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All comments by Ken Fischer, UMS

People Are Talking: UMS presents Mariinsky Orchestra at Hill Auditorium:

What a beautiful reflection, David, As Michael K notes, sitting in the audience and hearing music from our past brings up deeply personal memories for many. as it did for you. As my wife Penny and I sat listening to the Tchaikovsky piano concerto #1, our minds and hearts went back to the summer we met at Interlochen (1961) when we had the privilege of accompanying Van Cliburn as members of the National H.S. Orchestra when Cliburn performed on the Kresge
Auditorium stage the same concerto we heard Sunday — the one that brought him the Tchaikovsky Competition first place prize in 1958 and the NYC tickertape parade that followed.

In response to:
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Ken and Michael,

Just a short note of thanks to you both for this wonderful weekend of Russian classical music. It had special meaning for me, especially during yesterday afternoon’s program. I have heard “Pictures” many times, but yesterday it triggered one of those flash backs that I suppose is associated with being 72 years old and beginning to savor reflections about what has been so valuable in my life so far. So the flash back was to the very first classical music I heard, as a 7 or 8-year-old kid. It was an early 1950s Radio Moscow broadcast, over short wave radio band, on a war surplus radio my father purchased–something like he’d monitored as communications officer on a Merchant Marine ship plying the Atlantic for most of my first 7 years. We’d set the radio up (to receive only) in my bedroom where we’d taped a National Geographic map of the world on the wall. I pasted gold stars on places where I picked up transmissions (other than in the US), and the first gold star was atop Moscow. Wearing my father’s naval earphones, each night after homework I listened to Russian classical music, probably beamed toward North America as part of the Cold War just as Radio Free Europe did in return, with fascination. It was not to my father’s taste so we had no classical recordings and my grade school had no musical education in the first grades. And so yesterday I remembered that late each night, before the triumphant sounds of Tchaikovsky or the forceful romanticism of Moussorgsky went sent silent, I listened in awe to the muscular voices of the Chorus of the Soviet Red Army and finally to their rendering of the Russian national anthem. Turns out that Radio Canada (stars on Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal) also broadcast classical music–French, German, English and US composers–probably not by chance on a band close to Radio Moscow’s I think. So I learned the words to O Canada; never did master the Russian, but it was the language of Russian music that first stirred what was to become a lifelong musical passion.

Thanks again. David
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by David L Featherman

People Are Talking: UMS presents Quatuor Ebène at Rackham Auditorium:

For me, Sunday’s UMS concert by the Quatour Ebène will go down as one of the most exquisite and memorable in the 52-year history of the UMS Chamber Arts Series and in my 27 years of attending these Rackham concerts. The appreciative Ann Arbor audience lept to its feet at the conclusion of Mendelssohn’s Quartet in a minor, Op. 13 as the first half closed, sharing its collective awe in the superb quality of the quartet’s performance of the work. If you were there, you know how special that piece was as well as the opening Mozart and the improvised jazz and crossover pieces announced from the stage in the second half. If you missed the concert, learn more about this unique string quartet from France at http://ums.org/performance/quatuor-ebene/. That the concert was made possible by the Candis J. and Helmut F. Stern Endowment Fund, whose gift to UMS was announced on stage at the beginning of the concert, makes the event even that much more special. The Stern endowment will fund a UMS Chamber Arts Series concert each season going forward. Thank you, Candis and Helmut.

Our Favorite Moments from the Season:

The Mariinsky Orchestra with Valery Gergiev on the podium and Denis Matsuev at the piano was destined to be great — the orchestra was making its 10th appearance on the UMS series on 10-10-10 — and it was! Matsuev's Rachmaninoff 3 was a tour de force, and the Mahler 5 was exquisite. It's what happened after the concert that made this day extra special for me. After a post-concert reception in Hill's Mezzanine lobby, Gergiev asked to go to the balcony. As Gergiev stood at the very top of the balcony, Hill Auditorium house technician dropped his wife's hairpin on the Hill stage, and Gergiev not only heard the pin drop, but heard the bounce as well. He was amazed! Two weeks later, as I sat next to Gergiev at the Backstage Restaurant at a post-concert dinner in St. Petersburg Russia, I was witness to Gergiev's retelling the Hill Auditorium 'pin drop' story with great enthusiasm to the assembled guests, including the Minister of Culture from Kazakhstan.

People Are Talking: Paul Taylor Dance Company:

Dear Simapa, Thank you for your comment. I will be contacting you directly about the concern you expressed. Ken Fischer, UMS President

In response to:
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We showed the Paul Taylor performace on Saturday 1pm. The performance was good but the second half was not appropriate for young kids. We avoid TV to avoid violence but the second half of the performance was plenty of violence. It should be chosen better a kid's performance,
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by simapa

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