MUSIC Matters hosted their annual SpringFest Sunday on North University Avenue and South State Street. Designed to create a platform that highlights the diversity of talent on campus, the festival featured a wide range of performances including dance and a capella groups. About 7,000 Ann Arbor community members gathered to hear from local bands ranging from seven-piece, indie-folk-groove North Ingalls Band to rock ‘n’ roll band The Third Degree perform. The festival, sponsored by companies including Bumble and Amazon, also featured food trucks and pop-up shops from local businesses lining State Street.
The entertainment was not limited to music. A variety of University of Michigan organizations also performed at SpringFest, including K-Pop dance group Female Gayo and Indian contemporary and folk music group Michigan Gaan.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, LSA senior Rowan O’Connor, SpringFest co-chair for MUSIC Matters, said the diversity of the festival’s lineup illustrates the wide variety of talent at the University.
“SpringFest is supposed to be a celebration of everything that happens on the University of Michigan campus,” O’Connor said. “The businesses, the student performance orgs, the different bands we have and then also every club under the sun that can get a table at SpringFest and show off what they do for a day. Part of putting on the daytime show on the day stage is sort of to that tune, it’s meant to just celebrate all the different kinds of music and performance art that happens here on campus.”
One student organization that took the stage Sunday afternoon was musical-theatre acting group “Not Even Really Drama Students,” or NERDS. LSA junior Natalie Dixon told The Daily that a platform such as SpringFest is important for clubs like hers because it provides an opportunity to market the club to the campus community.
“We’re always looking for new people … that aren’t really tied into the theatre scene at Michigan,” Dixon said. “So just showing people that we exist and that we are really fun and cool at SpringFest and it would be really great to recruit new members for next year.”
At approximately 3 p.m., Ani Mari & Co. ‘s set was interrupted by a TAHRIR Coalition and Students Allied for Freedom and Equality demonstration aiming to raise awareness about Monday’s national strike for Gaza. The band’s frontwoman, LSA junior Ani Seigel, handed her microphone to demonstrators when they approached the stage. In an interview with The Daily, Seigel said she supported the demonstrators for using a platform like SpringFest to amplify their message.
“I very much stand in solidarity with TAHRIR and SAFE and I really do not condone the actions of the University and trying to silence student protesting, and I really believe in free speech,” Seigel said. “It was surprising and it was kind of a stressful thing to deal with in the moment … but I’m not mad that they did what they did.”
VUP, defending MUSIC Matters Battle of the Bands champions, closed out the afternoon. LSA junior Ari Kertsman, lead singer of VUP, reflected on what it meant to the band to be back at SpringFest for the second year in a row.
“Last year we were sort of one of the openers,” Kertsman said. “And so to headline and close the show this year is really exciting and shows our growth as a band and that’s exciting.”
SpringFest was divided between Sunday’s daytime festival and a Monday night concert at the Michigan Theatre. During the Monday evening portion of the festival, pop singer Alexander 23 performed at the Michigan Theatre in front of about 300 U-M community members. LSA sophomore Jessica Weinstein, talent and concert committee chair of MUSIC Matters, spoke about how Alexander 23 was selected to perform.
“We’re really excited — Alexander’s very up and coming right now,” Weinstein said. “It’s really exciting because I feel like we’re hitting him at a prime time. Hopefully, in a year from now people can be like, ‘Oh my god, Alexander 23 was at University of Michigan.’”
Music, Theatre & Dance junior Rachel Dunklee told The Daily she enjoyed SpringFest this year and will be coming to the festival again in the future.
“I love Alexander 23,” Dunklee said. “I saw his headlining show, I saw him open for Reneé Rapp and now I’m here. I’m so excited. Everybody should come to SpringFest every year.”
Daily Staff Reporter Mikaela Lewis can be reached at mikaelal@umich.edu.