Ark is getting a great start on its 50th anniversary season. Both nights of the Ann Arbor Folk Festival / Ark fundraiser sold out the last weekend of January, and now iconic bluegrass ensemble Mountain … Continue reading
Turin’s “William Tell” hits the mark in Chicago
SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT (Ann Arbor, Dec. 9, 2014) It’s possible that I’d fall in love with any opera performance that included complimentary tiramisu, cannoli and coffee at the first intermission; crisp apples and more coffee at the second. But Rossini’s … Continue reading
San Francisco Symphony, Night Two: Invitation to the Dance
SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT (Ann Arbor, Nov. 16, 2014) Is it all about the dancing? In a way, it was, for better and worse, at the San Francisco Symphony’s second concert of two at Hill Auditorium this week, under University Musical … Continue reading
Anton Nel: An old friend returns for A2SO’s ‘Tchaikovsky & Friends’
Susan Isaacs Nisbett (Ann Arbor, Nov. 13, 2014) When your concerto soloist is marooned by a massive snowstorm and stuck 500 miles from the concert hall, who you gonna call? For the Cleveland Orchestra, one winter back in the mid-‘90s, … Continue reading
If it’s Saturday, it must be the USA: A2SO concert highlights what’s homegrown
Susan Isaacs Nisbett (Ann Arbor, Oct. 12, 2014) I’m reminded, as I write this review, of the scary name-that-tune tests we had to take in college music history: As the stylus descended on a mystery LP (yup, that’s what we … Continue reading
Who could ask for anything more? George Gershwin’s last piano makes U-M debut
Susan Isaacs Nisbett (Ann Arbor, Oct.9, 2014) S’wonderful. Marvelous, too. The last Steinway grand piano owned by famed American composer George Gershwin – the one on which he most likely composed “Porgy and Bess” – has a new life. Donated … Continue reading
UMS Scores Big with Emerson String Quartet
Susan Isaacs Nisbett (Ann Arbor, Sept. 29, 2014) On a day when the U-M team fumbled the ball yet again in the Big House, sending fans fleeing well before the fourth quarter, an evening’s entertainment that began with a quartet … Continue reading
Emerson String Quartet arrives in Ann Arbor with new player, new work
Susan Isaacs Nisbett Ann Arbor, Mich. (Sept. 27, 2014) The Emerson String Quartet is one of the world’s best-known quartets. But in Ann Arbor, their visits are so frequent – no fewer than 15 appearances under University Musical Society auspices … Continue reading
What’s in a name? When violinist Itzhak Perlman plays Ann Arbor’s Hill Auditorium, plenty
Susan Isaacs Nisbett Ann Arbor, Mich. (Sept. 12, 2014) You can pretty much count on the fingers of one hand the classical musicians who can fill a hall without announcing what the heck they’ll play when they finally show up … Continue reading
An Emperor’s Feast: All-Beethoven, with Andre Watts, at the A2SO this weekend
Susan Isaacs Nisbett Ann Arbor, Mich. (Sept. 9, 2014) By his own admission, Arie Lipsky, music director of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, likes to change things up. “I like contrasts,” he said in a recent phone call. That … Continue reading
The Downbeat 