For Mary Collins and Kaye Hamada, returning to Ann Arbor to perform at The Ark is much more than another stop on a concert tour. It is a homecoming that traces the arc of a friendship, a creative partnership and a dream that began years ago in a high school choir classroom.
The Brooklyn-based folk-pop duo Moonmill will take the stage at The Ark on Friday, Aug. 7, bringing audiences the close vocal harmonies, thoughtful songwriting and intimate storytelling that have earned them growing recognition. Yet despite building their musical career in New York, the pair says the music they create still feels deeply rooted in the city where they grew up.
“Returning home to perform in Ann Arbor is an incredible feeling!” Collins said. “Wherever we travel to perform, our music feels very Ann Arbor and very Michigan to us, even though we don’t currently live there.”
For longtime followers of Ann Arbor’s vibrant music scene, Moonmill’s performance represents a fitting full-circle moment. The duo first met as students in the Huron High School choir program, where music became the common language that would eventually shape both their friendship and artistic partnership.
A friendship begins in choir
Although Hamada doesn’t remember her first conversation with Collins, she vividly remembers hearing her perform.
“It was the summer before my freshman year of high school, and Mary performed an original song at the Huron High School ‘choir camp’ talent show,” Hamada recalled. “She was going into her sophomore year at the time, and all of the students in Huron Choirs seemed to already know Mary as this established singer-songwriter—which I immediately thought was the coolest thing in the world.”
Even then, Collins’ songwriting made an impression.
“Her writing was so sophisticated and her voice so her own,” Hamada said.
At the time, Hamada had only recently begun writing songs herself and was searching for peers who shared her passion.
“I wanted to know her, learn from her, and have all of the conversations I was having about songwriting in my own head, with her,” she said.
She couldn’t have imagined where that admiration would eventually lead.
“Ten years later, I get to do all of that nearly every day with her in Brooklyn,” Hamada said. “But there was absolutely no way 14-year-old me could have imagined what my relationship with that girl on stage would eventually become.”
Growing up in a city that values music
Both musicians credit Ann Arbor’s rich musical landscape with shaping not only their artistic development but also their understanding of music as something that builds community.
“Ann Arbor was a great place to grow up as musicians because there was live music happening everywhere, at all levels,” Collins said.
Hamada’s family moved to Ann Arbor when she was eight years old, and she says the city’s artistic culture fundamentally changed what she believed was possible.
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“I grew up constantly going to see local artists at places like Top of the Park, Sonic Lunch, and The Ark!” she said. “A lot of the artists we’d go see were family friends or teachers of me and my brothers, so I grew up with a strong sense of music as a force for community building, which is a big part of our ethos as a band now.”
She also credits the Neutral Zone’s youth arts programming with exposing her to the realities of independent musicianship.
“As a teenager, I spent a lot of time at the Neutral Zone after school and was learning so much about how artists record and release their own music,” Hamada said. “Having such easy access to these opportunities really helped me to realize that songwriting and performance can not only be a career, but can be an avenue for deeper connection within your community.”
Finding each other again
Life eventually carried the two musicians in different directions before unexpectedly bringing them back together.
Before Moonmill, Collins spent several years studying at NYU Abu Dhabi, living on and off in the United Arab Emirates.
“During that time of my life, I felt like an outsider in a lot of contexts that I hadn’t before,” she said. “It could feel lonely, especially musically within my genre.”
Moving to Brooklyn changed that. “When I moved to Brooklyn and started reconnecting with Kaye, it was refreshing to feel so known and understood by a musical collaborator,” Collins said.
The songwriting partnership developed naturally. “Writing together felt familiar, but exciting and new at the same time. It just made sense!”
Both musicians had spent their adolescence processing life’s experiences through songwriting.
“We’re both people who have been processing our emotions through songs since a formative age,” Collins said. “Songwriting is deeply personal to us, so our years of friendship and shared musical experiences made it easy to develop the common language and trust that we needed to write together in a true, meaningful, and adventurous way.”
Two voices becoming one
Moonmill’s music is built upon rich harmonies that often make the two singers sound like a single voice.
Collins believes that connection developed long before the duo officially formed.
“Kaye and I are both natural listeners by default, and since we grew up singing in choir together and watching each other play solo sets as teenagers, we already knew each other’s sounds and musical language pretty well,” she said.
For Collins, successful collaboration begins with mutual respect.
“I think the ability to blend into one voice has to start with a deep appreciation of each other’s individual voices.”
That trust carried naturally into songwriting. “When we first tried writing together, there was an immediate sense of trust and admiration that made it easier to take creative risks and speak our minds.”
Their writing process varies from song to song, but Hamada says most pieces begin independently before evolving together.
“Most of these fragments are short enough that the rest of the song can then be developed together with the both of us in the room,” she said.
Many ideas emerge from conversations rather than inspiration striking unexpectedly. “Often they’ve come out of our very many long and thoughtful conversations with each other over dinner.”
Homecoming at The Ark
Few venues could hold greater significance for the duo than The Ark.
“When we were growing up, The Ark was a dream venue,” Collins said. “It feels like a real full circle moment to get to come back and play this particular room.”
She said the performance carries emotional weight beyond simply returning home.”It’s one of those rare moments as a musician where you can really tangibly see where you came from and remember a day you dreamed of being where you are right now.”
Looking into the audience adds another layer of meaning. “It’s very emotional to look out into the crowd and see the faces of our family, teachers, mentors, and some of our oldest friends.”
Although they now live in Brooklyn, Ann Arbor continues to shape their creative work in subtle ways.
“So much of our songwriting is still influenced by how and where we first learned to write songs, in our childhood bedrooms in Ann Arbor,” Hamada said.
Whether it is a memory from Huron Choirs or a concert at Top of the Park, she says those experiences continue to surface.
Sharing the journey
As they prepare to perform before an audience known for its appreciation of thoughtful songwriting, Collins hopes listeners experience more than simply a concert.
“Since Ann Arbor audiences are full of such deep listeners, I hope a Moonmill performance rewards that attentiveness with a sense of transportation and connection through music!” she said.
For Moonmill, songwriting has always been about helping people understand themselves and one another.
“There are few things that make us feel as present in a room and alive in a moment than listening to music,” Collins said. “We love the way songwriting helps us connect by naming the unnamed and untangling complex emotions, and we’re excited to share that journey with our Ann Arbor audience.”
Looking back, Hamada wishes she could reassure those two teenagers who once shared a choir room that everything they hoped music might become would eventually come true.
“I wish I could tell our younger selves that someday, songwriting will be the least isolating part of our lives,” she said. “It will lead us to work with incredible collaborators that will enrich our music, wonderful life-long friendships, and audiences of listeners who will build a community around the songs we will someday write together.”
For an Ann Arbor audience, Moonmill’s performance is more than a chance to hear an emerging folk-pop duo. It is an opportunity to welcome home two musicians whose artistry was nurtured by the community they now return to celebrate.
Moonmill performs Friday, Aug. 7, at 8 p.m. at The Ark, 316 S. Main St., Ann Arbor. Opening the evening is Maddy Ringo. Moonmill’s debut EP, Soundbite Landfill, will be available on Bandcamp and at the concert.
Donna Marie Iadipaolo is a writer, journalist, and State of Michigan certified teacher, since 1990. She has written for national publications like The Village Voice, Ear Magazine of New Music, Insurance & Technology, and TheStreet.
She is now writing locally for many publications, including Current Magazine, Ann Arbor Family, and the Ann Arbor Independent. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she graduated with an honors bachelor’s degree and three teacher certificate majors: mathematics, social sciences, English. She also earned three graduate degrees in Master of Science, Master of Arts, and Education Specialist Degree.
