- I'm Christy McDonald and here's what's ahead this week on "One Detroit Arts and Culture".

Jazz pianists, Alexis Lombre, and her new single this week, as we celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month.

Plus getting ready to enjoy performances together again.

Chris Collins on the Jazz Fest this summer.

And the DSO's plans for audiences back at Orchestra Hall, and then learning more about Islam at the beginning of Ramadan.

It's all coming up this week on One Detroit.

- [Narrator] From Delta Faucet to Behr Paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

- [Narrator] Support for this program provided by, the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

The Kresge Foundation, Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.

- [Narrator] The DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit Public TV among the State's largest foundations, committed to Michigan-focused giving.

We support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our State.

Visit DTEFoundation.com to learn more.

- [Narrator] Business Leaders for Michigan dedicated to making Michigan a top 10 State for jobs, personal income, and to help the economy also brought to you by the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, and Viewers Like You.

(lively Cheerful music) - Hi there, I'm Christy McDonald, and welcome to "One Detroit Arts and Culture", happy to have you with me.

It is spring and while we are all looking forward to festivals and outdoor concerts, we're still navigating the rising COVID numbers.

But there is some hope on the horizon for enjoying music together soon.

Coming up, Chris Collins shares plans for Jazz Fest this year with John Penney from WRCJ, and I'll talk with Detroit Symphony Orchestra Vice-president Erik Ronmark, about heading back to Orchestra Hall.

Then April 12th marks the beginning of the Holy month of Ramadan for Muslims around the world.

We'll take our religious diversity journey to Bloomfield Township and learn more about Islam.

And we're starting off with jazz pianist Alexis Lombre she's based in Detroit in Chicago, only graduated from the University of Michigan a few years ago, but her talent and her hard work makes her a stand up among jazz veterans.

She dropped a new single this week and caught up with One Detroit's Will Glover.

(man murmuring) - How is everyone doing?

(lively instrumental music) - Well I grew up with... well jazz was always loved in my family was loved deeply by my grandparents and that love passed down to my mother, and then she passed it down to me.

I first started piano when I was nine, first it was classical training.

(warm instrumental music) - Started classical then for two years and I went to jazz and I did both at the same time.

And then my classical teacher was like, you need to pick one.

And I was like, I'm picking jazz bye.

♪ What you're praying I'm originally from Chicago, but I went to University of Michigan I just graduated there.

So while I was there, I realized I was close to Detroit, and I just went to jam sessions and started getting gigs and Detroit was really welcomed me so easily.

It was so easy just to... And such a warm family environment.

I mean Detroit and Chicago, are really liked sister cities in a lot of ways.

So Detroit in my development I mean lots of times while I was studying at University of Michigan, I was also being I don't know Saxophonist Wendell Harrison he's a Kresge Artist I just practiced at his house and he would give lessons and many of the mentors, Marion Hayden.

(instrumental music) - Talk to me about this new single and why you named it "Come Find Me."

What was the inspiration behind it?

Take me through a little bit of the thought process of Alexis around this.

- Well, I started writing this song while I was in college at University of Michigan.

So we started writing it in the practice rooms and I took it to my friend producer, Eddie Barne's house back in Chicago.

And he put this kind of like hip hop R&B beat onto it.

And before that I've never even really performed non-jazz originals in public.

So I was kind of terrified like, oh my gosh, like my fan base is gonna hate me I'm doing something different.

But melody and lyrics kind of come together so "Come Find Me" was just there like when I figured out the melody those lyrics were there, but I was wondering like in what context it was.

So at first I was writing the lyrics and it was like about this dude, like, come find me when you wanna treat me right and you wanna act right.

And then it started turning around like I had this kind of spiritual session, I'm Christian, I love the Lord.

And it just kind of ended up being a conversation between me and God and God saying, "Come find me."

(bright upbeat music) - What advice do you have for people who are just starting out or what advice to can you pass on what you've received?

- I guess the best thing I would honestly say is to know yourself, and to get to know yourself and realize like how much of yourself do you know.

Because once you know yourself, you can know what kind of decisions you wanna make, what kind of people you wanna be around.

And you can start visualizing where you wanna see yourself.

But if you don't know yourself you're just kind of like a summation of everybody around you.

And if you're not around all the right people all the time, then you're just kind of drifting in the wind.

♪ If you want somewhere to go ♪ Oh oh ♪ A place you can call home ♪ Oh oh ♪ Come find me ♪ Come to find some peace inside ♪ ♪ Before you lose your mind ♪ I ll be waiting - And we will get to hear more from Alexis at the end of the show.

All right Well, if you didn't have it on your calendar, April marks Jazz Appreciation Month, and a lot of music fans are looking forward to Jazz Fest this year, Detroit Public Television teamed up with other media partners to broadcast and stream the event to music lovers around the world, back in September.

Well John Penney from WRCJ caught up with Detroit Jazz Festival Creative Director, Chris Collins for more on this year's lineup.

- I'm John Penney from WRCJ 90.9 here with the President of the Detroit Jazz Festival, Chris Collins.

It's great to see you.

- You too John, what a pleasure.

- And I have to say, I was thinking about it.

And actually, you were one of the very last people that I actually saw face to face without a mask at last year's virtual festival, which once again, I'm gonna say, I call the miracle of the marriot.

(laughing loudly) Because what you guys were able to pull off in a very short period of time was just masterful.

- You know we had two ACEs in the hole one was we are one of the very very few, no-admission festivals and one the largest in the country.

So we didn't have a ticket profit to worry about losing.

And secondly we've been working on our media streaming and broadcast technology for about four years now, which we already had in the can, with the help of DPTV and WRCJ and other media partners.

So we had that going for us and in the end the real heroes of all that we're the craftsmen and the creativity of those craftsmen in our community.

Because I remember drawing stages 'cause we had to build the custom sound stages.

They didn't exist as on napkins and stuff.

And then we created computer realizations and had that all kind of ready.

But when we pulled the trigger, you know, we had over 425 crew staff and artists involved.

I'm happy to say three months afterwards not a single case of COVID 'cause we had as you know extensive safety protocols.

And in the end when we got the metrics, we reached, nearly a million people in 32 countries which I think was a beautiful thing for Detroit.

- Can you tell us about the lineup for this year's festival?

- First of all you know I love to talk about what our artists and residents Dee Dee Bridgewater is doing.

Dee Dee has been committed to raising awareness of the strong women leaders in jazz, of all generations.

And she has a number of programs throughout the country where she trains young women artists, and she brings them together in different ensembles.

And we're gonna see the output of that in many ways.

On Friday night she'll be opening the festival with her the Woodshed ladies ensemble.

And this is an ensemble she's put together from one of her very particular programs that brings different generations of really strong musicians together to perform some new music and some new arrangements.

She'll be closing the festival with a big band over all-female big band.

That again brings people young ladies from all over the country together to perform with her.

We're also gonna have on opening night something everybody will appreciate.

All new music by the great Herbie Hancock.

So you're gonna Friday night start with our 2021 artists and residents, and then the great Herbie Hancock with some of his new music and a new ensemble, great way to kick it off for sure.

- Oh, you think?

- And then throughout the festival as always a smattering of artists from all different genres of jazz, we'll hear musicians that are from like Anat Cohen's new tenet which is really sophisticated, beautiful stuff.

And then you'll hear artists who are younger, that you may have never even heard before.

It will be a surprise and that's a big part of Detroit jazz.

As you walk around the corner and you hear something going on at a stage, and you end up sitting there for the entire set because it's so fresh and clean mixed with some of the great masters of the music.

- Chris Collins, I can't thank you enough for taking time to talk to us today, it sounds like you're very busy.

And we're really looking forward to the festival coming up this Labor Day Weekend, whether it's going to be virtual or live, we'll keep our fingers crossed for alive, but whichever way I have no doubt.

It's the Detroit Jazz Festival after all.

It's going to be awesome.

Chris Collins, president of the Detroit Jazz Festival thank you so much.

- More arts and music organizations are trying to figure out what the fall season will be like.

Last month The Detroit Symphony Orchestra announced its new season and plans for audiences back at Orchestra Hall.

I spoke with Vice President and General Manager of the DSO Erik Ronmark.

- Give us an idea Eric of the conversations that have been going on recently behind the scenes that got you to make this decision and really this big announcement.

- Well, I think you hit it right on the head there, Christy, hope Arts and Culture I think it's here to provide people with a sense of hope.

And that has been on our minds since we started talking about what we could do this season even.

We've had a lot of conversations last summer about coming back and doing something in our hall, but we didn't know what we were gonna be allowed to do, how this pandemic was gonna affect us all.

But working together with the musicians of the orchestra, we came up with a great plan, a safe plan to come back and do concerts even this season.

- What is the DSO doing to make sure that things are as safe as possible?

- Now as we slowly start to bring audiences in even this spring, and then hopefully coming back to the fall, we're gonna follow all of the safety procedures as we have during this season.

We have a great UV filtration in our HVAC systems and we wanna make sure even to the point of electronic tickets, contactless entries and stuff like that, it's really important for us to be safe.

And right now we could have audiences up to 250 people per the guidelines that are out there now.

And that's what we're hoping we can get to as we get later into the Spring.

- You know rewind a year and DSO made the big announcement that Yada Bina Mini was going to be the music director and a very exciting announcement at that, and then all of a sudden the Pandemic hits.

So '21 '22 will really be his first full season.

Talk a little bit about the programming that is going involved in that and what audiences can expect to see.

- You're right yeah Yada has been a true champ in this, he actually has been here conducting already two times in the fall and has come here and quarantined safely and conducted the orchestra in three different programs this Fall and we're gonna see him again in May.

And you're gonna see a lot of different repertoires, a lot of diverse repertoires something that the DSO has always been a champion on is really promoting diverse artists.

So out of the whole season we're gonna have a third of the composers next season are gonna be living composers.

Over 25% are going to be black composers.

And this is something that has been at the core of the DNA of the DSL for 40 50 years.

But we know we can always do more.

So there's some great programs we're gonna have Brad from ourselves, come here and play the saxophone concerto.

We're gonna open with the Siberian Violin Concerto and large Italian repertoire and you're gonna see Beethoven nine.

- With times of great trouble sometimes we see a great transition and great creativity come out of it.

What do you think that we're going to be seeing musically in the next five years or so coming out of the pandemic and just maybe some things that we haven't seen before experienced before?

- When you have the time to sit down and think about how do we wanna be different not just as a DSO, but as an industry.

And I think the orchestral industry as a whole really it's been a wake-up moment for us during this year as a pandemic, missing the audiences, but also the social unrest that we've seen in this country and the focus on diverse composers, diverse artists.

I think for us it's something that we've always done, but we really wanna do more.

We would really wanna do more for Detroit and not just midtown where we are but in the city as a whole.

- How would you describe it, Eric, to people when they sit together and they consume music together?

- Music is an art form that you experienced in real-time.

And so when you come to Orchestra Hall, you and 2000 of your closest friends are sharing that experience together.

And once that concert is over, that experience has gone.

No two performances are alike.

So it is truly there is a shared experience that you are living in real-time.

And I think that's what's so unique about music.

(upbeat instrumental music) - And finally April 12th marks the beginning of Ramadan.

It's the Holy month of fasting and prayer for Muslims around the world.

So tonight's "Religious Diversity Journey" is all about Islam.

It's a program put on by the Interfaith Leadership Council of Metro Detroit to learn about different religions through the eyes of students.

And we head to the Muslim Unity Center in Bloomfield Township, (muslim praying loudly).

- As-salamu alaykum peace be upon you.

My name is Dima El-Gemal I am a member of the Muslim Unity Center Interfaith Committee and a formal board member.

The Muslim Unity Center was founded in the early '90s, and there's about 300 families who are members of the Muslim Unity Center.

Muslim Unity Center is home away from home to a lot of community members.

Maria is gonna be our guest today to invite her through a multiple sessions, to explore our values and our tradition of the Muslim faith traditions.

She will learn about the fundamentals and origin of Islam.

She will also learn about the contributions of Islam civilization, as well as the role of women in Islam and much more.

As-salamu alaykum, Peace be upon you, welcome to the Unity Center.

My name is Dima El-Gamal I'm an Interfaith Committee member.

Welcome to the journey let's start.

(man praying loudly) This is Patrick and Arir.

- Hi.

- Hi.

- Hi, As-salamu alaykum Maria, nice to meet you.

- What are the fundamentals of Islam?

- The fundamentals of Islam, well Islam is built upon five pillars.

The first of which is called The Testification of faith, the Shahada and basically it states that you believe that there is no God worthy of worship, except God one God.

And that the prophet Muhammad is his messenger.

- Is Islam a new Religion?

- Muslims believe that from the time of Adam and Eve, all the way up to the present and continuing through a line of prophets and revealed scriptures, that Islam came as a completion of that chain of revelation.

- Who are Muslims?

- Muslims represent every race and nationality across the world.

- Did you know that not all Muslims are Arabs?

Only 15% of the world's Muslims are Arabs.

- Here at the Unity Center you'll find people with origins in the Arab world, from East Asia, from Africa all over the world.

(bright instrumental music).

- What are you doing?

- We're just setting up decorations for Eid.

- What's Eid?

- Eid is the Arabic translation for a holiday and Muslims celebrate two holidays, Eid ul Fitri and Eid ul-Adha.

How do Muslims celebrate Eid?

- They celebrate aid by gathering at the local mosque for special congregational prayers and services.

They give charity to those that are in need, and they also gather with family and friends and celebrate with good food, fun, new clothes, and plenty of gifts.

- What do you say to a Muslim during Eid?

- We say Eid Mubarak which means a blessed holiday during both Eid.

(bright instrumental music) - How many times do you Muslims pray each day?

- Muslim say five times each day.

- When you see a Muslim pray, you will most likely see them going through different motions.

You'll see them standing up, you'll see them bowing down, you'll see them then pause trading.

This is the greatest way of showing one's submission to God.

- Do Muslims only pray in the mosque?

- So for a Muslim, he or she is able to pray anywhere, any place the moment the time comes in for prayer, they are asked to pray.

- This is why some students prefer to pray in a quiet place in school?

- Do men and women pray in the same place in a mosque?

- The answer is that women are given the option, in the time of the prophet 'peace be upon him, women and men prayed in the same prayer hall.

So it is permissible Islamically for men and women to pray in the same prayer hall.

(bright instrumental music) - Can you tell me about what Islam has contributed to civilization?

- That's a brilliant question.

As you can see from these 1001 invention posters that the Muslims contributed to schools, hospitals, the universe under Muslim civilization.

And these are run from the 8th century, all the way to the 16th century, and this was titled "The Golden Age for the Muslims."

(bright instrumental music) - Can you explain to me why you're covering your head?

- Sure that's a question I get asked often.

Islam teaches modesty for both men and women.

The Islamic dress code for women is referred to as Hijab.

So once a Muslim girl reaches the age of puberty, she will cover her body with loose clothing only showing her hands and her face.

And Hijab looks different in different parts of the world because it's influenced by culture.

And you'll see some of the moms and their daughters outside some of them are wearing Hijabs some of them aren't, and there might be a little some subtle differences in the way that they choose to wear Hijab.

- What is a woman's role in Islam?

- So Islam teaches respect for women, regardless of what their role is as mothers, daughters, wives.

The Koran has many verses and through the prophetic teachings that emphasize respect for women and teaches equality of men and women in their deeds and their spirituality.

- Does Islam support arranged marriage?

- No, not at all in Islam for a marriage to be valid, both the bride and the groom have to give their consent to the marriage otherwise, it's not valid.

- Thanks for answering my questions about "Woman in Islam."

- Yeah, no problem, thanks for asking.

- Thank you for coming today Maria and for visiting the Muslim Unity Center and learning about your Muslim friends and neighbors.

And hopefully you can come again and bring your friends and your family.

- Thank you for showing me around.

- My pleasure, come again.

- Goodbye bye.

- Bye.

- Bye.

(bright instrumental music) - And for all of our "Religious Diversity Journeys through Different Faiths," just head to our website at onedetroitpbs.org.

All right, let's leave you with a performance now from jazz pianist, Alexis Lombre, enjoy it.

And I'll see you next week, take care.

(lively instrumental music) - [Announcer] You can find more at OneDetroitPBS.org or subscribe to our social media channels and sign up for our One Detroit Newsletter.

(lively cheerful music) - [Announcer] From Delta Faucets to Behr Paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

- [Narrator] Support for this program provided by The Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for journalism at Detroit Public TV, The Kresge Foundation, Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.

- [Narrator] The DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit Public TV among the state's largest foundations, committed to Michigan-focused giving.

We support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state visit DTEFoundation.com to learn more.

- [Narrator] Business Leaders For Michigan dedicated to making Michigan a top 10 state for jobs, personal income, and to help the economy.

Also brought to you by the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family foundation and Viewers Like You.

(lively cheerful music)