ABOUT FRONT PORCH


Front Porch with umbrellas

Karalyn Schubring, piano • Jacob Rogers, percussion • Maddy Wildman, bassoon • Ben Jackson, violin

Front Porch is a mixed quartet that invites audiences to engage personally with the voices of their close friends, reimagining the classical concert experience with warmth and love at its foundation. Their uncommon instrumentation—violin, bassoon, piano, and percussion—makes them equally at home with composers, folk artists, opera singers, and everyone in between.

When Front Porch first came together in the summer of 2017, they were only slightly disappointed to find that no repertoire existed for their unusual combination of instruments. They pride themselves on seeking out collaborative and creative opportunities as much as possible: since their founding, they have premiered 23 new works, given 45 performances, and worked with over 50 collaborators, including composers, instrumentalists, singers, educators, and dancers.

Bringing the arts to new audiences is at the heart of every Front Porch project. Some of their favorite past performances include:

  • Songs from the Porch, a showcase of four Ann Arbor indie, folk, and pop singer-songwriters featuring Front Porch as the house band.
  • Interactive performances for adults with developmental disabilities at Howie Stone Adult Day Center and for inmates in Michigan prisons in collaboration with the Prison Creative Arts Project.
  • Workshops with hundreds of elementary and middle schoolers at public schools from Detroit to New York City.
  • A partnership with Ann Arbor’s University Musical Society to lead a workshop with a group of aspiring college-age teaching artists at the University of Michigan.

Front Porch’s 2019-20 season has featured new commissions from composers Corey Dundee, Nina Shekhar, Jung Yoon Wie, and Douglas Hertz, made possible by an Innovation Grant from the University of Michigan Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. They premiered new works by composers from around the world in their project Six Climate Visions, which explored the effects of climate change on local environments in a collaboration with the Millennium Composers Initiative. In February, they led an interactive performance for inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Milan, Michigan. This spring and summer, Front Porch will unveil a new program of works centered around nature and environmental sustainability featuring two premieres of works by Tanner Porter and Evan Premo. This program will be presented in April at Ann Arbor’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens and in July at the One World Festival of Arts and Imagination in Vermont.

Front Porch was a fellow of the 2019 Ensemble Connect Audience Engagement Intensive at Carnegie Hall, where they designed and presented interactive performances in different locations around New York City. Front Porch won Third Prize at the Dale and Nancy Briggs Chamber Music Competition in April 2018. They were also named the 2018-19 Young Ensemble-in-Residence for Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings.