{"id":349428,"date":"2026-09-17T17:35:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T17:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/349428\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T17:35:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T17:35:05","slug":"ann-arbor-symphonys-season-concerts-in-ypsilanti-michigan-premiere-of-african-queens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/349428\/","title":{"rendered":"Ann Arbor Symphony\u2019s Season: Concerts in Ypsilanti, Michigan Premiere of \u201cAfrican Queens\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Friday\u2019s (9\/11) <a href=\"https:\/\/concentratemedia.com\/the-ann-arbor-symphony-orchestra-brings-its-concert-series-to-ypsi-for-the-first-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Concentrate\u00a0<\/a>(Washtenaw County, MI), Natalia Holtzman writes, \u201cIt\u2019s a season of firsts for the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra (A2SO). The A2SO will present\u00a0its first [jointly] commissioned piece,\u00a0\u2018African Queens,\u2019 composed by a consortium of Black composers; music from the internationally acclaimed Studio Ghibli films is expected to be another season highlight; and, for the first time in its history, the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra (A2SO) has expanded its concert series to include two performances in Ypsilanti for the 2026-27 season\u2026. Many A2SO musicians are on the faculty at Eastern Michigan University, where the orchestra also frequently rehearses. That makes the performances a way of \u2018going a little deeper into a community where we already have some long-standing roots,\u2019 says [A2SO Executive Director Sarah] Calderini. Those extend from ongoing programs with Ypsilanti Community Schools to a partnership with the University of Michigan Credit Union to collect and redistribute used musical instruments\u2026. The orchestra\u2019s first commissioned piece, \u2018African Queens,\u2019 was composed by a consortium of Black composers collectively called the Blacknificent 7 \u2026 Featuring soprano Karen Slack, the piece will be performed on Friday, Feb. 19, 2027, at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor.\u201d\u00a0\u201cAfrican Queens\u201d was composed by Jasmine Barnes, Damien Geter, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Dave Ragland, Carlos Simon, and Joel Thompson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Friday\u2019s (9\/11) Concentrate\u00a0(Washtenaw County, MI), Natalia Holtzman writes, \u201cIt\u2019s a season of firsts for the Ann Arbor&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[90350,1882,37610,9,24,63,122,124,123,24524,5416],"class_list":["post-349428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-audiences","tag-community","tag-composers","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-repertoire","tag-venues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}