Podcast: “Listen in, Michigan”

  1. Episode 43: Art’s tangible effect, featuring Wendell Pierce

    You may know him as Bunk from ‘The Wire’ or Antoine from ‘Treme,’ but University Musical Society audiences know him as a ‘digital residency artist.’ Actor Wendell Pierce stars in the stage play ‘Some Old Black Man,’ produced and filmed under quarantine in Detroit. Listen in, as he describes making live art under incredibly weird circumstances.

  2. Episode 42: The Interior Life of Albert Kahn, featuring Claire Zimmerman

    Experts tend to dismiss the architect behind U-M’s most iconic buildings as ‘generic’ or ‘mediocre.’ They miss the point, says Claire Zimmerman, University of Michigan historian of art and architecture. To Albert Kahn, space was not a material to be sculpted but something to be occupied. Listen in, as she recounts Kahn’s impact on campus.

  3. Episode 41: The conquering heroines of Title IX, featuring Sara Fitzgerald, BA ’73

    Sara Fitzgerald was the first female editor-in-chief at the ‘Michigan Daily’ covering a pivotal time in the women’s movement. Listen in, as we talk about her new book, which celebrates the activists who fought sex bias at the University of Michigan and paved the way for breakthrough legislation.

  4. Episode 40: Ann Arbor’s ‘Music Man,’ featuring Ken Fischer, MA ’70/HDFA ’19

    Since taking the helm at the University Musical Society at U-M in 1987, this gregarious French horn player has hosted everyone from the Royal Shakespeare Company and Cecilia Bartoli to Leonard Bernstein and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Listen in, as Fischer chronicles his 30-year run at UMS in the book ‘Everybody In, Nobody Out.’

  5. Episode 39: Going /aut/ with Keith Orr and Martin Contreras

    From the day /aut/BAR opened in 1995, its owners have served up far more than cocktails. Ann Arbor’s first gay-owned gay bar and its surrounding Braun Court quickly became a safe haven for the LGBTQ community. Now retired, Orr and Contreras reflect on the club’s legacy in this episode of Listen in, Michigan.

  6. Episode 38: Coffee, COVID, and a course correction, featuring Lisa Bee, BA ’90

    In the days before coronavirus canceled everything, we talked to Lisa Bee, BA ’90, co-founder of Ann Arbor-based Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea. Her favorite part of the gig? Socializing. We checked back in, post-shutdown. Things certainly have changed.

  7. Episode 36: The editor and the giants, featuring Jim Tobin

    In this episode, we visit the University of Michigan’s Bentley Library archives. ‘Michigan Today’ historian Jim Tobin reads letters, telegrams, and handwritten notes between ‘Esquire’ magazine founder Arnold Gingrich, BA ’25, and two of his quirkiest contributors: Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. If you love language, you must listen in. Utterly exquisite.

  8. Episode 35: It’s a woman’s world, featuring Coach Kim Barnes Arico

    Women’s basketball recently lost two of its most passionate boosters in LA Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna. Listen in, as U-M’s head coach ‘KBA’ celebrates ‘girl dads’ and reveals how she motivates her players not to be ‘the best girl,’ but the best, period.

  9. Episode 34: This is how you ‘capture space’

    The Michigan Union reopened Jan. 13, 2020, after 18 months of renovation and restoration. Upgrades speak to the 21st-century student while honoring the building’s architectural and historic integrity. Listen in, as we take a tour, chat up the workers, and learn about the special details that make the place so awesome.