Most of us students know UMMA for the relaxing coffee lounge facing the diag or the large art display room facing the Union. More perceptive students realize that UMMA houses some amazing art pieces and galleries. Still, even more perceptive students know that UMMA hosts a variety of talks and events, all of them listed online, and you should go check it out!! Now to the actual review–
When I arrived at 1pm I was disappointed at first to see no one in the audience listening to Adam and Kenji performing a duet of music except a lone student photographer. However, it also meant I got the best seat in the house sitting on the bench next to them. I then realized that there were no actual seats laid out for the musical performance, the bench I was sitting on is in the museum permanently. It was then that I realized that listeners were intended to stroll around the art exhibits while listening to the music. The acoustics were fantastic and the music could clearly be heard from any of the art rooms on the first or second floor. I enjoyed having two perspectives to listen to the music. One perspective where I was very engaged sitting next to the music watching Adam’s fingers fly around the fretboard of his guitar, and the other more passive perspective hearing the music in the back of my head as I focused on artwork.
I don’t know the names of any of the songs Adam and Kenji performed, but I know that it was all jazz music. It was an unusual instrument pairing, a tenor saxophone and a guitar, but this allowed for a unique sound. I expected that the guitar would play the rhythm and support the saxophone who would solo over the guitar, but to my happy surprise, they took turns being the lead and background. I personally enjoyed Adam’s rhythm playing, I think low toned notes sounded really good on his guitar.
UMMA does Pop-Ups every weekend, usually around 1pm on Saturday and Sunday, and as long as a football game isn’t going on you should really check it out. If you do, you might see me there because I certainly plan on checking out some more Pop-Ups
