- [Kim] 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.

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

- [Kim] On this episode of Kalamazoo Lively Arts, we visit The Gilmore and talk about all things piano and music, and how it can bring community together through workshops, concerts, and more.

But first, part two on The Mill at Vicksburg.

John Kern and Jackie Koney detail what it takes to sustainably restore and save a 100-year-old paper mill.

(gentle music) So I wanna kind of start with really The Mill, because that's the buzz, that's what's going around with the buzz.

Talk about the visionary.

Chris Moore, who is behind the whole project, I mean, without him and this beautiful dream, it would be nothing, right?

- Yeah, that's the absolute truth.

So, Chris's families have been in Vicksburg since before Michigan was a state, so on his father's and his mother's side.

His grandfather was the chief engineer of the mill for many years.

His father was the purchasing manager.

Chris and his brother worked at the mill during high school to make money for college, so there's a deep, deep history with the place, the mill itself.

And as far as the area, yeah, his family has been here forever.

So deep, deep connection to this place.

And when he found out from his mother that the mill might possibly get torn down, that's when he stepped in and said, "Well, maybe there's something I can do with it."

- Yeah, I mean, I look at the enormity of this project, and for a lot of people, it would scare people away because he's big into sustainability as well.

It's not just rebuilding or tearing down and doing something different, it's important for him to have the historical value attached to it as well.

And life in Vicksburg, at a time, really centered around that paper mill, didn't it?

- Yeah.

Well, you know, I could talk about this for hours.

It really is a tremendous story.

Yes, the mill opened in 1904, and for 97 years, it was kind of the cultural and economic hub of this town, and the town grew up around it.

And when the mill shut down in 2001, it was obviously very difficult for the town, just like many other places in the state and in the country, when the big mill closes down, what do you do next?

As far as the sustainability goes, that's a whole nother big story.

We understand that the mill, it wasn't a healthy operation.

Making paper can be tough on the environment, whether it's the creek or it's the grounds or whatever.

So the idea is that we heal the land, we heal the property, and we do things the right way going forward so that we can be a symbol of how to do these kinds of redevelopments right.

- And the project itself, it's daunting.

The project is daunting.

The building is 420,000 square feet and it's got 17 acres of roof and 650 windows to remove infill from and it's on 120 acres.

When you start to bat around numbers like that, you get a better feel for the kind of "oh my goodness" element of this whole thing.

- So what do you see?

I mean, this is a big project.

What's the timeline and what's the vision when The Mill is completed?

- We've been working on it for quite a while.

(laughs) We are anticipating that the facility would be done by the end of 2026.

That at least some parts of it will be open.

That's been a debate.

Do we open in phases or do we open it up all at once?

And that's still a little bit of a debate.

But as far as the overall vision for it, it really hasn't changed much since the first day that Chris stood on the property and said, "Oh, I can see people drinking beer and listening to music."

(laughs) So that's the basis of everything, is that we wanna be a destination.

We're planning on being a national destination that's based on beer, events, and music, and then with an arts and culture thread.

We will have hotels, a hotel space.

We'll have at least 75 rooms.

We're trying to push it to more hotel rooms.

We're going to have a few museums in there.

There'll be a brewery museum on Breweriana, which is marketing and advertising materials for breweries.

So like, could be signs, billboards, could be taps, cans, all those kinds of things, marketing and advertising materials.

We'll have an old stove museum because if people don't already know, Kalamazoo is also known for being a creator of Kalamazoo stoves and the area made lots and lots of stoves back in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

- [John] And that would be those old, potbelly stoves.

Very, very ornate.

- [Jackie] And then paper.

We wanna celebrate the history and the paper making of this area, so there'll be some level of a museum to The Mill.

So whether it's the people, the processes, the machines in the area, and our paper-making legacy.

- When you think about actually redoing a building, it's not like you can just go out and buy some bricks to replace some of the bricks that are deteriorating.

- The Mill itself has about 3.2 million bricks.

So the bricks specifically, at original count, we thought we would need about, mm, 80,000 new bricks to replace some of the old bricks.

It's 1903 brick, and it's called Chicago Common.

Outside of Chicago, there was a racetrack that was torn down, and the amount of bricks that they had that were actually reusable was 80,000.

So it was just what we needed, and we brought those in.

But then, over time, we end up, you know, more damage happened and we needed more bricks, and we figured we needed at least another 50, 70, thousand bricks or whatever.

And so then they went on the search again, and then they found an old, old brewery that was being torn down outside of Milwaukee.

And that had just the right amount of bricks that we needed.

So we've had two shipments of bricks come in from old buildings being torn down so that we could use old bricks instead of having to fabricate new bricks.

- And that's in keeping with that whole sustainability initiative.

The act of saving the building itself.

You know, the first paper went off the line at the paper mill in 1905.

And so saving a building of that age is just something that isn't really done.

- [Jackie] It's hard to do.

It's expensive and it's hard to do.

So yeah, the bricks are one thing, another thing that this story makes me think about is that there were a number of buildings that we tore down that were non-historic and/or failing.

And instead of taking all of that trash and taking dump trucks into the landfill, what we did is we hired a company to bring a big grinder in, and they came in and they ground all of the foundations of those buildings and we have a massive pile of aggregate that we're going to reuse for the base of our sidewalks and driveways and things.

And by the time we do the interior demo of the building, we'll probably have a pile that's three times the size.

But the pile that we have currently kept 500 dump trucks off of the roads and out of the landfill, and I think John has-- we figured out that it would be about 17 miles of sidewalk that it would be able to.

- Yeah, about three miles of road.

- Yeah, three miles of road or 17 miles of sidewalk, something like that.

So we're doing those kinds of things the best we can.

- But as we get a little closer, we'll check in with you again, but thank you so much for talking with me here today.

- Oh, thank you.

It was really fun to have this nice chat with you.

We appreciate it.

- What a pleasure.

Thank you so much.

(lively music) - Well, their leader.

Congratulations.

May I call you Dr. Pierre?

(laughs) - Just Pierre is fine, thank you.

(laughs) - That's nice.

All right.

Lots to talk about.

Successful, of course, Gilmore.

The Gilmore.

Are you all about the piano?

- We're all about the piano.

Everything about the piano and the piano is a communion.

Can be in so many different places and many different scenarios and it's one of those instruments that anybody, even if you have no background, you can go press the key and make a sound.

So yeah, it has brought appeal still.

- Let's talk about The Gilmore.

Can you take me back to Irving S. Gilmore?

- Yeah.

How this all came to be.

Irving Gilmore was a local businessman and philanthropist and his family had Gilmore's Department Store here in town.

But he wanted to be a pianist.

Actually went to New York to study for a while, but then he was called back to run the family business and was very successful in that and became very well-known for his quiet philanthropy actually in town.

He would go around and surprise somebody by paying off their college tuition or buying a struggling artists, you know, buying a piano for them out of the blue.

You know, these random acts of kindness, which was so amazing.

So he did a great deal for this community.

So when he passed away, he left a wonderful foundation and the trustees of this foundation wanted to do something to honor him, and they came up with something incredible.

It's this Gilmore Award and it is an entirely secret process where we have sort of the spies of piano world.

We have a secret committee of five or six who go around and scout for, you know, listen to piano performances over a number of years and then we surprise a deserving pianist with probably the largest award for piano that we know of.

It's a $300,000 award, which is staggering.

- Makes you want to take up the piano.

- Exactly.

(both laughing) You never know, right?

And so I always say you, "It doesn't matter where you perform, you never know who's in the audience."

And then most recently, those efforts have now been doubled because of local businessman and also philanthropist, Larry Bell of Bell's Brewery, who made a gift possible for us to endow a similar award for jazz piano.

So now we'll have, starting in 2026, every four years, also a jazz pianist that we will surprise with $300,000.

It's pretty incredible.

- Will we see you and your wife performing in any kind of way?

Whether if it's for the festival or for The Gilmore or for the community?

- Yeah, we do perform.

We love performing.

Not as much as we used to.

We used to tour all over.

But between the Gilmore, and we have four kids, and my wife's teaching as well, so it's not as much, but it's something that we love to do.

That's how we met is performing piano duets and piano duos.

So that's always something that we will do and continue to do.

And meanwhile, yes, I'm planning for the next festival in 2024.

And you know, like every festival, it will feature some of the world's really superstar, classical and jazz pianists, and a few pop surprises in there.

But we've been fortunate to have, over the years, you know, John Legend has played here and Diana Krall and Harry Connick Jr. and I mean, it's just, it's a ton of fun.

- Will there be another "overall winner" that is being scouted as we speak?

- Yes.

Yes, actually.

And so we are wrapping up that process now, and so we'll very soon make that announcement actually this fall.

And so, yeah, so by the 2026 festival, we'll have the next Gilmore artist here, along with the newest Larry J.

Bell jazz artist as well.

- You alluded to this.

Lead the question.

How important is The Gilmore, the festival, to the community of art?

- You know, I would say in terms of, not just the piano world, but in the arts community, it's one of the major events happening in the United States in the spring and has made a global impact.

This festival is covered in publications and news outlets throughout the world whenever it takes place because it's pretty incredible in a community of this size, we're able to have this festival of this kind with this caliber of artists.

You know, the artists who come here, they perform Chicago Symphony Center, Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Kalamazoo.

So just to think of what this community has made possible here and through the visionary leadership of its philanthropy, to be able to bring that here, it brings people together.

We saw that during the pandemic.

People turned to the arts for escape, for solace, for flights of fancy, and now that we can gather again in person, it's just so gratifying to see people coming out again in full force and wanting to share a magical experience together and talk about it.

We don't have that very often anymore, now with everything being streamed, with Netflix and so, and so people are, you know, this remains one of the few things that you can do as a community together and have a communal experience.

And I think that's very, very special.

- And I know we're touching on this in many ways.

Yes, the festival's important, but what you do all year round with your community engagement, your education, and those involved with that must be fun to watch that in action.

- It's really amazing.

We have a really creative and unique education program with our piano labs and different public schools here.

And then through our community engagement efforts, being able to bring a really diverse section of the community to the festival performances and bring the festival to the community is so important to us because we really want to have it known that this festival is the community's festival.

This is Kalamazoo's festival, this is Southwest Michigan's festival, and you know, come on out and enjoy it.

And we want to remove any barrier to that enjoyment.

(dramatic piano music) - Leslie Baron, what brought you to The Gilmore?

What, 12, 10, 11 years ago?

- Oh my goodness.

(Shelley laughing) I came to The Gilmore just after my son went to kindergarten.

I'd been in music for a long time.

I'm an educator and I was in a band called Blue Dahlia for many years and it was great to be able to work in the arts and I found myself in the education department here at The Gilmore.

- Take me back even a step.

Are you a trained musician?

And what is your niche?

Singing, playing?

- Yeah.

I was lead singer of Blue Dahlia.

I'm a trained singer, though my degrees are secondary education, French, and English.

So I have education and pedagogy in my wheelhouse as well.

- Wow.

So what do you do for The Gilmore?

- The Gilmore.

Well, I've worked in the education department for more than a decade now, and we administrate the piano labs, which are the cornerstone of our programs.

We are able to give small group piano lessons to kids in several public school settings, as well as the Kalamazoo County Juvenile Home.

The young adult program, which serves developmentally disabled adults and also elementary schools and community piano labs in Battle Creek and Kalamazoo.

- So piano for all.

- Piano for all, for all ages.

- Where does one start?

How does one get involved?

- The easiest way is to go to our website.

There are easy ways to sign up.

It's easy to start taking piano lessons through The Gilmore.

The community piano labs offer an opportunity for people of all ages to sign up.

It's a great entry-level piano lesson situation I think price-wise, and also for folks who just want to give it a try.

It's a wonderful way to start 'cause it's a group lesson.

It doesn't necessarily have the weight of private lessons and the cost that goes with that.

- Take me to the niche of the juvenile home and bring me to their class.

- Oh, wonderful.

Well, we work with music therapists at the juvenile home and the young adult program.

They have classes where students are working directly with a music therapist to interact with their regular coursework through music.

And so they're writing songs of their own and giving musical treatment to the other things that they're learning as a doorway into learning.

- Would you expand on what this music, what this piano is doing for these kids?

- Well, sure.

I think learning an instrument, and piano specifically, can do just wonderful things.

One of the things is that it helps with small motor skills and really controlling your hands, which allows you to write and do all sorts of other tasks that need small motor skills.

It allows you to work with the different sides of your brain.

There's a lot of talk about that.

There are many studies that talk about being able to cross over that center portion of the brain to be able to control your hands in two different ways.

It's a creative thing to be able to do.

Reading music is like a language.

It tends to help with mathematics skills.

And very importantly, it allows students to practice a skill until they master it, which just really gives people a wonderful sense of achievement and self-esteem.

- And other recitals?

Do you have kind of an end game for your students?

- Oh yes, there are recitals.

We love to have recitals and in some of the other programs, we'll also do recordings and things of that nature.

But recitals happen with our community piano labs and our piano labs in public schools.

Families get to come out and cheer their kids on for the learning they've done all year.

- Why is it important to introduce kids to the arts?

- Boy, we really strive at The Gilmore to have a music going culture, a music making culture, a music enjoyment culture, because the beauty of art and music is something that can really enhance anyone's life all the way through their lives.

The emotional content of what's happening in music is so striking, and the feeling of community that we have when we attend a performance or participate in a performance is really striking.

Music is something that brings us all together.

- And why support the arts here in Kalamazoo?

- Oh, Kalamazoo is a wonderful arts community.

It's my pleasure to work in community engagement for The Gilmore, and we do a lot of work with folks in different organizations.

We place programs into their organizations and participate in their programming as well as inviting people to come to Gilmore events to participate in those and experience the music.

It really allows us to have a richer, more vibrant, more connected community here.

- What's your favorite part of what you do?

- I think my favorite part of what I do is being able to share really wonderful experiences with folks of all ages and all backgrounds right here in our community.

We are so lucky to have such amazing music come.

When we have a group join us that maybe has never been to a concert before or maybe has never encountered a piano, they've only ever seen keyboard, it's a thrill across the board to share that and to watch kids additionally grow and learn in that context, to be able to come and share music and bring that forward in their lives.

That's the best part.

(cheerful piano music) - Marilyn Moore, let's talk, first of all, a little bit about you, your credentials and why you do what you do.

- Okay.

I have my bachelor of music in music education, vocal choral, but also a secondary studied in piano.

And I've been with The Gilmore for eight years and I do what I do because I love giving students the joy of music and because I feel it's not just something that's good for them to learn, which it is, but it's also something they can express themselves with their whole life emotionally, and socially it's a great thing.

But studying music is so good for the brain, both of the developing brain as a child because it engages all of the auditory, the executive function, the motor skills, both sides of the brain are firing back and forth constantly.

So it's great for children and it's also great for adults over 60 to help with, they're showing that it may help with memory retention and just keeping those synapsis firing, especially six months of studying an instrument seems to show some improvement.

- So it's never too late to learn.

- [Marilyn] It is not ever too late to learn.

- Is it ever too early to learn?

- Yes, it is.

(both laughing) You need to have the finger strength and at least know your alphabet from A to G forwards and backwards.

But mainly, it's fine motor skills at a young age.

- And talk, in general, about this opportunity to learn this, not only through your education, but through The Gilmore.

- The Gilmore, I'm very proud to work for them.

They set up piano labs in a couple of schools in Kalamazoo and one in Battle Creek and other places where kids can elect to do a special class.

They come in, I have a setup like this where there's six kids from second through fifth grade, and we teach them, you know, where they may not be able to have the opportunity elsewhere to get piano.

And so it gives them at least a taste for what they want to do.

Gives them a good music background and a safe space during their day to feel safe and creative, so that's good.

And then for the community lab, it's a nice place where, if it doesn't fit into somebody's schedule, they can come.

I have one parent who comes with his kid, and we can be a little bit flexible like that in community labs.

- Well lastly, again, it's therapeutically healthy for us, but it also brings the audience the joy, a family of joy, and just the rewards are obviously worth sitting down and playing Ode to Joy over and over again.

But I think that's kind of where I'll stop so that you have time for others.

Thank you, Marilyn, for this opportunity.

- You are welcome.

It's been a pleasure.

(gentle piano music) - Let's go to the world of favorites.

Favorite composer.

Do you have a favorite piece you'll play on your own?

What happens here?

- Can I pick more than one?

- Yes.

(both laughing) Yes, but we only have a short timeframe.

- Okay.

Whenever I sit down at the piano, I tend to go to Johannes Brahms, German composer, very romantic composer, just the most achingly beautiful melodies.

And then Chopin, he wrote so many different nocturnes and waltzes and sonatas and all different things for the piano.

And any pianist when you ask them, that's kind of the Mount Everest of the piano, is Chopin's piano music, so that's my go-to.

- Do you play your piano every day?

- Pretty much.

If I don't play every day-- even if I can get to it for 10 minutes, you know?

It's so important for me.

Personally, it's therapy for me, especially when things get really busy, when I'm on the road a lot and I haven't played for a number of days, I feel like I miss it in my bones.

And so I try to get to it as much as I can.

- Get out that portable piano and just play all you can.

- (laughs) Oh, I wish.

- Yes, yes.

Thank you for your time, Dr. Pierre.

- Thank you so much.

(calm piano music) - [Announcer] Support for Kalamazoo Lively Arts is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.

(upbeat music)