- Welcome to Kalamazoo Lively Arts.

The show that takes you inside Kalamazoo's vibrant creative community and explores the people who breathe life into the arts.

- [Narrator] Support for Kalamazoo Lively Arts is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.

I'm Jennifer Moss, here at Miller Auditorium.

On today's show, we meet our newest artists in residence The Gilmore.

We'll see how they've pivoted in the last year and get excited for what's to come.

We'll also stop by the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo to get an update about their programming before taking a look back with artists about how their passions came to be.

(bright piano music) Here we are ready to meet you and learn of The Gilmore.

What is your role?

- So my name is Pierre, last name is van der Westhuizen.

Originally from South Africa, but have been in this region and in this part of the world for 20 plus years.

And I am the Executive and Artistic Director here at The Gilmore for the last four years.

- What brings you to The Gilmore?

- I'm a pianist by trade, and this is just an incredible opportunity.

You know, it's one of the world's largest piano festivals, and the award is such a special award, as well the way it's approached.

And I've known about The Gilmore, you know, being a pianist, I've known about it for so long.

And when the opportunity came up, I just grabbed halt and very lucky to be here.

- Has this been traditionally The Gilmore International Keyboard Festival?

- It has been, yes, for all these years, it's been sort of known under that title, as the International Keyboard Festival.

But we decided to brand it a little bit more towards The Gilmore as we have such a wide variety of programs under that umbrella of The Gilmore.

We have the awards, we have the festival, we have a concert series, we have commissions.

There's just a lot going, education programming.

(bright piano music) - All right, Pierre, well, in another life, I may, The Gilmore artist awardee, but until then, I'm gonna to have to start with the basics.

So would you share a bit of maybe concert prep for me?

How do I get in the mood for this?

(Pierre laughing) - Yes, well, aside from that, practice, practice, practice, 10,000 hours, you know.

So seeming you've done all of your practice work and you're standing backstage and you're getting ready for the concert, you know, I like to stretch, so I like to just keep my posture in mind, sit up straight.

- Jacket, loosen my jacket, okay.

- Off the piano, take your posture.

And then what I like to do, especially when I don't have a piano in front of me, take each finger and rotate each finger, five times, you know?

And then the next finger, take your thumb particularly, and then yeah, just try to warm them up.

Your hands get cold backstage, so I put my hands right here, 'cause that's a nice warm spot, to help warm up.

- Yes.

- Yeah, and then you're quite nervous backstage, right?

So one of the big things that we do to help calm nerves is to get the blood flowing through your body.

That really helps- - Jog in place place, do I jog in place?

- Swing you arms, swing your arms.

(Shelley screams) (laughing) Swing the other arm.

(laughs) And then, I also, I jump up and down a bit.

Yep, exactly.

So anything to get your heart rate up, get the blood flowing and then take a deep breath in, (inhales sharply), hold it and a deep breath out (exhales slowly).

And then close your eyes.

Imagine you walk to the piano and you sit down and you calm your heart rate, and then you open your eyes again and you'd do it all over again, until you feel calm, until you're calm.

(laughing) - And then I walk out on stage and say, "I am good."

- [Pierre] And you knock it out of the park.

(bright piano music) - The Wellspring Theater, how did that work?

- We have been partnering with the Wellspring Theater for many years, particularly in our concert series.

It's a beautiful space, sort of like a black box theater, and they've beautiful hardwood floor.

And we can take our a piano in there, and we've been live streaming somewhat in there.

And so it seemed like a natural partnership to continue with the live streaming.

Everything is contained and set up in there.

And they were so good to work with in terms of helping us figure out to pivot, from a concert production to essentially a TV studio.

- Was there a production or two you'd like to share that really did work this past year?

- Oh my gosh, yes, quite a few.

One of the highlights for me early on when we went to the Virtually Gilmore was our current Gilmore artist, 2018 Gilmore artists, Igor Levit.

He live streamed for us, but it was live from Berlin.

And it was just an incredible experience to have that happen live, live; it wasn't even prerecorded or anything.

And we were simultaneously broadcasting here from Kalamazoo and in Berlin.

It blew my mind and having that pre-planning meeting with his team from Berlin.

And to be able to say that we are broadcasting here from Kalamazoo, that we are doing this concert from Kalamazoo highlighting this region, that's very special.

- Well, take me back to the young Pierre.

When did you first play the piano?

- (laughs) Well, I grew up in a musical and artistic household.

My mother plays both the organ and piano, and my grandparents as well.

But my father was a visual artist and he had his painting studio right next to my music studio.

So I would be practicing while he was painting.

And so those are very, very special memories for me.

And then, well, I grew up in a very small town in South Africa and was fortunate to win a scholarship to go to college to study piano.

And that's where I met my wife, Sophie.

And our first day at the college, she didn't know anything about me, but I saw her practicing in the practice room and it was just a vision, it was amazing.

And so I asked our teacher if we could play some duets together, and we've been playing duets ever since.

We're a piano duo and we traveled the world playing two pianos or sometimes piano four hands together.

- And the show goes on, what's in store, Pierre?

- Oh my gosh.

So we still have a season ahead of us of programs.

We have some jazz concerts coming up and some more of our rising stars.

And we're focusing also on 2022, which will be our next Gilmore Festival.

It's a three-and-a-half-week, almost four-week, long festival, dozens of performances in the Southwest Michigan region, jazz, pop, classical.

We have poems, we have lectures.

We have so much going on during the festivals.

So we're hoping that will be in-person by that point.

- Keep up your great work in this new normal with The Gilmore, Pierre.

- Thank you, Shelley.

(bright piano music) - Here we are visiting the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo.

Let's start with you, Kristen and have you reintroduce us to your council.

- Sure.

So the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo, we serve the County of Kalamazoo but we also serve the surrounding six counties around us.

And we're a membership organization.

We serve artists and arts organizations.

We try to infuse arts and culture into all of the economies of our communities.

- What is the mission of your council?

We like to think of ourselves as the connector.

So in terms of connecting our artists and our arts organizations with the rest of the community and we all know that we've spent an entire year and then some now not being connected or trying to connect in a meaningful way.

And so hopefully people can come to us for resources.

They can come to us to connect with other artists.

And with folks who want to engage in artistic services.

- There are also administrative costs.

How did you handle the COVID-19 financial relief?

- Yes, so we were lucky we did get a PPP loan ourselves which enabled us to stay working, which also then meant that we could engage the different foundations within our community, not to help us personally but to get money to turn it right back out into the community.

So last year in 2020, we gave out $351,000, and that was spread over 83 artists and organizations.

And we know that our relief wasn't the thing that was a make or break.

But we like to think that it cushions just enough that maybe somebody kept a job for just a little bit longer or an artist was able to put food on the table and pay the rent.

So very proud of my staff and all of the work that they did to make sure that that happened.

- And one of those examples is with Summertime Live.

We partner with Richland and Portage, Schoolcraft, Parchment, Oshtemo and also Beat and Bates.

And we were able to bring everybody together at that first meeting.

And Kristen was able to say, "Hey, if you need some support, we can still do that."

So all of our partners that we had last year were able to be on with us again this year, for Summertime Live.

- How about the school sponsorships?

Where do we start here?

- Yes, it's the one program of the Arts Council that is probably the least known.

So we can act as a fiscal sponsor.

We're open to helping provide those business services and provide the financial oversight if they're looking to get a grant for a project or they wanna become a nonprofit but they're not ready to make that leap.

Hopefully, folks that are watching and thinking about the next best thing they wanna start, we're open to having that conversation.

- And hopefully that comes with a phone call perhaps to you, Bianca, and with the question, how do I become a partner?

- Yes, definitely.

(laughs) It's been great to also have those conversations with people on the outside wanting to make sure that they're a part of Art Hop and they're a part of our programs and partnering with us.

- Perhaps grant partners, memberships as well?

- Sure, absolutely yes.

We are a membership organization.

So our members are kind of the heartbeat of what we do.

Then the more members we have, we know the more vibrant our community is in terms of sharing those resources and having a community to support each other.

We also offer a program that we called another way to pay.

So if you are having difficulty, which we know some people still are having difficulties making ends meet financially, a little bit of time a little bit of elbow grease, helping out other artists and helping us in the community for a few hours and you've got yourself a membership to the Arts Council.

- Perhaps bringing some of the necessary programming from 2020 into the next decade?

- You know, Kristen said there's so many great outcomes from this past year.

We've had 82,000 virtual folks that have been with us that we've been able to keep pumping up as we go forward.

And our Concerts in the Park, we have eight concerts, so we have a full-fledged amount of artists and entertainment.

And so, yeah, it's been really great to continue to look into this 2021 with, you know, connecting those dots.

- Bianca, spend a moment talking about, well, truly an upcoming activity you wanna share.

- Yeah, So April 2nd will be our first outdoor Art Hop, and we're gonna start at 6 pm.

And the location is going to be on Bates alley.

And also we have a couple other businesses on Kalamazoo Mall like MRC artWorks, and Colors & Cocktails, Cherri's Chocol'art that are gonna also be with us on a credit union, which is right around the corner.

- I know we can't do it now, but I'm itching to learn some art.

So what do you have for me in the near future?

- Absolutely.

So during April 2nd Art Hop, you can come down to Bates Alley, Shelley, and make an awesome sand candle through the Kalamazoo Candle Company, where you can pick all kind of different colors and make all kinds of different patterns in your own personalized jar.

And they'll hook you up with the process and you'll learn how to do that and get to take it home.

- See you there.

- All right.

- When did you find your love of music?

Like, were you a little kid?

Did you come from a musical family?

- Music has always been a part of my life.

I mean, I always knew I would be a musician.

And so when I started playing, I started playing the drums at the age of four.

My parents bought me my first drum set.

And every year they bought me a new instrument.

So I learned to play the piano, and then the saxophone and the guitar, the clarinet, and the trumpet and the trombone.

And so I always knew this was what I was gonna do.

The question was, what instrument am I gonna play?

Because I play a lot of them.

But piano has always just been kind of something that's been in my heart.

- So I grew up in a sports family.

So as a kid, I didn't really do much art.

But my dad, when I found out later, when he was younger, he liked photography and he is also really good at drawing.

So when I started showing interest in photography, he's the one who gave me my first camera and kind of pushed me to try it.

- I was born in Taiwan.

But I moved to North America when I was about nine months old.

My father came to get an advanced degree in the sciences.

He played the violin a little bit himself.

So I think I next gravitated towards the violin because I wanted to be like daddy.

And my parents then got me violin lessons.

- The original Velvelettes.

Okay, so tell me where the snow storm and this trip from Kalamazoo to Detroit, how did that happen?

- Well, he begged my dad.

My dad was a Baptist preacher, he was a baker and a Baptist preacher and then a full-time father to seven children.

So it was difficult to get on his schedule and he had to prearrange everything.

And we would come in begging him almost every day.

We would beg, "Daddy, when are you going to take us to Detroit and bla bla bla."

So one day he came in and he just said, told my mom, "Dora, I'm gonna take those girls to Detroit this Saturday so they can audition."

- I am a classical musician because my parents were very avid supporters of all arts.

And I was very regularly steeped in those communities and those experiences.

And that added to my knowledge and my desire to continue doing that.

- I was born in Belgrade, Serbia, which is part of the former Yugoslavia.

And I'm one of those stories that I grew up in a musical family.

My father was a cellist and my first teacher for many years.

My mom plays piano.

My older sister's a professional violinist.

So we were kind of a loud family, you can say.

- That day, that Saturday, the weather report was very, very grim.

It looks like there was gonna be be a snow storm and it was icy.

And my mother said, "You shouldn't go, you shouldn't go."

He said, "No, I'm going, we're gonna go now."

He says, "Cause we've gotta, we're gonna go.

'Cause I've been putting this off for weeks and weeks."

It took five hours for us to get from Kalamazoo to Detroit.

And that's when I-94 was just two lanes.

We finally made it there.

Now you would think that the name on the signage, on the building would be Motown.

(indistinct) You have something to say about that.

- That's right, I was the very first one, I think, that saw that sign and it had Hitsville U.S.A..

But I was, sort of, kind of amused that one of the letters was a little crooked or whatever, but it still read Hitsville U.S.A. but it wasn't Motown.

So we were like, "Ooh, I guess this is the place."

- I'm the oldest child of my parents five.

So they were pretty young and fun when I was a baby.

And they would take me around to all their activities.

One of the things they loved to do was architectural tours.

So we were on one of those in Boston and walked into this massive, beautiful marble bank.

And there was a harpist there.

And my impression, I mean, we always wonder about memory.

If you're a little child, mind memory is accurate, but this is what I remember.

(laughs) I just remember this big, beautiful floor and this huge instrument and this big dress and this glorious sound.

And it was awe-inspiring.

And I guess I just didn't stop talking about it until they gave me harp lessons for my eighth birthday.

- So that happened at what age?

- I think I was three.

- Wow!

And so you must have like, it must've been something that stuck with them five years later.

- So when we went in, there was this secretary that was sitting behind the desk.

I think she was chewing her gum and had really super long fingernails.

I mean, you know, just, anyway, so we were very excited about being there, and she said, "May I help you?"

And we said, "Yeah, we came to an audition for Motown."

And she says, real quickly and sort of curt, she said, "Well, I'm sorry, we don't have auditions on Saturdays."

And we said, "But we came in a snow storm.

It took us about five hours to get here.

Can you please make an exception?"

Oh, remember when she asked us where we were from?

- Oh, yeah, go ahead.

- Remember that?

I'd forgotten that she said, "Where are you girls from?"

And we said, "Kalamazoo."

And she goes, "Kalama who?"

And then so we just really, very sad and very hurt.

And we said, "You know what?

Maybe it was not meant for us to do this."

Some of us even had tears in our eyes and we said, "Let's just get back home."

And I tell you, and this is the honest-to-goodness true story.

Just as we got to the door to go back to Kalamazoo, the recording studio door opened and a gentleman walked out, and who should it be?

Mickey Stevenson.

He was our producer for the Barbees in Flint.

He came out of that recording studio door at the right time.

And he recognized Norma and myself and, "Norma, Bertha, what are you doing here?"

And we said, "Hey, Mickey, we're here to audition."

And he said, "You are in a good place."

- This is my girl's group and we're here to audition.

- That's right, that's right.

And he said, well, you know, why don't you come in or something like that?

We said, "Well, this young lady told us that we couldn't have auditions on Saturdays."

Oh, and then at that moment, he looked at that young lady and just said, "They're coming in."

And boy, you should have seen us just made an about turn.

And we walked past her and- - We got our noses in the air.

- We did put our noses in the air a little bit.

(indistinct) (laughing) - And, you know, and people when they hear this story, they say, being at the right place at the right time, it's not what you know, who you know.

- Especially when I came to US, I started trying to bring my mom to visit once a year, once every two years.

And then it would really be a waste if we don't play a concert together because we played together when I was a little boy, but also it's really great to be able to collaborate now.

when I'm a fully-developed musician, I would say.

So, yeah, we try to play once a year or every two years.

- And the other thing, too, is Berry Gordy's father.

We called him Pop Gordy.

When we first went to Motown, as Cal remember too, we would see him sometimes with a hammer in his hand or- - Pops Gordy would go around and he'd have his little workers belt on whatever you call that shop.

And he would go around and repair things, woodwork, some picture may be lopsided on the wall or he was just there to help his son and the business.

- The family, again, the family, again.

- Thank you for joining us on this week's episode of Kalamazoo Lively Arts.

Check out today's show and other content at wgvu.org.

We leave you tonight with Evrin Ozel performing a classic Bach piece.

I'm Jennifer Moss.

Have a great night.

(bright piano music)