The University Musical Society: A Legacy of Performing Arts

The University Musical Society (UMS) stands as a prominent not-for-profit performing arts presenter, deeply rooted in the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Established in December 1880, UMS has a rich history of bringing world-class performances and educational experiences to the community. This year marks UMS' 144th season.

Origins and Founding

UMS was founded locally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, by local townspeople, university faculty, staff, and students. Their first performance was Handel's Messiah in December 1879. Led by Professor Henry Simmons Frieze and conducted by Professor Calvin Cady, the group initially called themselves The Choral Union. Many members of the newly founded Choral Union were also affiliated with the university. This close connection led to the formal establishment of the University Musical Society in December 1880. UMS included both the University Orchestra and Choral Union.

Growth and Evolution

Since its inception, UMS has grown and evolved, expanding its programming to include a diverse range of performing arts. UMS has continued to grow and bring in performing artists, including internationally renowned orchestras, dance and chamber ensembles, jazz, Opera, and Theatre. It presents approximately 75 performances and more than 100 educational events each season.

Venues

UMS presents performances in different venues located in Ann Arbor, each particularly suited to the events that occur there.

Leadership

UMS has been guided by a series of dedicated leaders throughout its history:

Charles A. Sink: Served as president for over half of the 20th century. In 1927, he was named president of UMS, succeeding Francis Kelsey. He was known as the Dean of Concert Managers. He developed the UMS Choral Union Series and May Festivals as models of artistic achievement and quality.
Gail Rector: Became the Executive Director of UMS in 1957 and served with distinction for nearly four decades.
Ken Fischer: Served as UMS president from 1987 to 2017, overseeing artistic growth, diversification into art forms outside of classical music, expansion into education programs, and financial initiatives.
Matthew VanBesien: Has served as president of UMS since 2017.

Key Milestones

1879: The Choral Union performs Handel's Messiah for the first time.
1880: The University Musical Society is formally established.
1940: UMS transferred the School of Music to the U-M in order to focus exclusively on presenting an annual series of concerts and the May Festival. Under Sink’s guidance, this separation also marked UMS’s new independence but continued close affiliation to the University.
Recent: UMS has teamed up with the Ann Arbor District Library to digitize the UMS archive in all of its many forms: programs, photos, publications, and more.

Educational and Community Engagement

UMS is committed to education and community engagement. With a program steeped in music, dance, and theater, UMS contributes to a vibrant cultural community by presenting approximately 60-75 performances and over 100 free educational activities each season. Every season, UMS offers a spectrum of Education and Community Engagement activities focusing on K-12 students, teachers, teens, university students, families, adults, and cultural and ethnic communities. Learning is core to UMS’s mission, and it is our joy to provide creative learning experiences for our entire community.

Artistic Vision and Impact

UMS believes in the power of world-class performing arts to inspire, transform, and connect individuals with transcendent experiences. Through educational endeavors, commissioning of new works, youth programs, artist residencies and other collaborative projects, UMS has maintained its reputation for quality, artistic distinction and innovation.

UMS Archives

The University Musical Society and AADL have partnered to create an online home for the UMS archives. Exciting news! After dreaming for years of digitizing the UMS archive, this massive project is finally underway! UMS has teamed up with the Ann Arbor District Library to digitize the UMS archive in all of its many forms: programs, photos, publications, and more. Please stay tuned as we continue to build and tweak a fully-searchable database for you to explore. Even more exciting are the innovative features we plan to include to create a “living” archive: the opportunity to submit your own comments, memories, and observations about events that you attended, whether that event was 50 years ago or yesterday! Join Ann Arbor District Library staff and Ken Fischer, President of UMS, as we launch two new online collections celebrating UMS’s concert history. We’ll show you how to browse and search thousands of pages of historical concert programs from UMS’s first 100 seasons; we’ll also unveil a growing collection of images that include both performance and rare backstage photographs of celebrated UMS artists over the past eight decades.

The records are open for research use with the exception of recent executive officers files.

Acknowledgment of Indigenous Lands

UMS acknowledges that our home at the University of Michigan, named for Michigami, the world’s largest freshwater system and located in the Huron River watershed, has its origins in a land grant from the Anishinaabeg (including Odawa, Ojibwe, and Bodéwadmi). We further acknowledge that our university stands, like almost all property in the United States, on lands obtained, generally in unconscionable ways, from indigenous peoples.

Read also: History of the Block 'M'

Read also: Legacy of Fordham University

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