SUMMER IN THE D | THINGS TO DO | vISIT DETROIT | DETROIT MICHIGAN
FESTIVAL & EVENTS Local Detroit artists and many of country music's biggest national stars will take the stage at this year’s WYCD Downtown Hoedown, May 14-16. This year’s performers include Dierks Bentley, Uncle Cracker, Steel Magnolia, Darryl Worley, and the Zac Brown Band. For a complete list go to www.wycd.com Movement: Detroit Electronic Music Festival celebrates its 10th anniversary this Memorial Day weekend, May 29-31. Local music heroes and renowned artists from around the world on four stages, 12 hours a day for three days will create more fun than you might be able to handle. The fun continues at the not-to-miss after parties. www.movement.us The Red Bull Air Races will speed above the Detroit River once again this summer, June 5-6. Hosted by Windsor, Ontario, this will be the 4th stop in the nine race championship. Canadian pilot Pete McLeod will be among 15 of the world’s best race pilots battling it out in an aerial race track about the Detroit River. www.redbullairrace.com Autopalooza is a celebration of Southeast Michigan's automotive heritage through a series of major cruises, races, and shows throughout the year. Check out autopalooza.org for a complete list of participating events. See baseball played the old-fashioned way as Greenfield Village’s Lah-De-Dahs team takes on local ball clubs in Historic Baseball games, held every weekend through summer, beginning June 12. www.thehenryford.org Take a trip down memory lane with Greenfield Village’s annual Motor Muster event, with more than 700 classic cars from the 1930s through the 1970s on display and parading through the village. Motor Muster cruises in June 19-20. www.thehenryford.org Festival-goers at this year’s Detroit River Days can participate in maritime activities on the Detroit River from tall ships tours to Coast Guard vessels, jet-ski demonstrations to Diamond Jack river tours and the crowd favorite Parade of Lights venetian-style event. Visitors will enjoy great music from local and national acts, carnival rides, great eats from restaurants across metro Detroit, The Parade Company’s Kids Zone as well as new activities in the expanded Milliken State Park, including wildlife exhibits. River Days runs June 18-21 with the Target Fireworks capping off the festivities. www.detroitriverdays.com The 52nd Annual Target Fireworks will take place along the Detroit River June 21. The display is choreographed by Zambelli Fireworks Internationale and is one of the most spectacular and largest fireworks displays in the world with more than 10,000 pyrotechnic effects lighting up the international skyline over the Detroit River. www.theparade.org Join the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as they play patriotic favorites – including “1812 Overture,” complete with authentic Hotchkiss cannons firing – to honor our country’s Independence Day during Salute to America in Greenfield Village. Dates are July 1-4. www.thehenryford.org The 4th annual Stars & Stripes Festival comes to downtown Mount Clemens, July 2-5. World-class recording artists will perform each night, as well as the hottest regional and local acts on three different stages. This free festival encompasses music styles from rock, R&B, jazz and country. www.starsandstripesfest.com Hydroplane race fans will flock to the Detroit Riverfront this June for the American Power Boat Association (APBA) Gold Cup. The racers compete for the APBA Gold Cup, which is among the most prestigious of motorsports trophies, in part because it’s the oldest active trophy in all of motorsports. Testing and qualifying begin July 9, followed by racing on July 10-11. www.gold-cup.com The 18th annual Concert of Colors takes place July 16-18 at the Max M. Fisher Music Center. This free indoor-outdoor diversity-themed music festival features musical performers representing cultures from around the world as well as popular favorites, family activities, multicultural food and merchandise vendors. www.concertofcolors.com Dance the night away to the sound of Dixieland and jazz bands during Greenfield Village’s Ragtime Street Fair – a celebration of the African-American musical precursor to the jazz age. The Street Fair takes place July 24-25. www.thehenry.org The 2010 Concours d’Elegance of America comes to the grounds of Meadow Brook Hall, the fourth largest historic house museum in the United States and former residence of Matilda Dodge Wilson (widow of auto pioneer John Dodge), July 25. The Concours d’Elegance exhibits prestigious collector cars, offers an automotive art exhibition, a vintage car auction, Mode du Concours and social events. www.meadowbrookconcours.org Check out an array of demonstrations and hands-on workshops in the areas of arts & crafts, science & engineering, robotics sustainable living, fun for kids and music & fine arts at the two-day, family-friendly Maker Faire at The Henry Ford museum, July 31-Aug 1. www.thehenryford.org Celebrate the many forms of human-powered transit that keep the planet healthy at the Ferndale Green Cruise Aug. 14. Activities include a 22 mile progressive ride, five mile family ride, parade healthy food and more. www.sierraclub.org/greencruise The 2010 Bassmaster Northern Open takes place on the Detroit River Aug. 19-21. This will be the first professional level tournament that BASS has ever held on these waters, and anglers should be very optimistic about the fishing they'll find. www.bassresource.com The 28th annual African World Festival is a family-oriented festival experience drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors to downtown’s Hart Plaza that celebrates the richness, diversity and worldwide influence of African culture. The festival features parades, performances, cuisine, crafts, vendors, a Greek step show and special activities for children. African World Festival takes place at Hart Plaza, Aug. 20-22. www.maah-detroit.org The 16th annual Woodward Dream Cruise idles into the Motor City Aug. 21. The Cruise is the world’s largest one-day celebration of classic car culture and attracts more than 1 million visitors, spans 16 miles through nine communities and features more than 40,000 muscle cars, street rods, custom, collector and special interest vehicles. www.woodwarddreamcruise.com The Arts, Beats & Eats Festival will bring art, cuisine, music and humanity to its new location in Royal Oak this Labor Day weekend. In its 13th year, the festival offers a culturally unique presentation of artists, musicians and food exhibits, from the metro Detroit area, and throughout the United States. It also provides outstanding family entertainment at a very low cost. For a lineup of musicians keep posted to www.artsbeatseats.com. Jazz enthusiasts from all over the country will fill several city blocks from Detroit’s Hart Plaza to Campus Martius Park for the 31st Annual Detroit International Jazz Festival themed “Flame Keepers- carrying the torch for modern jazz.” The festival will pay homage to Art Blakey, Ray Brown, Miles Davis, Horace Silver, Betty Carter, Lester Bowie and Gil Evans. Performers already announced include Mulgrew Miller, Branford Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Maria Schneider and Roy Haynes. The complete lineup will be available in April. Jazz Fest takes place Labor Day weekend, Sept. 3-6. www.detroitjazzfest.com Celebrate a luscious local fruit at the Michigan Peach Festival, featuring an arts and crafts show, parade and family activities. The festival takes place Labor Day weekend. www.peachfestromeo.com Take a time-travel adventure into the 16th century at the 32nd annual Michigan Renaissance Festival, Aug. 21-Oct. 3 (weekends & Labor Day). Inside the turreted gates, visitors enjoy the sights and sounds of a 17-acre village, complete with building reproductions of Renaissance shops and a magnificent castle. Continuous entertainment takes place on the streets, on 16 themed stages and fields; featuring full-contact armored jousting, comedy and theater shows, games, people-powered rides and so much more! Fabulous food and more than 195 artisans displaying their gallery-quality juried art complete the experience. www.michrenfest.com Shop more than 250 fine artists exhibitors at the Arts & Apples Festival, Michigan’s second largest juried fine arts festival. Located on the 30-acre Rochester Park, the festival takes place Sept. 10-12. www.artandapples.com See more than 800 early steam, electric and gasoline-powered vehicles – ranging in eras from the 1890s to the 1930s – during the 60th anniversary of Greenfield Village’s Old Car Festival, America’s longest-running antique car show Sept. 11-12. www.thehenryford.org The DIY Street Fair is a free 2-day, 3-night event, Sept. 17-19, in Ferndale where local artists, crafters, businesses, groups and organizations, musicians, restaurants, brewers and others who live and work with a do-it-yourself ethic converge for one big celebration. The event showcases the immense creative energy, independent spirit and innovative talent that can be found throughout the area. www.DIYStreetFair.com MUSEUM MADNESS IN METRO DETROIT Metro Detroit Museums are offering a range of new and permanent exhibits for all ages and interest in the upcoming months. Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History A tribute to the beauty, style, and self-expression of black women, Crowning Glories is a historical survey of their hat wearing traditions from the 1700s to the present. Featured are drawings, photographs and a variety of exciting styles of headwear loaned from the collections of local and national hat queens and designers On display through September. Joe Louis: Hometown Hero is a comprehensive exhibition on the life of the iconic Detroit native. The exhibit presents the museum viewer with an extraordinary view of Joe Louis and his rise to iconic status, presenting in two parallel timelines: the Joe Louis Story and the American Story. Louis’ life story, in chronological sequence, is viewed against the backdrop of American history. On display through September. Who Am I: My DNA Diary is an exhibition of National Geographic and IBM’s Genographic Project in tandem with Lucy, The Story of Human Origins from the International Museum Institute of New York. This double feature challenges preexisting notions of race and ethnicity by showing that the more we understand "the collective journey of humankind, the more likely we are to see each other as members of the same extended family." On display through October. www.maah-detroit.org Detroit Institute of Arts Through African Eyes: The European in African Art, 1500 to Present is the first traveling art exhibition to examine 500 years of cultural and political interactions between the peoples of African and European outsiders. It is also the first to do so from African points-of-view. Through African Eyes will be on view at the DIA through Aug. 8, 2010. The new gallery of Islamic art at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is now open. The gallery includes works of art from the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, Central Asia and India, and spans the 7th–early 20th centuries. During planning of the new galleries, conservation treatments and scientific analyses were carried out, resulting in a new understanding of some works of art as well as the rediscovery of others that had remained unrecognized for decades www.dia.org Detroit Historical Museum The Michigan Senior Olympics exhibit at the Detroit Historical Museum explores the history of the MSO and highlight the inspirational stories of the individuals who take part in this treasured Michigan tradition. MSO was founded in 1979 as a member of the National Senior Games Association and participation in the games has grown to more than 1,200 athletes and is expected to reach 1,500 this year. Opens in May. Dossin Great Lakes Museum Celebrate the Dossin Great Lakes Museum’s 50 years, by exploring the new exhibit that focuses on the early years of the Dossin, when it replaced the Maritime Museum of Detroit that opened aboard the J.T. Wing, the last working schooner on the Great Lakes. The exhibit features the stories of those individuals that made this museum possible as well as the more memorable projects, such as the recovery of the anchor from the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald and the installation of the pilot house from the S.S. William Clay Ford. Dossin Great Lakes Museum: Celebrating 50 Years! is on display now. Explore the lives of the individuals who make their living on the Great Lakes in the exhibit Life on a Long Ship, Great Lakes Sailors. View a bridge deck, discover what life is really like for a captain of the ship as well as how that job has change over the years. Learn about the other members of the crew including the wheelsmen, mates, porters, engineers, lookouts, oilers, deck hands and many others. www.detroithistorical.org Walter P. Chrysler Museum Upcoming Unique Vehicle Pairs Spotlight Series at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum include:
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