One, two, three, four.

Get my shoes in at the door.

Five, six, seven, eight.

Feels great.

I've got a in Africa.

I'll do it.

I am gonna do a lot to take a look at this guy with the beautiful column about more than just for me.

I got to share it with another.

I got to show you give let out a long singing show.

I'll take a look at a beautiful morning that turns to a beautiful evening and look at the big, beautiful light.

And if you want to see that, come along with me that's what I love.

Nothing more than being out in nature.

I'm excited for this week's show.

Hey, I'm Irish, Dave.

We're going to check in with Kelly.

She's at the Laporte County Symphony Orchestra.

We're also going to check in with Courtney, who's going to show us an exhibit called Shared Spaces at Fire Arts in South Bend.

But first, I'm here and beautiful L.A. one of the best hidden gems is called the Elkhart Conservation Club.

Let's go inside and see what's coming up here.

If it looks cozy in here, I promise you it is just as cozy as it looks.

I'm here at the Elkhart Conservation Club.

I've passed by the entrance to this probably a hundred times over the last couple of years, and I never even knew that it was in here.

I'm here with Warren right now.

Warren, this is a secret.

It's like it's like a best kept secret.

It is, unfortunately, one of the best kept secrets.

We're trying to make that a little different and not be so secretive.

So we have coming up on March 19th, a wooden duck house building workshop Yeah.

So tell me a little bit about that, because where the ducks normally go, I mean, why do they need these and that's being built?

Well, it was back in the board of fifties that they discovered that our population was really decreasing.

And with research, they discovered that wood ducks are very adaptive to manmade houses.

Otherwise, they would look for a house and trees they might have to go through over 100 different nesting sites to find something that would be appropriate where we can build them a nesting site.

And they're very agreeable to using it.

So that's that's what we're all about.

So have you seen an increase in the number of wood ducks since you built these?

Absolutely.

And it's nice to see in our area in the Central River Basin, the abundance of wood ducks this morning I counted over 25 of them and in fact I went out and opened up a lot of my wood duck houses because they're like they're already coming up from down south to getting ready to look for a nesting house.

So yeah, so this is a great time.

March 19th.

It's open to the public.

I know there is a cost of $35, but that includes all the materials.

Yes, it does.

So can you show me a little bit because I'm useless when it comes to building things so good.

Can you help someone like me?

Absolutely.

Let's do this.

Here we go.

All right, so we've got a front outside, a side and a back.

Okay.

And I think what we'll do today is simply do outside.

If you could you just help me a little All right.

Hold that up on there.

I'll leave this up here.

Okay.

And there is it backwards.

It takes about 26 spruce to put our house together.

Okay.

So do people have to register in advance or.

Yes, they do.

And if the phone number is available and we'd like to see maybe about ten people show up to start building their own dark house.

So the phone number is on the screen.

And if people call that up, then just let them let you know, hey, we're going to be there in the day.

And then you know what materials to get that.

Exactly.

Okay.

Well, even though we're doing this, can we go over and have a look at one of the ones that's already made just to just to see the finished product?

Absolutely.

The hole is about three inches high and about four inches across.

You can see this has got some tearing on there.

And that's from that nasty raccoon that thinks he wants to have dinner on the ducks so he can't get in there.

And it's very important.

You don't make too big of a whole oak.

Yeah.

You don't want anything else.

So.

So is this what's inside then?

This is this is the the mother duck Of course.

She lays are eggs.

Yep.

And she puts her down in here.

This is obviously a hatch dig and that's.

That's the way it looks.

You have to put a little ladder in here so that the ducklings can.

I was actually just about to ask, how do they get out?

Yeah, yeah.

You got to have a ladder in there, and they'll climb right up.

Oh, wow.

And right out.

Wood, is there a certain point, a place that you recommend people put these, like, close?

Obviously, close to water as they don't need to be real close to water.

However, that does make it a little better.

And if the entrance, in fact, is facing the water, it's better.

And I've got a post here.

We generally try to get them about six, eight feet.

You can see this is yeah, it's on a ten foot line post and that's just an excellent size form.

It's easy to mount them on that post.

And once you put it down that far, it won't be affected by the water.

And the predators can climb the post very easily.

So that's a good way to go about it.

So that's coming up March 19th.

I know that in April we're going to have Earth Day, so we're going to chat to Dennis about Earth Day.

That's happening here as well.

Right.

Absolutely.

All right, let's do that.

I'm here with Dennis, and I'm trying to resist any ill puns that I have right now.

Okay, I'll stop.

What kind of an owl is this?

This is this is an eastern screech owl and eastern screech owl.

Yes.

Do they screech?

Yes, they do screech.

Okay.

They scream.

So I know that Earth Day is coming up on April 30th, which it's really important to acknowledge that.

So what is happening here at the Elkhart Conservation Club for the public on that day?

Well, we're doing on the 30th we're doing two presentations.

Is he biting you right?

Yes, he's biting.

We're doing two presentations.

One of them is going to be on Raptors, which we'll be doing.

And then we're having Indiana Wildlife Federation coming in and they're going to be talking about wildlife habitat.

Okay.

And how you can make your yards, your property more wildlife friendly, nice.

And will people get to see some of these owls?

Will have we'll have at least one here, probably three.

So probably have Screech, a bard and a great horn.

So what's going on with Screech here?

Why is he here and why is he out flying around?

Well, about a week and a half ago, he hit a car.

Oh, gosh.

And he's kind of trying to we're trying to get him back so we can release him right now if it's kind of iffy or whether we're going to be able to release him or not.

Because he's got he's got to buggered up.

I can see that he's left.

I have a dog left over myself, you know, so but he's absolutely beautiful and I can touch him and he'll immediately turn his head to see he's touching me.

Yes.

Who's that?

Well, you know why the little piece of information about all the reason they turn their head, they can't move their eyeballs, okay?

Because they don't have eyeballs.

They have eye tubes.

Okay.

And they so they have to move their head so they can just see, oh, they can't turn their head completely around, like all they do about 270 degrees.

If you could turn his head the whole way around, I wouldn't be touching his back.

Right.

So yeah, he would bite.

He probably would All right.

So Earth Day.

What time is it?

He starts at ten.

Okay.

And is going to go uh till four a 4 p.m. now.

4 a.m. enough for him now because these guys will be awake.

I won't.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, people can get more information, as I know, from Elkhart Conservation Club and on Facebook and everything like that.

All the information.

So, yeah, again, I'm not going to say any of the old puns, but this this little fella is beautiful.

They're so pretty.

This they are so pretty.

They do a lot of really I mean, raptors rodents.

Yeah, a little statistic.

20.

18.

Would you like to take a guess how much grain worldwide was destroyed by rodents?

I don't know.

18 billion bushels.

That's a lot of we had that all that grain we could have fed the world yeah.

So they're important for their important part of the system around here, right?

They are.

All right.

Make sure you check out Earth Day here at the Elkhart Conservation Club.

It's really beautiful here.

They're really knowledgeable.

Dennis of the Owls and Warren and everybody else.

So make sure you're here.

The Laporte County Symphony Orchestra is returning to the Hold Craft Performing Arts Center for an exciting concert on March 13.

Joining us today are Carolyn Watson, the music director, and Hannah Collins, the guest cellist.

And Carolyn, let's start with you, because I remember the search for you.

It was long, it was arduous, but they found this awesome music director.

And you've been there for a few months now.

So how has it been so far?

Yeah, you're right.

It's it's it was all of those things.

But fortunately, I think, you know, what did they say?

Good things come to people who wait.

It's been a while.

It's been a wonderful beginning to my my tenure in the fall.

We've had three wonderful education concerts, the first subscription concert and most recently the holiday pop.

So very, very excited to be playing in Michigan City this time around as opposed to the sports and hopefully connecting with some of the local local community over there as well.

And speaking of connecting with the local community, how has it been to be able to perform again in front of a live audience?

It's been wonderful and especially such a such an appreciative one as as the CSO.

So it's been absolutely, you know, for myself and probably my fellow artists, I think it's just such a welcome return and relief.

And just so I think we realize perhaps some of the things that we really took for granted before that we certainly never will again.

That is so true.

Now, tell us a little bit about the concert because it's you chose Verdi and Tchaikovsky, and I'd love to know what was the inspiration behind choosing those composers?

Well, I think they're a good fit together.

These particular pieces that, you know, the Force of Destiny Overture, the Rococo Variations in Tchaikovsky's Mighty Symphony number five.

It just feels programing wise, it fits well together.

You know, they lived around about the same time.

They wrote, in many ways, similar kinds of music.

So that was, you know, I guess, a practical consideration.

And also the particular pieces with the variety and the energy, I think are really going to appeal to audiences.

And one of the things that is very special about this concert is you have an amazing guest, cellist Hannah Collins, joining you.

She's won numerous awards and she is just such an accomplished cellist.

I'm going to have you introduce her I don't know that I can, to be honest.

Basically, I mean, like, Hannah is like the bumpkin when it comes to cello.

So I'm going to get out of the way and whatever Hannah would like to say, I think let's let her do that.

All right, Hannibal, I will just ask you this, because I'm always interested in how everyone began the cello journey.

So can you share a little bit about that?

Sure.

I mean, I'm one of those who comes from a musical family, which I feel very fortunate for my mother as a pianist.

And my older sister picked up the violin.

And I think, you know, I felt very drawn to the cello.

And in my memory as a four year old, it was I who chose the cello.

But I think maybe there were other forces steering me towards that as well, too, to form a complementary family band.

Now, this is your first time playing with the Laporte County Symphony Orchestra.

How excited are you?

I'm super excited, especially to be collaborating with Carolyn Watson who is my colleague at Kansas and, you know, is out there doing amazing things across country and internationally.

And I've heard such wonderful things and had such a wonderful time interacting with the staff and and the whole the whole community already in advance right now.

But will you be playing will be will be presenting Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations, which is a sort of a classic of of the cello solo repertoire, but also a kind of interesting piece because it's written by Tchaikovsky in the late 19th century.

You know, he's known for this drama and romance, but the theme that he composed is sort of a tribute to simpler times that it's kind of inspired by 18th century music.

So it's this funny combination, sort of like a look back over history of the cello or a string playing in a way.

That's wonderful.

Now, I'd like to ask you two questions here, because one of the things I noticed in your your autobiography and your biography is that so you've had you like to build community through diverse forms of music.

Can you explain what that means and how you do that?

Sure.

You know, I, I just find you were just mentioning about, you know, what we won't take for granted following the pandemic.

I find that, you know, a big part of putting on a concert is just creating an occasion for people to come together and experience something at the same time in the same place.

The music is one aspect of that, but the setting and the sort of whole vibe is is the really important part.

And so I'm really interested in just creating as many different types of experiences like that as possible, whether it's in a grand concert hall, whether it's in a school or whether, you know, some other community setting.

And I find that a lot of different styles of music is, you know, create different exciting opportunities to do that in different ways.

Right.

Another thing that that was mentioned was that you also like to you have projects that you create where you're responding to society's pressing issues What is some of the issues that you would love to speak directly to through your music?

One of the big projects that I'm working on this spring has to do with the climate crisis and sort of the urgency of our response to it.

My dual partner, I play an a cello percussion duo called New Morse Code will be touring the country, presenting a piece that combines recorded sounds from nature with music that we're making, and we'll pair that with conversations in each location, whether it's a coastal community in Virginia or, you know, a place in the desert or a place in the mountains to kind of open up a conversation about how those that large theme climate, you know, climate change, climate action affects communities locally.

That's wonderful.

Okay.

One more question.

I know I said two, but I have one more.

What are your cello tips for me?

Because who it is, I played violin.

It is so hard, it's so different, but it's something that I love and I just kind of want to grow in it.

So what what what tips do you have for me?

Well, let me get a pen so go ahead.

Well, after the interview, we will connect you.

Call me anytime and we'll look at about the specifics.

But now I would say just, you know, follow your follow your love for it.

A lot of people are drawn to the teller because it kind of has a similar range to the human voice.

And it has this ability to to sing and my advice for for people who are picking up the cello or dabbling in it is is to go play the pieces that you're you're drawn to you know, don't don't censor yourself to try to stay away from pieces that you love.

If you love hearing back on the cello, go right for it and, you know, dig in and figure out how to get those sounds that you love.

But whatever it was that drew you to tell it in the first place, focus on that and follow follow that.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

And that's great.

And on all of our family and friends watching Caitlin, you heard she said, I can call her any time for some more tips.

So I'm so glad we got that on camera.

We got our own video.

But go back to that.

Absolutely.

And Caitlin, I also heard that there's an exciting opportunity for the audience to kind of rub elbows and come up close with the musicians.

That's right.

That's sort of something that we are working to do.

And the first occasion that we'll do it will be after this forthcoming concert in Michigan City.

And we'd like to welcome audience members to socialize with myself and members of the orchestra concert, which has been a little bit of a tradition with the.

Okay, so in the orchestra, musicians going out after a concert, and I think you know, one of the most wonderful things that we enjoy about the CSO and the performance experience is the kind of, you know, community and family feel of the orchestra so we would basically like to extend the invitation to our extended family and have the audience join us, post concerts and yeah, hopefully share their thoughts and feedback.

I think that's such a great idea because I know especially when I was younger, classical music, it seemed like so separate the audience and, and the players that the musicians, it was so separate.

And I think this way of connecting them because in the audience you always would love to meet the musicians and the conductor so I think that is a fabulous idea of connecting people in an even greater way through music.

Thank you.

And that's very much what we we hope to do so hopefully there'll be a good number of the audience members that take us up on that opportunity and increasingly more so in in, you know, months and years to come.

I hope Absolutely.

Well, Carolyn, it's on March 13.

Can you tell us how we can get more information and where we can get tickets?

So probably the best place to go for information is the Laporte County Symphony Orchestra website, which is w w w dot CSO dot net.

And that has not only got information about the March 13 concert, but the final concert in this season's subscription series, which is on April 24, which is a film fest featuring the music of John Williams and many others now and look very soon for information about the LC Izzo 22 23 season which is very special because of course it's the orchestra's 50th anniversary.

Oh wow.

That's going to be a great one.

Okay.

Well ladies, thank you so much for joining us.

Looking forward to an amazing concert.

Have a great day, ladies.

Thank you very Well, here in Michigan, we love the arts.

And this is one of my favorite plays here at the Fire Arts down in downtown South Bend.

And there's an amazing art show that's happening right now.

They're continuing it until the end of March.

And we have one of the artists here with us today.

Linda, thank you so much for joining us.

Oh, thank you for having me on the show.

Now, tell us a little bit about the exhibit.

What's the purpose of it?

Well, the purpose was to to bring three artists together who work very differently.

But like, at least four or five days a week, we shared the space over the summer.

We really took advantage of being able to come here.

And there's the kilns and we can just work from start to finish.

But and then at some point, we decided we should have a show because our works remained independent.

Of each other.

So and that to me was the real key is is working artists that you can have that kind of camaraderie and support.

But not lose sight of like who you are as an artist.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, even as an artist, there's so much that you can pick up from others, too.

Did you find some of that at times, too?

Oh, absolutely.

We each picked up things, and what I found after time is that it was because we were sharing our strengths, because that's where, you know, artists are always constantly learning.

And so you never get that feeling that you have the expertize to like share what you're doing.

So you really only share your strengths because that's where, you know, you have a little bit more confidence and a little bit more experience.

You know, it's like it's easy to share what doesn't work.

And so that's where you know, like we each would share things.

Linda focuses on experimenting with glazes and shapes and forms, but opening the kiln for her is is like, you know, is it terrifying?

Well, no.

Well, probably.

But for me, she's been doing it long enough that it's just increased exciting.

But we would all gather around to see, like, what was coming out of the kitchen because she had really mastered, you know, the use of glazes and overlapping and she is constantly taking classes online and in person at different places.

So she is a real experimenter and not afraid to push herself.

It really is a learning experience as you continue to grow as an artist.

It really is.

I mean, it's lifelong learning, and that's what I think most of us like about it.

It never gets boring.

And if if we thought, you know, we think it's boring, then we try.

Been there, done that.

Yeah.

It'd be, you know, it wouldn't it wouldn't hold on to us for so long.

It really kind of grabs us.

And how long have you been doing ceramics?

At least I started in high school.

Okay.

So a while ago, yeah, I went to Penn, and they had a really great art department.

And, you know, it was just it was an incredible experience.

And they had, you know, we had 2D and 3D and pottery and jewelry.

It was it.

If they really want me.

Yeah.

It launched me into knowing exactly what I wanted to do.

So I've been doing that.

I did art for, oh, 25 years, making and selling at art fairs and galleries.

And then about 25 years ago I, 20 years ago I started working at very special arts then it's now called Art Mix and it's a program for people, children and adults with disabilities.

And it changed everything in me.

My entire being changed my whole idea of success, change of, of what, what the process is changed.

Yeah.

So that's, that's kind of my art journey.

So that's where you're at.

Yeah.

So this show is kind of a combination of, of all those years, you know, and I see some of your beautiful art there as well.

Well, we want to share one of the pieces with us are two of the pieces.

Sure.

I like these orbs.

I've always been really fond of shapes.

I've always been an abstract artist for many years.

I carved limestone and, you know, did shapes and forms.

So just pure form is very exciting to me.

But then I when I was working with students with disabilities, I started to loosen up and I felt like I just really don't need to be so concerned with control.

So, you know, and then I started looking into some of the Japanese esthetic and and wabi sabi has become my mantra.

So, you know, I just really I like to put my hand on it.

And when it comes out of the kiln, I want it to look like somebody's made it and, you know, not a machine.

So, you know, so I get another piece that draws my intention.

These two pieces up here.

Yeah.

These are landscapes.

So, you know, again, the form that speaks to me and then just very subtle landscape images okay.

And then you're not the only artist is part of it.

Obviously, that's the shared space.

So there's two other ones you want to walk around a little bit.

Oh, of course.

About one of the other artists are sure they're kind of what they put together.

This work here, we tried to kind of separate us out for, you know, a little bit.

This is Lynda Mensah's work and you can a lot of color and a lot of color, a lot of nature.

And this really is her personality, too.

She is joyful and you know, she she's also humble.

It's like you can just see that in her work.

And I especially like the overlap pieces.

These are so interesting because you can't overlap unless you can already do that single layer.

So and I would have no first thing on how to do that.

So this is amazing.

This is just like glazes on here.

These are all glasses and that's how they come up.

Yeah.

And so she she overlaps.

So she's got a really good sense of color.

She knows what will, you know, overlap without overwhelming.

Sure.

That So I just really love her sense of style and and she takes very basic form and, and then does something really spectacular to it.

So.

And let's talk about the other artists, too.

Leigh Rosen is another lifelong artist and she has been making and studying art at the Art Center at IU South Bend, you know, quite a few places around town.

These are some of her pieces and these are her piece.

Well, and she has the patience truly ever since.

These are all individual strokes.

These little short red lines are individual strokes.

That many would have been so much easier.

Yes.

Or, you know, there's even ways now that you can make, um, you could make like a template.

A template, or and then just brush over it like a stencil.

Stencil stencil.

Sure.

Beautiful pieces, too.

And she is very moved by the abstract.

But you can also see in her work, because this is hers, that beautiful silk batik is hers.

And those drawings, the drawing and painting are hers and the fish, those are really interesting.

So you can see why she sees life as movement and she moves that way of it.

And so I think that's another thing I love about being here is, you know, we're all ages and we're open to very inclusive.

But I think just because of how long via arts has been around that a lot of us are a little more mature in our style.

And that's really kind of cool.

And, you know, I can see the personalities of people in here so well, if people want to come in, check out the art show right now.

Again, it's happening through the end of March.

That's right.

Do you know what the hours are here at the fire art?

Yes.

Tuesday and Thursday, it's noon to nine and they're closed Sunday and Monday.

And so then Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, it's noon to six 95.

I'm sorry.

I'm going to find in all the information you can find out on the website as well, too.

And I think what's exciting is you guys are going to be participating in first Fridays again, going back up.

That's really the first time in two years.

So that's going to be really wonderful.

Awesome.

A great time to come down and check out some of our local artists.

And you can even purchase some of it.

Oh, definitely.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much for showing us around.

Okay, great.

Thank you for coming.

That is it for this week's episode of Experience.

Miss Gianna, if you enjoyed the show, don't forget to share it on Facebook.

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Miss Gianna Dawg Next week it's all about Maple.

Make sure you tune in to experience Michigan experience.

Miss Gianna is made possible in part by the Community Foundation of Saint Joseph County.

And the Indiana Arts Commission, which received support from the state of Indiana and the National Endowment for the Arts This unity local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.