The Year in ARTS & CULTURE

“The hardest thing is to live richly in the present without letting it be tainted out of fear for the future or regret for the past” -  Theodore Roethke

As we close out another arguably uncertain, chaotic, tumultuous yet equally encouraging and positive year for artists and cultural organizations populating the Great Lakes Bay Region, many impressive highlights served as strong indicators of how the Arts continues to serve as beacons for creativity and solidifying the visionary strength of our cultural fabric and identity.

The Great Lakes Bay Region has long been blessed with many artistic and cultural entities that inspire and showcase the spark of illumination embedded within the artist’s eye, refocusing our sensibilities while fostering growth and vision into the future of our communities.

January kicked the year off in a big way with Midland Center for the Arts hosting the exclusive Midwest engagement of Space Explorers: The INFINITE - an immersive and all-encompassing transformative adventure utilizing state-of-the-art technology that literally allowed visitors to roam freely inside the International Space Station (ISS).  Conceived in partnership with NASA, this immersive experience allowed visitors to spend 60-minutes exploring the astronauts' living quarters and daily work routines and admiring the breathtaking sights of Earth that only a few have ever seen before – all without ever leaving the ground in an all-encompassing 360-degree Virtual Reality three-dimensional experience.

The  largest production ever filmed in space and shot over a period of three years to document the life and work of the astronauts living in orbit, the project also included recording the world’s first spacewalk with VR cameras, drawing thousands of visitors from across the country to our region through April.

As we embarked upon the early days of January, 2025 the year also started with an innovative partnership between  The Boys & Girls Clubs of the Great Lakes Bay Region and Team One Credit Union developing a uniquely designed teen podcasting program titled Story Builders, with five regional Boys & Girls Clubs producing their own podcasts, giving teen an opportunity to interview state representatives, local government leaders, school board trustees, and significant regional movers and shakers. The program has been a runaway success at helping elevate the skills and voices of our youth.

Next, the month of February kicked off with the 8^th Annual Band Roulette ‘Ladies Night’ at Bay City’s historic State Theatre  Conceived by Bay City musician Jeff Poirier as a fundraiser the admirable goals of the DStreet Music Foundation, which to date has raised over $25,000, this year the line-up consisted of the Tri-City’s top female musicians consisting of Jen Cass, Amber Yocom, Noel Howland, Lora Dale, and rising star Alex McMath to name but a few.

As they prepared to embark upon their 90^th performance season in 2025-26, the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra continued to develop an impressive reputation for showcasing world-class, locally inspired, and creatively constructed concert presentations designed to transcend generational boundaries with a February performance of three imaginative works by composers Hector Berlioz, Richard Wagner, and Alberto Ginastera, giving audiences a taste of Wagner’s expansive operatic creations that would often run for 7-hours, along with world-renowned harpist Jaymee Haefner that showcased the rhythmic intensity and lyrical beauty of the harp in way rarely heard, concluding with the spellbinding masterpiece Symphonie Fantastique, an opium Inspired love obsessed odyssey of musical brilliance.

The month of March witnessed the 20^th anniversary the Rotary Club of Saginaw’s premier cultural and fundraising event known as the Saginaw On Stage Music Festival, which assembles a broad  showcase of local and regional talent to benefit more than 30 non-profit organizations and social programs and to date has raised a total of $300,000 reinvested into the Saginaw community, with this year’s proceeds dedicated to improvements at Saginaw’s Crayola Park on the riverfront.

In April the Detroit Tigers decided they wanted to upgrade Comerica Park, which first  opened in 2000, with a nearly $30 million investment into the park for a better fan experience. The improvements included a massive new videoboard – the second largest in Major League Baseball behind the New York Mets – new TVs throughout the concourse and audio improvements.

The month of May brought the warm air of spring excitement to the stage when  Pit & Balcony Community Theatre explored the awkward and emotionally tumultuous world of High School angst  with the regional premier of CARRIE: the Musical. Featuring a remarkably strong cast of local actors, this regional premier featured an ambitious musical store and additional narrative elements not seen in the film, which added deeper context to the characters, and brought a level of professionalism and emotive power to the stage rarely witnessed with regional theatre.

On Sunday, May 4th history was once again made when the 39th Annual REVIEW Music Awards Celebration returned to The Westown Theater for an evening filled exuberance and explosive musical brilliance as 60 trophies were presented to honor the musical artistry of the Great Lakes Bay Region.  With a total of 8,010 votes cast during both the nomination and final voting rounds, a total of 754 musicians & groups from the region were nominated by the general public, with the top five nominees in each division moving to a final round of voting and the winners honored at this special annual celebration. 

Big winners included the glam-rock band Them Heels, who won Best Variety Band, Best Alternative Band, Best New CD/Album Release, and Best Rock Bassist; ADABOY! who won Best Original Band, Best Rock Band, and Best EP/Single Release; Hip-Hop artist Mike Spitz (aka: Spitzer) who picked up four trophies for Rap Artist of the Year, Best Performer, Best Hip-Hop Songwriter, and Best Video; and Rhett Yocom, who secured honors for Best Blues Band, Best Blues Songwriter, and Best Blues Vocalist.

The month of June witnessed the return of the Old Town Saginaw Art Fair (one of the longest running in the state of Michigan), as well as the Riverfront Art Fair in Bay City and the longstanding Midland Art Fair, along with the return of Jazz on Jefferson in Downtown Saginaw. Comedians were also big draws, with national comics such as Jeff Foxworthy coming to The Temple Theatre and a return of Jerry Seinfeld to the Dow Event Center later in the Fall.

The summer months also saw the return of the 27th Season of the  innovative musical festival series known as FRIDAY NIGHT LIVE  to Morley Plaza in Downtown Saginaw with a massive 50th Anniversary Bash for the public service non-profit organization known as Positive Results in Downtown Saginaw (PRIDE), which also paid a fond farewell to longtime director Jeanne Conger, who retired this year after decades of work developing this vital and important community entity;

As our region’s premier showcase for experiencing the broad range and jaw-dropping beauty of 3-Dimensional artistry, The Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum stands as one of the crown-jewels populating the Great Lakes Bay Region, if not the State of Michigan. This summer they hosted the 2025 Regional Biennial Juried Sculpture Exhibition - a vibrant collection of sculptural excellence featuring 57 works from talented artists across the Great Lakes states including, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania. 

In August iconic rock star Burton Cummings, cofounder of The Guess Who, appeared at The Temple Theatre to a near capacity audience.  Still at the top of his game as performer, singer, songwriter, and recording artist, Burton proved he is still at the top of his game with his A Few Good Moments Tour.

In August regional filmmaker Luka Dziubyna released his powerful new documentary The Bible Runner at Bay City’s State Theatre, which followed peaceful pro-life missionary Cal Zastrow - a voice for the unborn for over 35 years - who along with other pro-life Christians battle against the modern-day American Abortion holocaust while having their faith challenged and affirmed at each step of their journey. !

Saginaw's Punk Rock Poet Laureaute Tim Avram hatched a song he was requested to write for a major film currently in preproduction called SCORPIONS, which is  a new thriller from executive producer director Dwayne Parker and writer James Alan Ross, starring Grant Campbell and Laura Peterson that is slated to debut on NETFLIX.

While Bay City was still reeling from the aftermath of the State Theatre financial shenanigans involving former director Michael Bacigalupo and national acts featured in Wenonah Park, promoter Jay Samborn picked up the slack last summer by featuring a stellar line-up at the 2025 Labadie Rib Fest that featured rocker Sebastian Bach, Blue Oyster Cult, and country star Trace Adkins.

In September, the Dstreet Music Foundation celebrated their 25^th Anniversary with thir annual PARKAPALOOZA music festival at Haithco Park. Since its inception the festival has hosted an estimated 30,000 visitors, showcased nearly 60 great musical acts, and donated over $10,000 to a number of worthwhile charities. 

Fourteen years ago the non-profit musical mission known as Major Chords for Minors was conceived to provide a pathway to  creativity and confidence by offering  free lessons, real instruments and creative mentorship for youth.  Today they have served and mentored 1,500 students ranging in ages from 8 to 18, providing free private instruction along with the instruments to learn and practice on. This year musician, vocalist and songwriter Amy Petty was hired as their new Executive Director.  A classically trained vocalist raised on Rock and Roll, Amy brings both soul and precision to her new role.  After years of touring, recording and performing everywhere from Carnegie Hall to the Kennedy Center – sharing stages with artists like Sarah McLachlan, Jewel and Steve Van Zandt – Amy devotes her talents to ensuring every kid in Saginaw has access to the transformative power of music.

Bay City's Studio 23/The Arts Center is one of our region’s unique and pivotal art galleries devoted to inspiring the Great Lakes Bay community through visual arts and education, and they also appointed a new executive director. Scott Rittenberry brings over 14 years of non-profit arts experience to this 65-year old institution, having previously served as a fund development, grants writer, and events manager for TempleArts, overseeing operations for both The Temple Theatre in Saginaw and the Saginaw Art Museum & Gardens.

Four legendary and outstanding individuals were honored into the 2025 Saginaw County Hall of Fame in October.  For over 60 years the Saginaw County Hall of Fame has inducted over 150 individuals for accomplishments that have done much to impact the Saginaw community and shape the contours of the city’s and our region’s cultural environment.  This year’s honorees were architect Glenn (Red) Beach, Durolast inventor John Burt, calligrapher and artist Jim Fives, and baker Frank Wolfarth.

As we close out the year with the Dystopian specter of A.I. looming in the brave new world ahead, the Theatre Department at Saginaw Valley State University posed a brave experiment to see what happens when education, the arts and AI converge.  Director Tommy Wedge staged a bold reimagining of “R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots)” — the 1920 Czech play that gave the world the actual word ‘robot’.  Their contemporary musical adaptation of Karel Čapek’s science fiction classic where a scientist mass-produces human-like machines that eventually rebel, raises  questions about ethics, labor and technology that are becoming increasingly important today at a seemingly exponential rate.  Wedge and his team collaborated with AI to create the production – plot, dialog, lyrics, and music.

According to Wedge, AI is “pretty good at dialogue, terrible at plot.”