Features:

Lansing Symphony Orchestra: ‘A couple of cherries on top’

The Lansing Symphony will roll out “The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci,” composer Jocelyn Hagen’s multimedia project complete with a full chorus, orchestra and projected images, at its season opener on Oct. 4. The work has been performed in dozens of venues around the world since its premiere in 2019.
Mozart, Haydn and Bach will have to hang up their wigs and chill out. The only way to give a proper sendoff to the Lansing Symphony Orchestra’s maestro of 20 years, Timothy Muffitt, is to kick things up to cosmic scale.

MFA Exhibition explores homelands, identity and the natural environment

From left: Exhibiting artists Claire Heiney, Morgan Hill and Megan Weaver at the opening of the 2025 Master of Fine Arts Exhibition at the MSU Broad Art Museum.
Morgan Hill, a native of Baltimore County, Maryland, was attracted to Michigan State University partially because of the interdisciplinary nature of its master of fine arts program.

A break from the arts tumult

Baroque group Les Arts Florissants, featuring dynamic young French violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte, will make a rare Midwest appearance at the Wharton Center on Nov. 14 to perform music by Vivaldi, including “The Four Seasons.”
Some people will do anything to get you off the couch and out of the house. They might even offer you the world.

Curtis Chin to address the crowd at annual Night for Notables

Writer and director Curtis Chin, whose memoir, “Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant,” was a Michigan Notable Book in 2024, will be the keynote speaker at the 2025 Night for Notables celebration Saturday evening (April 26).
This weekend is the Library of Michigan’s annual Night for Notables celebration, honoring the 20 Michigan Notable Books on this year’s list and the authors behind them.
These arches will be part of a garden memorializing old Eastern High School. They were removed to be reconstructed elsewhere, a University of Michigan Health-Sparrow spokesperson said today.
For weeks after the demolition of old Eastern High School, three stone arches from the Jon Young auditorium were left standing. Now, they are gone — but they’ll be coming back.
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Two Michigan State University artists decided to “light the night” on the MSU campus with their unique immersive art installation by attaching two 4-foot-long LED tubes to each of 43 trees at the northeast corner of Trowbridge and Harrison roads.
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Meghan Martin, executive director of the Arts Council of Greater Lansing, shows off the council’s new digs at MSU Federal Credit Union’s Coworkerie in downtown East Lansing.
Like the fabled realm of Asgard in Marvel’s “Thor” franchise, the Arts Council of Greater Lansing is about people, not a place.
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When spring showers keep us inside, there’s no reason we can’t still have some adventure in our lives. Here are several crime and thriller books to keep you engaged on rainy days.
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Our 2023 Arts and Culture Issue:
Shelby Parker as Yeon-Ahm in the MSU Department of Theatre’s production of “Inching Towards Yeolha.”
MSU’s ‘Inching Towards Yeolha’ is cohesive, compelling and thoughtful
“Inching Towards Yeolha,” written by Sam-Shik Pai and translated into English by Walter Byongsok Chon, is a sprawling Korean epic that takes on absurdist situations and existentialist themes of free will versus fate, the meaning and value of life and love, and evolving and changing roles within personal relationships.
From left: Andrew Metzger as Amos Hart, Christopher Cline as Sergeant Fogarty and Ellie Roddy as Roxie Hart in the national tour of "Chicago," running at the Wharton Center through Sunday (April 13).
'Chicago’ is a fast-paced, fun, jazzy break from real life
Whether you’ve never seen it before or you know all the words to all the songs in this beloved musical, you owe it to yourself to catch “Chicago” at the Wharton Center while you still can.
The Super Secret Cult Band is just one of many performers and attractions set for the Ten Pound Fiddle’s 50th anniversary event on Saturday (April 12).
Super Secret Cult Band performs at the Fiddle’s 50th
Back in May 2013, Dylan Rogers and his former band of buskers, the Lansing Unionized Vaudeville Spectacle, closed out the 50th annual East Lansing Art Festival.   This weekend, Rogers’ …
The MSU Museum’s “Techno: The Rise of Detroit’s Machine Music” exhibit, on display through July 12 at the MSUFCU building in downtown East Lansing, features four video screens programmed to respond to a 45-minute sound installation composed by the pioneering Detroit techno collective Underground Resistance. Glass cases display the machines that birthed the sound.
Detroit’s machine music comes alive in East Lansing
Hidden within the Michigan State University Federal Credit Union building in downtown East Lansing is a living, pulsating time capsule of Detroit techno music.

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