Courtesy photo he University of Michigan Jazz Ensemble will be performing at the Hancock Community Hub Auditorium for an Evening of Jazz on May 6. The group will be a part of the first performance conducted in the theater since the closing of Finlandia University.

The auditorium in the Hancock Community Hub will come alive with cool jazz for the first time in years next week. The Hancock Community Hub presents “An Evening of Jazz” featuring the University of Michigan Jazz Ensemble at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, in the auditorium of the Community Hub located at 417 Quincy St. in Hancock. The evening will open with the U.P. Jazz Collective. The concert is the first event in the theatre since the closing of Finlandia University.

The U of M Jazz Ensemble, is the most competitive of the University’s jazz ensembles, directed by Ellen Rowe. Open by audition only, most seats are filled by majors within the Department of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation. One of the 19 musicians in the ensemble, saxophonist Alex Lahti-Thiam, is from the local area. Lahti-Thiam’s director asked him if there was anywhere in the U.P. he would like to see the group play, and then the Hancock Community Hub was informed through his mother, Sara Lahti. She is the secretary of the Right Start UP Board of Directors, the non-profit group that purchased the first three floors of the Hancock Community Hub.

A lot of work had to be done by the Hub to renovate the auditorium before it could host such an event. A heating system leak damaged the stage floor which had buckled along with some ceiling tiles and the stage curtains. Lahti said the group participated in Copper Shores Giving Tuesday campaign which helped it raise just under $26,000 from donations for renovations.

“It’s been a process, but I do believe we are finally ready to accommodate the public in there, and it’ll be beautiful. We did buy a couple of speakers as well to make sure that the sound is of high quality for the concert,” Lahti said.

Once plans began to materialize, the Hub reached out to Michigan Tech and the U.P. Jazz Collective became involved. The Collective is made up of Michigan Tech faculty members and other local musicians.

“We thought it would be a good way to get everybody in town affiliated with jazz together and to celebrate jazz for the evening, because it would be a shame if we had such a big jazz event and didn’t try to get involved with some of the local musicians,” Lahti said.

While the performances do not begin until the evening, the music groups will be involved in a jam session earlier from 3:30 to 4::45 p.m. at K. C. Bonkers in Hancock, called Bonkers for Jazz. Music clinics will also be conducted for young musicians at the Hancock Community Hub where they can interact and learn from the student musicians.

“It’s not every day that we get to host musicians from out of town, and they’re willing to come in and do clinics with local students and just build some awareness of jazz and improv and music and things like that,” Lahti said. “So we’re really excited about getting more people exposed to jazz and interested in it as well.”

Tickets for the event are available online at hchcommunityhub@gmail.com or at the door. General admission prices are at a minimum $5 to a maximum of $10, students from kindergarten through college cost $5 and children under five are free. All proceeds from the event will go into the Hub’s theater operations fund.