First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor / Northside Community Church / First Presbyterian Church of Ypsilanti · Ann Arbor, MI · 3 performances

May 2027

Sat17:30 PM

Seascapes (Season Finale)

Fung: AQUA · Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15 · Machover: FLOW Symphony · Debussy: La Mer, L.109

Earl Lee, conductor · Eric Lu, Piano

Hill Auditorium · Ann Arbor, MI

About the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra

The Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra is a professional regional orchestra serving Ann Arbor, Michigan, with its main classical concerts held at Hill Auditorium on the University of Michigan campus, a large hall known for its warm acoustics. The orchestra also performs chamber music in smaller venues around Washtenaw County, including local churches and community halls, and offers film-with-orchestra screenings, a holiday concert, and a pops program each season. A first-timer can expect a full-scale symphonic experience at a fraction of the cost of a major-city orchestra, with a mix of standard repertoire and newer works, plus more intimate chamber concerts that let listeners hear the players up close.

History

The orchestra traces its beginnings to 1928, when local musicians in Ann Arbor formed an ensemble to give the city an orchestra of its own, separate from the concerts the University of Michigan brought to town. For much of its early life it was a community group of amateurs and teachers rehearsing in the evenings. Over the second half of the twentieth century it steadily professionalized, hiring its players by audition and paying them, and adopting the name Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra.

Hill Auditorium, opened in 1913 and designed with a sloping fan shape that carries sound cleanly to the back rows, became the home for the orchestra's largest programs, and it remains so. Smaller and chamber sized concerts have been given in churches, school auditoriums, and the Michigan Theater, the restored 1928 movie palace on Liberty Street.

Arie Lipsky, a cellist and conductor, led the orchestra as music director for roughly two decades beginning in the late 1990s and was a defining figure in its growth, expanding the subscription season and the orchestra's education work in area schools. In 2020 Earl Lee, a Korean Canadian conductor who has also held posts with the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Toronto Symphony, was appointed music director.

Today the orchestra employs professional musicians drawn largely from southeast Michigan, presents a full season of classical, pops, holiday, film, and chamber concerts, and runs education programs that include free or low cost concerts for schoolchildren and a youth concerto competition. It performs for a college town audience in a hall that seats several thousand, and it collaborates regularly with University of Michigan musicians.

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At a glance

Home: Ann Arbor, Michigan
Hall: Hill Auditorium +5 more
Founded: 1928
Type: Regional orchestra
Website: a2so.com

On the podium

Earl Lee 5 concerts
Wilbur Lin 1 concert
Robert Boardman 1 concert
Jacob Joyce 1 concert
Dane Lam 1 concert

Where they play

Also within 120 miles

For the orchestra

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