Up next on Curate.

When I was around like four or five years old, I thought it was a good instrument to play.

When I listened to other composers' pieces, I would listen to the character of the song.

We wanted to plan an event that we could bring everybody together and celebrate our differences and we landed on storytelling.

This type of environment is crucial to community.

Good morning, good afternoon or good evening.

Not sure when we're greeting you, but we're excited that we are.

I'm Jason Kypros.

And I'm Heather Mazzoni.

Welcome to the season finale of Curate.

Storytelling is as old as humanity itself, a way we make sense of who we are and how we connect.

WHRO's Story Exchange explores the art of storytelling, inviting members of our community to share their personal narratives in this live series and now video podcast.

And now introducing your host for the night, give it up for Mr.

Brendan Kennedy.

Thank you so much.

How we doing Push Comedy Theater?

My name is Brendan Kennedy.

I'm gonna be your host for the evening and I am super duper excited for this show.

I have, I've hosted storytelling shows here in the past and I'm so glad to be doing it again.

I'm so glad to be working with WHRO.

This is gonna be so nerdy, but hang in a round of applause for public media.

We wanted to plan events that celebrated those principles of community building, of belonging.

We kind of examined the climate, the political climate, the social climate, right?

And we wanted to plan an event that ultimately we could bring everybody together and celebrate our differences and we landed on storytelling because the shortest distance between two people is a story.

I grew up not knowing my real dad.

The last name House was my stepdad's.

Why am I about to cry?

This is a good story.

I come from a big loud family and if you wanna be heard in my family, you better come with a story.

The highlight of the show is we're trying to bring a group from Ukraine to the tattoo and you can't get a military band because all the men are fighting the war, but we found this incredible group of young women that danced and drummed called the Ukrainian crazy drummers and they reached out and they wanted to come.

But they said, "How in the world can we come?"

There's no flights out of Ukraine.

US embassies close, we can't get visa.

So I love telling stories, I love listening to stories and they come and they crush it and they're so welcomed and they have a week to forget about the war.

There's some things I like to tell people and the best way I know to do it is through a story.

But I'm now the longest tenured producer director of a military tattoo anywhere in the world and I found a home.

Who would have guessed it?

Thank you.

Give it going guys.

Scott Jackson.

That was fantastic.

So yeah, I was inspired by the idea of home.

Some days felt like a final notice.

Others like welcome home.

I know the theme of the night is home.

This is my home.

Home equals house plus love.

I felt at home I am Already Home.

And listening to the rain trickle down the gutter as we sip our evening tee arms.

Storytelling, it kind of encapsulates the overall culture a lot since your first night away from your family home.

This type of environment where we can all come together and kind of share our stories is crucial to togetherness like community.

It is kind of more intimate and you get that real connection.

To know that although change is good, soon enough, safety, routine, and peace of mind will be all they will ever know.

Thank you.

It was time to find foundational answers.

So I located my real dad.

I got his phone number and I know those stories I've heard where the kids reach out to the parents and it's a negative outcome so I simplified my intent.

I just wanted to hear his voice and so I dialed the number and he answered hello and I hung up on him.

It was an overwhelmed reaction, but I called back and we talked.

I told him about me, but I asked him more about himself and I couldn't absorb his information fast enough.

And when the call ended, I was satisfied.

He was kind.

He was kind.

Glancing at the world around me filled me with gratitude and love.

We all have a story to tell.

We all have a history to our life and I think when you have your own story to tell, there's always something valuable that comes from that.

There's always something that other people can gain from that.

I felt whole and complete with an abundant overflowing cup.

Thank you.

Woo.

Thank you.

I value hearing other people's truths and authenticity and vulnerability.

I am most surprised by the reaction of the audience when they hear people's stories.

And we have children and when I had our first, our daughter, I made sure that when I would cuddle with her at night before laying her down in her crib to put her ear to my chest so she could hear the thump bump of my heart because I finally found a home in myself that was comfortable and complete becoming home for her.

It's really growing storytelling in our region and I love that.

So I hope we can continue to keep this going.

Up next, we're meeting someone who reminds us that curiosity has no age limit.

At nine years old, Lailah Moore's fingers dance across the piano keys with a skill far beyond her years.

And when she looks up at the night sky, she doesn't just see stars.

She sees possibilities.

That's right.

Most kids her age are still deciding between Lila in the loop and Uno.

Lailah's choosing between Carnegie Hall and well, outer space.

I mean, why not master Mozart and Mars before bedtime?

Discover the discipline, imagination, and heart of a young pianist who believes music and science can live in the same dream.

Inside Chandler Recital Hall at the Dean School of Music on the campus of Old Dominion University, we meet Lailah Moore, an eight-year-old pianist practicing her performance selection for the Harold Protsman piano competition for young artists.

Yes, I do consider myself a good pianist.

When I was around like four or five years old, I thought it was a good instrument to play.

I liked how you could play it with your hands instead of like having to use it something else to play it with.

The first thing might have been just like pressing keys for the first time.

Posture and stuff.

And young Lailah took her dedication to the piano very seriously.

Her skillset grew with age.

She went from tapping keys and finding her way through notes to mastering chords.

But Lailah's growth wasn't by chance.

She has a rigorous and consistent practice schedule, which she sticks to daily.

I tried to practice for about an hour a day.

20 minutes of like scales and arpeggios and stuff and I would do another 20 minutes where I usually just focus more on like my RCM and then do it like stuff in this app, a piano app, like to work on other pieces.

Yeah.

Are you able to start from here or where would be good for you?

Previous pace.

To help guide and develop her skillset, Lailah began working with Dr.

Faith Zuniga, a coveted and accomplished piano teacher.

Lailah's actually very advanced for her age.

That's shown through how recently she's won some top prizes in some competitions against kids who are actually older than her.

I do try to test her limits, right, and keep growing right at the edge of her limits.

I don't want to do that all the time so I'm also having her do pieces that are more in the middle range of what she can do.

Well, of course my piano teacher inspires me by the way she plays and like her expressiveness.

I wanna get to that level in a few years.

And use elbows.

Good.

Nice elbows at the end.

And that was great that you waited on the fermata so you could plan your ending and go quickly.

Yeah, that was very nice.

Good job.

At age three, she began Lailah's Learning Corner, a channel dedicated to making STEM, reading, and cooking an adventure for children like her.

So six per zero equals six and then nine plus two equals 11.

I hope it helps get kids involved with STEM.

Sometimes I do reading.

You need a purple voice, but more purple you Become.

Sometimes I make them food, get like sweet things.

If she has a sweet teeth like me, you're gonna love this recipe.

I think my favorite episode is either in the episode about making pizza or the one about making slushies.

It works.

It's like we have a slushy.

Lailah also brings her followers along as she explores different parts of the world.

We slip into several countries.

When Senegal, I went to this big monument and I went to the top of it.

That monument is the African Renaissance monument located in Dakar Senegal.

But Lailah's journeys always seem to make their way back to music.

She has a special skill for finding a piano on every continent she travels through, like this one located in a Euro star station between Paris and London.

We just saw a piano in the train station and I just played it.

I like keeping my watchers up to date on my musical journey.

And even though music is a huge part of Lailah's life, she has another subject she is equally as passionate about.

My favorite subject science.

I like doing experiments, especially if it's like an exciting experiment.

Her love for science doesn't stop there.

Lailah has a very specific dream.

I would also like to be an astronaut when I grow up.

I wanted to be the first person in Mars and I want to know more about space along with music.

It's impossible to confine Lailah's life to just one note.

Lailah is an orchestra of talent with limitless possibilities.

The doors are wide open for her to do whatever she wants.

Of course, selfishly, I would love her to be a musician.

What I hope to accomplish is that she has a lifelong love of music and also that she has the skills to do whatever she wants to do with music by having built a good foundation.

But if anyone can be both an astronaut and a professional pianist, it's Lailah Moore.

I also want to play a song that I compose as the first song that's played on Mars.

Maybe it's something in the water on the Eastern Shore, or maybe something deeper.

Three artists all in the neighborhood of 80 years old are still devoted to their craft, each reminding us that the need to create has no limits.

Yeah.

You can actually use a little more at the bottom, but if you only have - Yeah, wait, wait.

We need, we need... Hold on, wait.

We are, it's makeup and - Wait, wait, wait, Wait.

Take one, WHRO.

Three women.

Thanks.

What, you almost took her nose off.

Two, two and a half women.

Nobody waits.

Two minus a nose.

Wait a minute.

No, now it's crooked.

There you go.

Yeah, do that.

Okay, there you go.

Okay.

Thank you.

Somebody who really feels creative, talk first and then, because, because I know what I do is creative.

Creating something is not my objective.

Oh.

My objective is not being bored.

My objective is, is living in other worlds other than my mundane everyday life.

I have always said I'm incapable of making up a story.

If I don't dream it, it doesn't happen.

Huh.

But if I dream of a basic plot, then I get to live in that place for a while and watch the characters walking around in my head and look and see what they're doing and a story comes out and it keeps me mentally engaged.

Interesting you say that because I paint women a lot.

Uh-huh.

And I get to create a creature.

It's not three dimensional, but in my mind it kind of is.

Yeah.

You know?

I'm, I'm, I get to make her eyes whatever color and her hair.

I can make her dress or make her wearing cowboy boots or whatever I want.

It's absolutely creating something and I can't help but smile when I'm parenting.

Ah, okay.

Yeah.

I've always got a litle smirk on my face when I make one on hers.

Yeah.

So Come On, what about you?

Well, I've always liked making things.

I think from depression era parents, you know, are always making stuff out of found stuff.

But when I found pottery, when I found clay, it really hit me.

Working in clay is just chaos.

There are all these things that need to be cared for, but when I'm working, that's when I get more and more ideas.

Oh yeah, sure.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

And I love the idea of people taking it home and using it and the tactile feeling they get.

That's, that's really enjoyable to me.

I don't know where I get my inspiration.

I just go in the room and I just start.

I'm working on a woman the other day and I like her.

She's sitting in an interesting position and she has a beautiful dress.

I'm like, "Man, she needs just a little bit more light on her face."

And then I got putting a light on her face, then her shoulder, and then her other shoulder and it's got to be on the hand and then on the dress.

And next thing I know, three hours later, I was, I feel pretty good about it.

I didn't start out well.

My mother left us and my father died when I was a baby.

My and uncle adopted me, my sister and brother, sisters and brother and I didn't get together till I was 12 and so it's, it's been, it's been a kind of a weird road.

My husband committed suicide, shut himself in the head and let me to find him and that was a tough one, believe me.

This is my healing place.

I moved here when I was at Smith Beach, I couldn't paint anymore.

If I'm sad, I can put it out and make something happy.

Don't expect flowers to bloom when your heart's a volcano.

So I have been goofing off for 50 years and playing, painting little pictures and love and life.

Every single thing that I've written in one way or another was because I wanted to know something.

It's not my identity.

I was a model once, I was a dancer once, I was a psychotherapist once, I was an animal behaviorist once.

I was a medical writer once.

Now I'm this kind of writer.

It's something I do and it's fun and I like it.

And if I'm not doing it right now, then I'm not doing it.

If I never do it again, as long as other things are engaging me, then I'm happy.

I supported myself primarily with medical writing and this stuff sort of was a hobby that financed itself until some of them started really selling, but I couldn't count on that.

My bestselling book is something called The Period Book.

It took 30 years but it's still in print and it has sold over half a million and that's only in the US and Canada a book on getting your period for little girls.

I was dragged here by the ex.

And I didn't want to be here.

We just moved back from Africa and I was, I think I've mentioned before, I was just happy to drink tap water.

My husband and I had been together for 30 some years at the height of my wood firing I developed in 2017 a blood cancer.

When I was diagnosed, he deci - his great response to that was to have an affair.

And so then he went to South America to find himself.

Eventually I had to have a double lung transplant at the time it was very complicated so no more wood fires.

We heated part of the house and my studio with wood stove, no more.

It was kind of sad.

I did have this problem like what am I gonna?

I focused then on porcelain.

The only thing I really liked in electric kilns is porcelain.

It's not quite as luminescent, but it still has that quality.

I'm, I'm a visual person, I use my pottery in the kitchen and I give it as gifts.

I see it all the time and it's, it's very pleasing to me.

It's just part of my daily life.

I used to live in a French, with a Frenchman in a s - in the Caribbean.

In St.

Martin on a boat.

Mm.

And he used to say, "Appetite comes while eating."

And it's the same thing with creating.

You know, energy comes while creating energy.

Being this far along in our, I don't know, career, doing... I feel more free.

Oh, yeah.

And definitely more free, more confident.

I think you know, I'm not trying to please anyone anymore.

Right, right.

So I feel like I've had some validation.

Well, it's a good community overall.

I mean, it's a good, it's a good place to be.

I can't tell you how many people that I have as friends are artists by trade and that's, that's really unusual.

Well, it is beautiful and it makes a big difference to be living in just you look out your window and it's pretty.

You get on that bridge, it's like phew.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Doesn't it feel good?

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm home.

Yeah.

So nice.

I thought it was going to be very difficult to leave New York, but New York's a young person's town.

It's a very much a young person's town and all of a sudden over is over and I didn't mind leaving at all.

You know, why do we keep doing it?

Why not?

It's fun.

That's right.

And if you're having fun, why wouldn't you?

My advice would be just don't stop.

Try anything, everything.

That's right.

Just get, keep, try so nice.

Keep your mind open and just let it happen, you know?

And don't let anybody tell you it's wrong.

There is no wrong.

God, I don't know.

I had no idea we would be interesting for this long.

I Know.

I don't know if We have been.

Yeah, I don't know that we have been.

I have had a better life than most people that I know, really.

And I, I appreciate that.

Welcome back to Curate Presents.

I am Kayda Plus and I am here with Alexander J. How's it going, Alex?

What's going on, man?

Tell me about how you got into filmmaking.

It was me and my friends in high school making music.

We needed a music video.

One thing led to another and I picked up a camera and just started making all the music videos for my friends.

Back then, and I think now also, you had a nickname.

What was that?

The video guy.

I always had a camera in my hand.

And at first it was cool, but now realizing it's kind of like put myself in a box of just being the local video guy.

So how'd you come out of the box?

Shooting documentaries.

What was your first documentary?

The first documentary that I worked on was with James Jones, the unarmed black male.

It was about a black guy in Walmart who was ultimately shot by a police officer in Portsmouth.

How did you even begin a process like that?

It was my first documentary ever working on that scale.

It was more or less me just filming and watching the director do his thing and taking in those actions and applying it to myself.

Okay.

So the video guy, first your nickname and then a film.

Tell me what that's about.

So all in all, it's following me and my friends since I was age 18 getting out of high school and watching me grow up with them and shoot these music videos.

You could see who they are in front of this camera and then this documentary kind of shows a deep dive of who they are off of camera.

So meeting their families, showing the real life consequences of shooting these music videos.

Some of them have gone to jail, some of them have been shot, some of them have gone on to do regular nine to five jobs, which is almost, in a sense, giving up.

So you're actually capturing the life, the good, the bad, and the ugly, as they would say.

Yeah.

So my goal with this documentary is just to show people that's not in this world that these guys that you see on TV and YouTube and all these music videos is that they're not these crazy, scary people that you need to be afraid of.

It's really hard trying to tell somebody who doesn't have money that money isn't everything.

After 15 years of filming, what's the goal?

So right now we're still in an editing phase, still shooting a little bit.

The end goal and the in process is to get this out to people around the world.

So the Wickers Award, that, that came with funding, right?

Yeah.

It was 100,000 pounds, which translates over to about $134,000 here.

And I think you won over about more than 800 other billmakers in order to get that?

Yeah, so we beat out close to over 800 other applicants.

How did that feel?

All the other projects was strong.

Just being out on top kind of feels like, you know, a champion.

The project from what you said, it sounds really cool and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

So thank you for coming.

The film comes out in 2027, so just be on the lookout for that.

Okay.

Awesome.

Well, here we go again, Heather.

My least favorite part to Curate.

Aw, Jason, I know how you feel, but as sad as it is to say goodbye, we should also be appreciative of all the extraordinary artists that we've learned about this season.

You know, you're right, Heather, and I especially loved catching back up with so many folks from previous seasons.

My favorite part of season 10 was Curate Sessions.

There are so many cool and diverse acts that kept me tuning in every week.

Absolutely.

I'm a big fan of Kayda Plus and Curate Presents.

Seeing how many fabulous filmmakers there are in the 757 is super inspiring.

Overall, I'd like to say season 10 was a success.

I second that motion.

Season adjourned?

Yes, Jason.

Season adjourned.

We'll see you next season on Curate.

My body wants you, but I don't think I want to see you deserve more than what I can give you.

Wait till the morning for daylight to shine through.

Reveal all those secrets of the nighttime kept from you.

Scar on my forehead from an old third eye tattoo.

Thought I saw it all coming right up till I met you.

So I jumped the timeline in a shower with shampoo.

I despised my conditions and I ripped up my own roots.

I ain't the one new one.

You get out of the one.

I'll be the one new one.

I can be new.

Shoulder to lean on, to rest all your bad news.

See in that kind of mirror.

Your grip can be let loose.

Crash of the thunder in a lightning strike corkscrew.

See we're built to withstand it.

Held from in our new shoes.

I ain't the one new one.

I'll be the one new one.

I can be on.

You get everyone.

I'll be the one new one.

I can be anyone.