U-M Creative Currents

Leading UMS and Innovating Campus Arts with Matthew VanBesien

• Arts Initiative • Season 2 • Episode 2

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On this episode of U-M Creative Currents, a podcast from the University of Michigan's Arts Initiative, host Mark Clague, a professor of musicology and arts leadership at U-M, is joined by a special guest, Matthew VanBesien, president of the acclaimed University Musical Society (UMS). VanBesien offers his unique perspective from leading one of the nation's oldest university-based performing arts presenters.

Founded in 1879, the historic UMS brings world-class music, dance, and theater to the University of Michigan’s campus and surrounding community. Matthew shares insights into the mission and multifaceted role UMS plays, serving students across all disciplines - from music, theater and dance majors to those studying engineering, medicine, history and more.

The conversation delves into what first drew Matthew, with his distinguished global arts leadership career, to the university setting after leading renowned organizations like the New York Philharmonic. He discusses the compelling opportunities and nuances of arts programming and engagement on a college campus.

Matthew offers a window into the big ideas and innovative initiatives UMS is currently pursuing, highlighting key programs that could serve as models for peer institutions. The dialogue also touches on Matthew's own personal journey into arts leadership and his perspectives on why the arts are vital within a major research university.

Learn more about UMS.


Mark Clague:

What is the role of the arts on a university campus? Do the arts teach creativity or enhance the learning and research of students and faculty? Why have a university museum of art or a campus presenter of music, theater, and dance? We'll discuss these questions and more today on Creative Currents, a Michigan arts podcast. Welcome to Creative Currents, a Michigan Arts podcast. I'm your host, Mark Clegg, a professor of musicology and arts leadership at the University of Michigan. I'm honored to welcome Matthew Van Biesen to Creative Currents today. Matthew serves as president of the University Musical Society, or UMS, as it is known around campus. Founded in 1879 and thus quickly approaching its 150th birthday, UMS is the University of Michigan's campus presenter of the performing arts. Although the word music is prominent in the organization's historic name, the University Music It presents not only concerts but also dance and theater and other experimental multimedia work that defies traditional categorization. I'm honored to welcome Matthew Van Biesen to Creative Currents. Matthew serves as president of the University Musical Society, or UMS, as it is known around campus. Founded in 1879 and thus quickly approaching its 150th birthday, UMS is the University of Michigan's campus presenter of the performing arts. Although the word music is prominent in the organization's historic name, UMS does a lot more than music. It presents not only concerts, but also dance and theater and other experimental multimedia work that five traditional categories. Matthew, welcome to Creative Currents.

Matthew VanBesien:

Thank you, Mark. It's great to be with you.

Mark Clague:

So tell us a little bit more about the mission

Matthew VanBesien:

and role of the University Music Society at Michigan. Well, you've done a great job sort of setting us up already, and thank you for leaning into the fact that we have this historic name, the University Musical Society. But really, we think of our organization as transcending all three of those. Certainly, we're a university-based organization here at the University of Michigan and very proud to to be that and love the synergies that that creates. But we also really consider ourselves a cultural resource for Southeast Michigan. We have definitely transcended music. We've expanded the genres of music that we present. So in the first hundred years or so of UMS's existence, we presented Western classical music solely, and then it sort of branched out into jazz. And now we really explore a lot of different genres of music while we still have lots of Western classical music at the core of the series. And then the word society, we don't really love so much. So we don't talk a lot about society. That's

Mark Clague:

interesting in part for me because it was a group of community members, right? Faculty and community members. It was a society in the sense that people coming

Matthew VanBesien:

together to make something. It was. I think context is everything, right? So in 1879, it was really a group of music lovers here in Ann Arbor who came together as a society to want to celebrate music together, but to also perform. And so part of the origin story of UMS are early performances of our volunteer chorus, the UMS Choral Union. The most noteworthy, of course, is when they wanted to get together to perform Handel's Messiah, which at that time wasn't actually all that old. And every

Mark Clague:

great community in the United States would do this Messiah,

Matthew VanBesien:

right? Right, right. So I don't mean to completely dismiss the word society, but I think today the connotation around society has some different meanings that we really strive to be an organization that embraces the community, that engages a wide swath of the community and really is working to be as welcoming and as inclusive as possible. So that leads me to actually answer your question, which is sort of the mission of the organization is absolutely about enriching our community, inspiring the community. A big part of the mission is to really connect our audiences and our artists together. So that's really at the core of what we're trying to do. So sometimes that happens in performance settings on a famous stage. Sometimes that happens in a classroom. Sometimes that happens in the community center. But it's really about both presenting those iconic expected types of performances and experiences, but we also really love the uncommon at UMS. And I think that that's a word that we kind of hold dear at UMS. And uncommon can mean different things to different people. And we like to allow a lot of room for that.

Mark Clague:

Well, one of the things this podcast is focusing on in this mini series is the role of arts in higher education and the university environment. And you have had a distinguished career in arts management before coming to Michigan, working with orchestras across the globe, most recently at one of the world's premier ensembles, the New York Philharmonic. Yet you're here at Michigan. You decided that being as part of a university was where you wanted to be. So what was it about being on a university campus that was so compelling to you as a leader and as someone who's bringing arts to the community?

Matthew VanBesien:

Well, I really think it was Michigan that presented the opportunity that I really, not only could I not ignore it, but I was incredibly attracted to it. And of course I had the benefit of when I was working at the New York Philharmonic partnering closely with all of you here at Michigan. And so, you know, we were bringing the orchestra here roughly every other year and we weren't just bringing the orchestra here to have performances at the Wondrous Hill Auditorium. we were bringing the orchestra here to do workshops and masterclasses and side-by-side chamber music projects and lectures and exploration of the New York Philharmonic Archives. So I had a really great sense of this place and what it was about before I even decided to come here. So that helped enormously. I have to tell you that when I left the Philharmonic to come to the University of Michigan and UMS, there was a part of me that was giggling, though, because I barely and narrowly escaped with my undergrad degree at Indiana, I was so fixated on being a professional French horn player that I did, candidly, the absolute minimum amount in all of my studies to basically eek by, because I really thought I wanted to do one thing, and that was to play the French horn in an orchestra professionally for my career. So giggling may not be the right way to describe it, but there was a certain irony to it, because in some way, that's one of the richest things I've discovered here, which is it's great to be in the performing arts, but it's even more kind of amazing and wonderful and satisfying to do it when there's a direct link to education and to learning and to engaging people.

Mark Clague:

So that brings up the question about like Michigan students. How does UMS engage with Michigan students? How is it really part of the university? I mean, in some ways, it's a separate nonprofit organization, but in other ways, it's hand in glove with the university and the university's I

Matthew VanBesien:

mean, there's not an hour of any day that we are not thinking about how we impact people in general, but certainly students here. And I think, you know, I said a minute ago, this work is incredibly rewarding and stimulating, but, you know, there's these moments when you get a chance to really interact and impact students here at Michigan. Those are really, that's the magic of what we get to do. So, you know, we look to do that in a variety of ways. It's an moment right here with the Arts Initiative, with a leadership group at the University of Michigan and our president and provost and executive officers and all the deans that don't think about the arts as a nice to have, they think of it as something that's truly integral to a Michigan education and a Michigan experience. So what's exciting about that to me is that it's not just, I think historically an organization like ours would say, well, If we're able to get so many students into concert and performance halls each year, then tick, we've done our bit. We are constantly stretching ourselves to think about how can we impact students in their own studies, in their own aspirations and desires professionally and personally. And there's gotta be a lot of different touch points for students, right? Sometimes it will be going to that iconic performance of Yo-Yo Ma in Hill Auditorium, but sometimes it will be someone deciding on a, maybe on a whim to take our engaging performance course, which you, Mark, helped design along with others between UMS, LSNA, and SMTD. So there's going to be a lot of different ways that students have that experience, but I love our overall aspiration here, which is we want every student here at the University of Michigan to come through and to have had some kind of arts experience. Many students here have had arts throughout their entire life, which has made them, prepared them really to be great Michiganians. But for the others who haven't, how can we impact them at some point, actively, passively, directly, indirectly, whatever that is, I would love for them to finish their Michigan experience having had at least one moment where they brushed up against or had an arts experience that changed them in some way.

Mark Clague:

No, that's fantastic. And I can think of so many ways in which my students and my role as a faculty member is enhanced by the partnership with UMS. So if, for instance, if I want to put a UMS concert or program on my syllabus, then they have access to discounted tickets. We can coordinate all of that through the UMS offices. I've taught the engaging performances class, which is really about students, you know, an entire semester of connecting with performances of all sorts of varieties, but having access to the art is being able to get behind the scenes a little bit, really understand the messages that are coming through in the art. And I think that's one of the things I think about that's special to me about UMS is the way you bring some really critical, controversial, difficult topics to campus. And I can think about the No Safety Net program, which is a lot of theater works that are often about things like terrorism or race or gender and things that maybe we don't take the time to really get together to talk about. And then you're in this theatrical experience where you're dealing with, say, masculinity in the Middle East and what young men are sort of being confronted with as the expectations. With Javad, all of course, you know, theater works. We've had a couple of those on campus. So can you talk a little bit about that No Safety Net series and sort of what it means to be able to do something, you know, aggressively sort of focusing in on the hardest problems we face as a culture?

Matthew VanBesien:

Sure. I mean, it's an incredibly exciting part of what we do. And the No Safety Net is sort of the way in which we package it and deliver. But underpinning that is a real desire to present extraordinary artistry in a lot of different ways. And one of those ways is, of course, that artists move into spaces sometimes of controversial topics or discomfort or unease or tragedy. And we want to be, first and foremost, we want to be supportive to artists who are doing work in that space, whatever that looks like for them. It's their role as an artist to bring us all as audience members into that space. So we want to give them resources and the opportunity and the trust behind their work to bring them here. When they bring a piece that really leans in and sometimes in disruptive or even truly uncomfortable ways, what we want to do is, of course, present the work work and give the work the best chance for success, but we want to also prepare the audience in whatever way that we can to have that experience. And the words that ring in my ear are from our great colleague here at Michigan, Dr. Earl Lewis, who said to me once in very simple terms that the importance of the arts in those difficult spaces is that people come and learn, engage in very different ways. And what the arts can do in a is very different than learning in more traditional ways. And so it can bring people to the table. It can bring people who've not thought about a subject to a subject, I think, in a very special, important way. But it can also take people who have been very, very involved in a subject and get them to think about it in new ways. And I think whether it's seeing the multifaceted nature of issues or thinking about empathy and understanding of others' points of view, I mean, I think that's something that's needed now in society more than anything. And if the arts can play even that single role, then we will have done the world a service.

Mark Clague:

Now, that's so powerful and really resonates with me because, I mean, I think so much of our media now is coming through my phone and my computer screen, right? And I'm clicking on it. And I'm really encouraged to just keep clicking, right? To be cycling through things. And

Matthew VanBesien:

for the most part- It's designed to do that,

Mark Clague:

Mark. There's no accident. There's no accident. But what it leads to is you're sort of consuming the world in very brief bite-sized chunks. And if you're uncomfortable with anything, you're going to just go to something else, right? And you're being fed things through an algorithm and it's sort of reinforcing what you already think. And so the two things I think for me about going to a one of those no safety net performances is that you're brought into community with other people. So it's not just you in front of your computer screen or your phone. You're actually with others and you're hearing the collective gasp of the audience at something dramatic on the stage or you're talking to people afterwards and sort of processing it. Maybe you brought a member of your family or a friend and you're sort of engaged in that way. But the other thing is you're going to be there for an hour, an hour and a half, two hours and you're not just going to click on the next link if it makes you momentarily uncomfortable. You have to sort of sit with that discomfort and sort of become comfortable with discomfort. And so I really do think in a way, the arts are becoming more important rather than less because it's so rare now to have those moments where we're together and we're sitting with our discomfort.

Matthew VanBesien:

Absolutely. And we have to understand as arts organizations that we wield an incredible ability to actually bring people together. whether that's for something very traditional and non-confrontational or something that is more experimental and difficult, we have that incredible opportunity, but also a deep responsibility to bring people into space. So for me, it's one of actually the greatest takeaways coming out of the pandemic. And I think we could probably do a whole different episode about things that we've learned over the last three to three and a half years. It's not that audiences are fully back or that things are back to normal. I think what I came away with from the pandemic, and I think all of us at UMS did, was we understood actually how important it is for people consciously or subconsciously to actually be together in a space sharing the arts together. and to explore, there is no substitute for hearing it live, but also sharing it with other people in a live fashion. So whether, again, whether that's a more traditional type concert that is just about enjoying that moment or about something that's much more thought provoking, that ability, that opportunity to share it with others and then to experience it with others and to talk about that experience, that's an incredible thing that we have to understand. and each and every day that we do this work.

Mark Clague:

So can you think of an example of a show that particularly stands out as sort of hitting on a lot of these themes about bringing people together, about sort of making a contribution to the community around the university?

Matthew VanBesien:

Oh, I mean, I think there are a lot of different examples and a lot of different ways in which it happens. I mean, we were involved together in one quite recently with this new commission by Nkiru Okoye. When the Caged Bird Sings. musical forces with students at the university, both choral and orchestral, and then the exigence choir with Eugene Rogers. And Dr. Okoya was obviously here in person and part of that entire process. And so it's extraordinary to see a new work birthed in and of itself. There's always a lot of excitement, you know, and a few twists and turns along the way. And that makes that sort of experience that much more But I can't imagine experiencing that piece other than the way we just experienced it as community and you really felt that the piece was very much about storytelling and the sense of pain and struggle, but also coming coming out of that, that those challenges, and I think to have had that journey together as a group I mean I just almost can't imagine revisiting that piece. the piece other than with the association of having been there. But I think all of us who work in the performing arts are lucky because we get to do this regularly, right? I was thinking about when we did Wynton Marsalis's large scale oratorio, All Rise, a couple of seasons ago. And again, the sort of momentous sort of the work, the incredible work and dedication that is required to bring a work like that to the stage. But the sense of collaboration and the sense of experience together I think was amazing. So I think it happens in so, so many ways. And then like pivoting way away from that, I was just thinking about on our No Safety Net series, the piece that we did that featured the story of Reality Winner, the national security employee

Mark Clague:

who... Right, where the text is exactly the testimony.

Matthew VanBesien:

Where it's basically a recreation of her interrogation by the FBI who showed up at her door. She, of course, as she was then incarcerated and then... released not too long ago, and there's a film version of her story being made. But that was an amazing sort of moment. That was actually right before the pandemic in 2020. And to have a community get together and think about that story as it pertained to what was happening in the world and her moral and ethical dilemma as a person, and then also all the dynamics around the judicial system and law enforcement, it was, and then we were able to sort of dial in, you know, incredible luminaries like Barb McQuaid, who are here on our own campus to sort of talk to our audience about, you know, what that piece is and what that piece represents. Those, again, are wonderful things in isolation, but they become much, much richer when shared together.

Mark Clague:

Now, that was, I remember

Matthew VanBesien:

that. That's too many examples. Sorry. You're probably like, how about one example,

Mark Clague:

Matthew? Well, I remember the Reality Winner show in part because it really brought that whole question of, your perspective on an event and how that perspective affects the truth that you perceive, right? And what is justice in that sense? What is justice? Yeah. Raise some important issues that are still very pertinent to us today. Yeah. So what issues and ideas are you wrestling with right now at UMS?

Matthew VanBesien:

Wow. I mean, I think the list would probably be shorter of things that we're not sort of grappling with. And I think, I mean, there's, I'm not sure that that's inherent to this time. I think it's often in the arts, there's always a bit of a sense of an uphill battle battle or an uphill struggle. The reality is that I think we have to always be pushing ourselves to re-examine and, and frankly, even interrogate, you know, what we do, who, who we are and why we do it and, and to what, to what end. And then how do we go about doing that? How do we go, what do we, what do we want to be about as we, as we enter into that work? Again, whether it's very obvious sort of more traditional work that we do or pushing into new spaces and new ways to work, really being clear about the sort of values and principles we want to uphold as we go about that work. And then a big challenge for UMS, and I know you know this, Mark, is always about where we're going to do this work and what kind of physical infrastructure and platforms do we have to actually deliver art and artistry at the highest levels and in different ways that makes the art successful for the artists first and foremost, but also for the audiences. we're very, very fortunate to have a huge array of performance venues here at the University of Michigan. But we also, dare I say, have a few gaps. And so how do we think about that? How do we be a thought partner with the Arts Initiative, with the university, and for ourselves as an organization who has a set of goals and aspirations to be thinking about what kind of physical spaces do we need going forward for performances, but maybe even more importantly for students, faculty, members of the community to engage with artistry, to engage with artists, and to be in some way able to understand the creative process. Because I think that, we didn't talk about that earlier, but I think that that in some ways is the special sauce, the secret sauce, if you will, that a lot of deans and a lot of academic leaders are looking for, which is how do we weave creativity and the creative process into work, regardless of discipline? How do we get engineers to think more like artists? us? How do we become more human in our work, regardless of all the technological advancements?

Mark Clague:

Sorry

Matthew VanBesien:

to go off on that tangent just

Mark Clague:

now. No, we've talked about sort of the student impact with students having arts experiences, having that in the classroom. We've talked about, you know, the research contribution of commissioning new work and working with faculty like Ken Kiesler was commissioned, Dr. Okoye to do When the Caged Bird Sings. The other thing I think a lot of universities face today is that relationship to their community and, you know, a predominantly white institution like University of Michigan. One of the projects you're doing right now is the Ypsilanti Freight House project and And I really wonder if you could talk a little bit about that, because I think a lot of universities are in spaces with different, you know, we have a large Arab community in Dearborn. We have the Detroit community. We have the Ipsy community. I mean, there's a lot of diversity in the University of Michigan, but it's still a predominantly white institution. So it seems like there's a model there, too, of how to negotiate and engage. Can you talk a little bit about the Freight House Project?

Matthew VanBesien:

Yeah, sure. I mean, in some ways, you know, we were confronted by this question of where and how how do we operate geographically? And really from the moment I arrived here seven years ago, there was always this sort of gravitational pull to Detroit. And, you know, certainly there are lots of initiatives and things happening with the University of Michigan having a greater presence in Detroit. Detroit, of course, has a lot of extraordinary performing arts companies already. So we do things in collaboration with those. But as we looked at the landscape, thinking about Detroit, thinking about Dearborn, thinking about Flint, somebody very very wise said to me you know sometimes it's good not to leapfrog over to another community but to look in your immediate vicinity first and and see if there's an opportunity right in front of you that you might not be thinking about and in some ways that describes what we're doing in ipsy and at the freight house perfectly we were looking for a space like the freight house to try new things and work in different ways we had done some things in ypsilanti before but kind of in what I would call the traditional performing arts organizations with a smash and grab sort of situation where we did something and then we didn't come back for three years. So what could we do in a community like Ypsilanti that was consistent, that had regularity to it, where we could start to build relationships over a longer period of time, but then also work very differently from the very beginning? We curate a season, our regularity, the normal regular season of UMS in a very specific way. The Freight House is curated in an entirely different way in that it starts really with discussions with the community to say, this is your space. This is in your community. This is your home. It has a history, this building of doing lots of different things. What do you want it to mean for you? And what do you want it to host and do? And so it's really starting from a very community-centered centered place. And so we've programmed very differently at the Freight House because we've really listened to the community right out of the gate and said, what would you like to see happen? And Kyan Harris and our entire learning and engagement team have really run point on that project. And it's really wonderful to be around because it's obviously a lot smaller in scale than a lot of venues that we present on here on campus. But it has a really wonderful feel. And when we've been able to present artists who either live in Ypsilanti or have a Ypsilanti background, or we commissioned a new work by Marcus Elliott last year called Sonic Contributions, which actually told in sort of seven vignettes sort of stories of notable black Ypsilanti residents, all going all the way back to the Civil War era and the Underground Railroad. And it was incredibly powerful. And the people in Ypsilanti said, you know, I don't remember of time when somebody came in and told our story in this way. And I thought, that's when you know you're moving in the right direction.

Mark Clague:

Yeah, that's fantastic. And such a great example of the university listening and actually investing an extended period of time. So thank you for doing that. Well, to close, how might people get involved with UMS? I mean, students, faculty, staff? I mean, what are ways that people can really access the magic that you're bringing

Matthew VanBesien:

to campus? Sure, sure. Well, look, there's a lot of ways to get involved. And of course, we love people to attend. performances and public events that we're doing across the board. And you can find out about all of those in real time at our website at ums.org. So there's not always an opportunity to be part of our audience and part of our community, but there are volunteer opportunities through our UMS Ambassadors program. There are volunteer opportunities being an usher at performances. So all of our ushers are volunteers at our performances. We have a student committee that we're really working on right now to really enliven and grow and think about the types of projects that the student committee can really sink their teeth into going forward. So there's a real range of ways to be involved, to be supportive, yes, but really at the end of the day, we want us to have a chance to really make your life more interesting and better.

Mark Clague:

Is it true that every undergraduate gets a free ticket?

Matthew VanBesien:

It is true that every undergraduate gets a free ticket. It's called Burt's Tickets. It's a story that we really try to beat the drum about because it's a great opportunity for both freshmen and sophomores at the University of Michigan who can come to a UMS performance and get a free ticket. So you can find out about Burt's Tickets on our website. But also for student tickets, really everything that we offer has a student ticket price, and that's $12 or $20. And so that's true of whether it's a string quartet or Wynton Marsalis or the Berlin Philharmonic, there are always $12 and $20 tickets. And so we don't ever want price to be a barrier for students here. That's

Mark Clague:

great. Well, fantastic conversation. So nice to have you as a guest on Creative Currents. Thanks for being with us. My pleasure. Creative Currents is a project of the University of Michigan Arts Initiative. Please subscribe to hear more great conversations with artists, scholars, and arts leaders from across the campus and across the globe. Send your comments and suggestions via email to creativecurrents at umich.edu. This episode of Creative Currents was produced by Mark Clegg and Jessica Jenks, and our audio engineer is Audrey Banks. Our original theme music is composed and performed by Ansel Neely, a student at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater, and Dance. To learn more about the University of Michigan's Arts Initiative, please visit our website at arts.umich.edu. Thanks for listening.