From the Desk of Trey Devey: Imagining Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Trey reflects on Imagine US: Celebrating America at 250 and how this national tour marks the beginning of Interlochen’s Centennial Celebration, linking past, present, and future.
Dear friends,
In just a few weeks, Interlochen students will step onto some of the nation’s most storied stages alongside musicians from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Together, they will launch Imagine US: Celebrating America at 250, a national tour that invites audiences to reflect on where we have been, who we are today, and what we might yet become.
For Interlochen, this moment matters. Imagine US is not only a landmark artistic collaboration. It also marks the beginning of our Centennial Celebration, a multi-year journey toward our 100th anniversary. As we approach that milestone, we are grounding our work in a simple but powerful way of thinking about time: yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Our yesterday begins with imagination. Nearly a century ago, Interlochen was founded by Joseph Maddy on the bold belief that young people from different backgrounds could come together through the arts to learn, to listen, and to lead. From the first performance of the National High School Orchestra in 1926 to the generations of students who followed, Interlochen has always understood creativity not as a luxury, but as a force that shapes how we see one another and the world we share.
Over the years, alumni have often talked to me about what touring meant to them as students. They remember stepping onto a stage far from home, sometimes for the first time, and realizing that the work they had done at Interlochen could carry them anywhere. One alumnus recently described performing on tour as the moment he understood that he was part of something much larger than himself. Those conversations stay with me, and I see the same sense of purpose taking shape in our students today.
That is our today. On our campus, and increasingly beyond it, young artists are asking hard questions, collaborating across disciplines, and discovering what is possible when they work alongside others who challenge and inspire them. Imagine US brings that spirit onto a national stage. In these performances, Interlochen Arts Academy students will share the stage with world-class musicians, many of them Interlochen alumni, and experience the mentorship, trust, and shared purpose that define our community at its best.
The program reflects the complexity of the American story. A newly commissioned cello concerto by Wynton Marsalis, performed by Yo-Yo Ma in Interlochen, Philadelphia, and Boston, and by Joshua McClendon in Detroit; Reena Esmail’s RE|member; and a reimagined presentation of Charles Ives’s Symphony No. 4, brought to life through contributions from all seven of our artistic disciplines, offer a reminder that America’s creative voice has always been shaped by many perspectives in conversation with one another.
And then there is our tomorrow. As we look toward Interlochen’s second century, we are thinking carefully about responsibility as well as possibility. How do we expand access to transformative arts education? How do we prepare young artists not only to excel creatively, but to lead with empathy, curiosity, and courage? The Centennial is not simply a celebration of what Interlochen has been. It is a commitment to what it must continue to become.
Imagine US holds all of this at once: past, present, and future. It brings together students and professionals, tradition and experimentation, history and hope. And it reminds us that the arts do more than reflect society. They help us imagine it anew.
I am deeply grateful to the alumni, parents, donors, and friends whose belief in young artists has sustained Interlochen for nearly 100 years. I hope you will join us, whether in the concert hall, online, on the airwaves, or in spirit, as we imagine yesterday, engage today, and build tomorrow together.
With gratitude,
Trey Devey
President, Interlochen Center for the Arts
