Skip to main content

Museum Hours

  • Monday: Closed
  • Tuesday: Closed
  • Wednesday: 10am-6pm
  • Thursday: 10am-6pm
  • Friday: 10am-6pm
  • Saturday: 10am-6pm
  • Sunday: 10am-6pm

Last Tour begins at 5:00pm.

We are closed on New Years Day, Memorial Day, Easter Sunday, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years Eve.

Plan Your Visit
Contact Us

Motown Museum is the beating heart of the extraordinary Motown legacy—a destination that brings together people and ideas from different generations, and celebrates the past while simultaneously building a bridge to the future.

About Motown Museum

To ensure our vast collection maintains public visibility, and to keep things fresh for our guests, Motown Museum changes its main gallery exhibit 1-2 times per year. Here is what’s currently showing at our museum.

Current Exhibit

Motown Museum transports you into an era of musical magic. From the moment you step on the plaza, you’ll be immersed in the Motown sound and will experience a profound sense of history.

Book A Tour

Hitsville NEXT Programs

Our uniquely curated community programs emphasize education, entrepreneurship and equity—with experiences, mentoring and exposure that nurtures and elevates tomorrow’s history makers. Museum programs cultivate creativity and entrepreneurship in budding talent, allowing great art, big ideas and innovation to flourish.

View All Programs
Ignite Summer Camp
application Closed

Ignite Summer Camp


9 - 12 Grade | July 9 - 19

Ignite is a two-week program designed for high school-aged singers who want to take their musical talents to the next level...

Learn More
application Closed

Spark Summer Camp


6 – 8 Grade | August 6 - 16

For middle-school students passionate about music, we offer Spark, a day camp that helps students write and perform music together...

Learn More

Events

From memorable galas and concert performances, to community celebrations and educational programs, we host a range of special events throughout the year.

All Events

Motown MIC: The Spoken Word Competition Grand Finale


September 20, 2024

The Cube, Detroit

Learn More

Private Events

Interested in hosting your own event at Motown?

Facility Rental

Motown Legacy

As an irresistible force of social and cultural change, the legendary Motown portfolio made its mark not just on the music industry, but society at large, with a signature Motown Sound that has become one of the most significant musical accomplishments and stunning success stories of the 20th century.

Discover The Legacy

Like many other African Americans in the early 20th century, Berry Gordy, Sr. and his wife, Bertha Fuller Gordy, came North from Georgia to find a better life for themselves and their family.

Gordy Family

Motown is an extended family of some of the most iconic and influential artists, musicians and songwriters of our time. Brought together by destiny through their love for making music, they found themselves making history.

Motown Artists

The culmination of years of planning, hard work and generous contributions from dedicated donors, the highly anticipated, $50 million Motown Museum expansion project will grow the museum campus to a 50,000-square-foot world-class entertainment and education tourist destination.

Expansion

Support Motown Museum

When you contribute to the Motown Museum, you become part of a rich musical and cultural legacy. We are a 501(c)(3) not for profit, tax-exempt organization in Detroit.

Support Motown
Museum Donors

Monetary Support

Make a Donation

Donate

Partnership Opportunities

Giving Guide

Learn More

Annual Subscriber

Become a Member

Join Today!

Museum Hours

  • Monday: Closed
  • Tuesday: Closed
  • Wednesday: 10am-6pm
  • Thursday: 10am-6pm
  • Friday: 10am-6pm
  • Saturday: 10am-6pm
  • Sunday: 10am-6pm
Contact Us

🎙️ Saturdays at 2pm ET: Live From Motown Museum on SiriusXM's Smokey Soul Town (ch. 74)

News

Motown’s Amplify Competition Returns to the Stage

March 2023

For the past five months, next to the storied Hitsville, U.S.A., house where stars were born, some new artists have been singing and dancing their way into the Motown family.

Selected as finalists for the latest edition of the Motown Museum’s “Amplify: The Sound of Detroit,” 10 singers have been working through the paces of artist development — vocal coaching, choreography, media training and more — in the spirit of Motown’s classic system.

Rapper Doug E. Fresh, who is soon joining the Motown Museum board of trustees, will serve as emcee, alongside a judges panel that includes Spotify executive Justin Norman, record producer Che Pope and artist manager Toya Hankins. Contestants will perform with a band led by decorated bassist Kern Brantley, vying for a $5,000 cash prize, studio time and mentoring from industry professionals.

The contestants, ranging in age from 19 to 39, will perform Motown classics that have been stylized to show off each singer’s musical personality, from swing to rock to gospel-blues. Their song selections are handpicked from Motown’s sprawling catalog. Among them: the Miracles’ “Ooo Baby Baby,” Rare Earth’s “I Just Want to Celebrate,” Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and Stevie Wonder’s “Boogie on Reggae Woman.”

Onstage Wednesday, the 10 singers may be going head-to-head, but since embarking on their “Amplify” journey in November, they’ve become a tight-knit group training together several times a week. That bond will be showcased at the Gem in a new “Amplify” feature: choreographed group performances of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” and DeBarge’s “Rhythm of the Night.”

“While this is a competition, it’s also important to our mission to build a community,” said “Amplify” director Tristan Andrews. “We want to keep instilling what was part of that original Hitsville foundation.”

The singers also embody the aspirations of Hitsville Next, the Motown Museum’s growing body of programs devoted to youth, and educational and community work. Based in a newly refurbished space adjacent to the museum — part of the organization’s ongoing $65 million expansion — the Hitsville Next portfolio includes summer camps, music-industry workshops and the annual “Motown Mic” spoken-word contest.

On a recent weekday, sunlight streamed into the Hitsville Next atrium as Andrews led the “Amplify” singers through steps and cues in one of the final rehearsal sessions ahead of Wednesday’s show. Their voices bounded off walls lined with vintage photos of artists at work in Studio A next door — the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Jackson 5.

“Being in this space is really motivational and inspiring,” said 19-year-old contestant Tavion Knight, of Detroit. “When I’m here, the creative juices pour out.”

Seasoned Detroit musicians including Brantley, Beth Griffith-Manley and Curtiss Boone have been mentors alongside Andrews, a Detroit native who once worked as a Motown Museum tour guide.

An actor and choreographer whose resume includes MTV, Andrews had just moved back to Detroit from L.A. when he had a chance encounter last summer with museum chief Robin Terry while attending the Temptations musical “Ain’t Too Proud.”

He was soon hired as program manager for Hitsville Next.

“It literally feels divine to me because it’s important to have a purpose,” he said.

“Amplify” is the first big project in his new role, and he has embraced it with relish, applying his years of work in theater and dance. He has been thrilled watching the contestants’ progress, including introverts who have blossomed into confident performers, asserting themselves with their personalized Motown interpretations.

“We’re giving (participants) the experience of what it’s like to be a professional artist, which is a lot of hard work,” Andrews said.

For the 10 singers, Wednesday approaches with a mix of nerves and excitement — the culmination of a special five-month adventure.

“The ‘Amplify’ team really cares,” said Jannah Garback, 29, of Fenton. “They treat you like a Beyoncé, like a superstar. To get that training, that Motown experience, has been magical. It’s hard work in the spirit of that Detroit grit. That’s something I’ll take with me.”


Back to blog home

Join Our Newsletter

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.