After a year-long pause due to Covid-19 precautions, the 21 students in this year’s “Children in Peril” class undertook a semester-long project collaborating with School of Music, Theatre & Dance graduate music composition students, Alfredo Cabrera and Nicholas Felder.

“I did a lot of guest consulting at a lot of suburban schools. And I noticed that when I crossed Eight Mile, I didn’t see kids with instrument cases walking down the street. At that time, most of the schools in Detroit did not have music programs. So I decided to start Crescendo to make sure students had the opportunity to be in music.”

~ Damien Crutcher

“…bringing “American Rhapsody” home both geographically and artistically is something that I’m really looking forward to. And I think that the Detroit audience is really going to enjoy the piece because so many of the issues are very germane to Detroit and to our community,”
~ Aaron Dworkin

The U-M Detroit Center’s theme this year was Standards with a Twist. With a house band, the Sean Dobbins Trio, many different artists from the School of Music, Theater and Dance, as well as local talent came together with their own twists on traditional holiday classics.

 “We take great care in our curation and love creating a platform for objects that goes against the grain of mass production. Detroit is a special place right now in that there are many small businesses with distinct visions, and it is so important to shop from locally owned stores.”

~ Erin Wetzel

Daring Dances, a curatorial program created by Clare Croft, an associate professor of dance and American culture at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, announces its first public events: three upcoming performances in Detroit and Ann Arbor.

A new School of Music, Theater & Dance (SMTD) community partnership with Crescendo Detroit was launched this winter, giving select SMTD students the opportunity to teach music and dance to Detroit schoolchildren.