University of Michigan’s UMS announces 2025-26 season
Rhiannon Giddens, an acclaimed folk musician who recently collaborated with Beyoncé and was named the inaugural U-M artist-in-residence, is among the 50+ artists slated to perform
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The University Musical Society (UMS) at the University of Michigan has announced its 147th season, featuring more than 50 eclectic performances across 2025 and 2026.
Those include Rhiannon Giddens, an accomplished folk musician and composer from North Carolina who was appointed as U-M’s inaugural artist-in-residence earlier this year.
The artist has earned numerous accolades including a Grammy, the Pulitzer Prize, and a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. She also recently collaborated with Beyoncé, contributing her banjo playing to “Texas Hold ‘Em” from last year’s acclaimed Cowboy Carter.
In her work Giddens has sought to highlight the often-overlooked contributions of Black Americans to the country’s musical history, the focus of her U-M residency. Giddens’s research is set to be compiled into a book, When the World’s on Fire: How a Powerless Underclass Made the Powerful Music that Made America.
“I would love to take readers on a trip through American music, guiding them through the discoveries that I have made that bring so many interesting layers to the American story,” Giddens told U-M. “And ultimately what these stories lead to, is that when you start peeling back the wrapper — despite what the people in charge or the people in power want to tell us — is that we are not actually separate. We are always coming together.”
Giddens is set to perform as part of the UMS season on Tuesday, April 21, 2026 at Ann Arbor’s Hill Auditorium.
Tickets are available from ums.org with season tickets available starting on Thursday, May 1, and tickets to individual events available on Tuesday, July 29.
The UMS 2025-26 season kicks off on Friday, Sept. 26, 2025 with Verdi’s Requiem performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and UMS Choral Union. Events run through April 22, 2026.
