MASTERMIND: Ken Fischer

Let no one say this man won't take chances. Despite appearances, Ken Fischer likes life on the edge. The CEO of University Musical Society looks like any well-groomed senior marketing executive – which he is. The inner Fischer, however, is a swashbuckling arts pirate dedicated to shaking up the status quo.

Thanks to his gambles, UMS is flourishing. Impresario Fischer – as opposed to arts administrator Fischer – avoids the pitfalls of his peer presenters with a combination of canny programming and never-say-die networking.

Fischer is a man immersed in music. Trained in French horn and voice performance, he's married to Penny Fischer, a professional musician. His brothers are also musicians. It's an understatement to call him enthusiastic. Ask a question and brace yourself for the information tsunami to follow. It's refreshing, if sometimes overwhelming

The UMS board took a risk of its own when it hired Fischer in 1987. He had never run an arts presenting group.

"I had virtually no credentials except dilettante concert promoter," he recalls.

That his resume included presenting concerts at Washington DC's Watergate Center on his own dime and co-founding a successful chamber music series won the day. He's proved his worth, winning honors from the International Society of Performing Arts and prodding the University to restore Hill Auditorium. (He's still working on new dressing rooms and backstage improvements – send donations any time.)

A collaboration with New York's Martha Graham Dance Company set the stage for one of UMS and Fischer's crown jewels, a series of performances by The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC.)

The Martha Graham Centenary Festival in 1994 was a turning point. Fischer served as executive producer. Peter Sparling, U-M dance professor and former principal dancer and Graham's assistant choreographer, was artistic director.

"It meant we'd never do anything the same again. UMS didn't partner with anyone in its early history," Fischer explains. "It was a natural thing for me – but we had to educate people about how collaboration can lift everybody up.

"We've always had three things that set us apart from other communities: the quality of the hall, the quality of the audience and a long tradition of great artists," he points out.

"We also had inspired leadership in our first century," Fischer says. "Founder Henry Frieze, an iconic professor and three-time interim president of the university, saw the value of arts and culture."

UMS grew out of the Choral Union, a choir assembled in 1879 to perform Handel's Messiah, a tradition carried down to today. The following year, UMS was formed to present local and visiting artists. Although it is closely affiliated with the University, it is a separate 501(c)3 organization.

Audacious moves for the 130-year-old group didn't start with Fischer by any means. In 1918, struggling to recover from World War I and decimated audience counts, then-director Charles Sink brought Enrico Caruso, the first superstar tenor, to perform in Ann Arbor. Caruso's fee was nearly $14,000, the equivalent of $200,000 today, Fischer said.

To hear Caruso, ticket holders were asked to buy season tickets for the next three years.

The move paid off.

"Hill was packed. That kind of bold thinking is a tradition here. If a great artist is out there, go get him," Fischer says. "That's what we did with RSC a few years later."

Through U-M regent Philip Power, Fischer learned that the RSC was seeking a partner to help it present Shakespeare's history plays. He scrambled to round up support from the UMS board and then-University President Lee Bollinger.

"They couldn't find anybody to sponsor and co-produce it – until we heard about it," Fischer explains.

The resulting three-week residency in 2001 was a triumph, selling out all 12 performances, for a total audience of 17,000 people. The RSC has returned twice more, in 2003 and 2006.

Fischer scored a coup by inviting Patrick Stewart to conduct the Michigan Marching Band – by pitching it as "a leading role center stage in the largest theatre-in-the-round in the country." Stewart took conducting lessons before the appearance, Fischer says.

On January 24, 2009, UMS will honor two key figures in the collaboration. The 14^th Ford Honors Program will recognize Michael Boyd, now RSC artistic director, and retiring U-M professor Ralph Williams, a Shakespeare scholar whose pre-show background sessions on the RSC productions enriched the experience of audience members who attended.

The Rackham Auditorium program will include music and readings, with details to be announced. Tickets are available on the UMS website.

The RSC is only one milestone of the Fischer regime:

• UMS has commissioned dozens of new works, new productions or reconstructions since 1990
• Partnerships with 54 U-M academic units and 150 faculty members, as well as major student involvement in UMS activities
• More than half of UMS events in the last three years featured artists making their UMS debuts – almost two-thirds of them representing world music

Like any gracious leader, Fischer is quick to credit his "enormously talented and experienced" senior staff members, including finance chief John Kennard, officially director of administration, Development Director Susan McClanahan, Marketing Director Sara Billman and most of all, Programming Director Michael Kondziolka.

Yes, it's a tactic worthy of the Oscars to ask that they be mentioned, but Fischer is all too aware of the Herculean efforts his staff of 32 pulls off each season, not the least of which is corralling hundreds of volunteers and processing the support of the organization's operating and advisory boards.

For the past few years, the team has turned its attention to the academic resources available on campus, Fischer relates.

"We had not been exploiting those. How could we have been so blind to that?" he asked. "We don't do anything now without asking how we can bring context to it. Our mantra is 'We exist to bring artist and audience together for an uncommon and engaging experience.'"