Update: The in-person lecture has been canceled, but the livestream will still be available.
Scott Aalgaard, an associate professor of East Asian studies at Wesleyan University, will discuss folk and protest music through the lens of Japanese performers such as Takada Wataru and Kagawa Ryō in this year’s Kafu Lecture at Kalamazoo College.
Aalgaard will present “Folk Music Revolutionaries: Protest Music in Modern Japan” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 10, in Room 103 of Dewing Hall, 1219 Academy St. A livestream will be available.
The discussion will challenge attendees to step away from thinking about American musical storytellers in the 1960s when they think of protest music to consider what it involves elsewhere. The talk will explore how Japanese folk singers performed amid Japan’s political circumstances in the turbulent 1960s and developed musical projects that challenged limited notions of what “protest” is or can be in the first place.
Aalgaard works on cultural production in modern and contemporary Japan with particular emphases on popular music and literature. His work addresses geopolitics, political economy, regional and social histories, nationalism, fascism and disparate modes of protest and critique, among other topics. His first book, titled Homesick Blues: Politics, Protest and Musical Storytelling in Modern Japan (University of Hawai’i Press, 2023), explores the interplay between music and everyday life and how music is used by artists, fans and others to imagine and re-imagine social, political and cultural life in modern Japan. It is oriented toward understanding the ways in which artists, authors and individual social actors use music to understand the world and envision different possibilities for living in it.
The Kafu Lecture was established in 1982 by an anonymous donor in honor of Nagai Kafu, an acclaimed 20th century Japanese writer. Kafu studied at Kalamazoo College during the 1904-05 academic year. The free, public event is co-sponsored by Kalamazoo College and the departments of East Asian Studies and Music at K. For more information, contact Professor of Japanese Noriko Sugimori at sugimori@kzoo.edu.
Kafu Lecture speaker Scott Aalgaard is an associate professor of East Asian studies at Wesleyan University.
Musicians, like all artists, are people obsessed with the details of their art. And like all artists, they require quality tools to create their best work. Vocalists, of course, carry their instrument with them at all times. Instrumentalists often spend years, even decades, learning the idiosyncrasies of their instrument. Pianists, however, don’t have the luxury of bringing their own piano to a lesson, a practice session or a performance.
“If you’re a pianist trying to work on those details, and you have an instrument that cannot respond to the subtleties that pianists work on extensively, then your learning is hampered. Your performance is hampered. Even the audience’s enjoyment of what they’re hearing will be somewhat diminished,” said Andrew Koehler, Kalamazoo College professor of music, music department chair and conductor of the Kalamazoo Philharmonia.
That’s the big picture explanation of why, for more than 20 years, the music department at Kalamazoo College has wanted to restore, enhance and update its piano and keyboard collection in support of every student, faculty and community member who makes and enjoys music on campus. Now, thanks to grant support from several local organizations, that work is almost complete.
The keyboard renewal project funded the restoration of the College’s performance pianos, added new pianos to classroom and studio spaces, and updated the instrument collection in several of the College’s practice rooms.
For more than 20 years, the music department has wanted to restore, enhance and update its piano and keyboard collection in support of every student, faculty and community member who makes and enjoys music on campus. Now, thanks to grant support from several local organizations, that work is almost complete.
Many of the pianos had aged beyond the lack of nuance that would impede a professional pianist, and into a space of no longer being functional instruments.
“Pianos are very complicated technological mechanisms,” Koehler said. “They break down, and they need to be repaired carefully and expertly to remain in good functioning order. It takes a lot of money, and it’s complicated to do.”
In addition to the professional rebuilding of two nine-foot Steinway grand pianos in Stetson Chapel and in Dalton Theatre and significant restoration of a Mason and Hamlin piano in the Light Fine Arts Building Recital Hall, the project has provided a variety of electronic keyboards and tiers of pianos for all levels of musician.
Rebuilding and restoring the three performance pianos is key to the continued use of both Stetson and Dalton for College as well as community events and concerts, said Susan Lawrence, Kalamazoo College music event coordinator, piano teacher and accompanist.
“We do a lot with community here on campus, hosting other music organizations, bringing in community works with some of our ensembles,” Lawrence said. “People use Stetson for weddings and a lot of different things. In Dalton, people rent that out, and we bring artists in that the community comes to hear. There are community members who play with the symphony or with some of our other ensembles. The community benefits from those pianos.”
Among the music department’s ensembles, the Kalamazoo Philharmonia orchestra, the Academy Street Winds band and the Kalamazoo Choral Arts choir intermix K students with a substantial number of community members.
“That’s a town-and-gown kind of relationship,” Koehler said. “Community members are here, they’re using these facilities, the concerts are also thus populated by their acquaintances, their friends. Beyond students and parents, the music department is a place where people come to campus to hear these performances. Any choir concert will feature the piano; a lot of orchestra concerts do. We have guest recitals. Our final exam in music is an opportunity to perform for others. That is the end goal of almost all our performance-based activity. We want to play for others. We want to share what we’re doing. That is a critical part of the ethos of music making, that’s how we’re sharing with the larger community, and those instruments will make a big difference.”
As students develop their musical abilities toward that end goal, offering a range of keyboard and piano options for their use is crucial regardless of their primary instrument or type of musical interest.
“Every musician who walks through this department touches a piano in some way, for theory, composition, music production,” Lawrence said. “Most of them don’t want to be famous pianists, and they may not sit down to hone a craft, but they need a functioning instrument.”
The department worked to create tiers of instruments for the range of student needs.
“The piano is a really important part of how all musicians come to understand music, because the keyboard is a visual representation of the spectrum of notes: the lower pitches ascending to the higher ones, arranged from left to right,” Koehler said. “All musicians are expected to have at least some passing familiarity with how it works. Even if you’re a singer or a violinist who’s trying to make sure you’re in tune and you’re hitting the right pitch, sometimes you have to go to the keyboard, even if it’s one-finger kind of level of piano playing, to say, ‘OK, I think I’ve got those intervals right. I’m doing it correctly.’ All of that absolutely is necessary.”
Electronic keyboards in some of the practice rooms in the Light Fine Arts basement serve as basic or entry-level options. They offer full keyboards—88 weighted keys that mimic the feel of a piano—as well as the ability to connect to a computer for recording, theory, composition and music-production work. In addition, they will weather basement conditions better than an acoustic piano.
High-quality used upright pianos in several practice rooms provide a step up from the electronic keyboards for an intermediate or advanced student, while grand pianos in other rooms allow faculty to work with more serious students. Finally, there are the fine performance pianos in Stetson, the Recital Hall, and Dalton.
“The end result of this project is instruments that support our students’ learning, that allow them to do that kind of nuanced work that I was talking about earlier, and that fundamentally is what we’re here to do: Support the learning of our students and allow them to share it with the community,” Koehler said. “We want to make sure that we provide the materials that they can do that with.”
College pianos endure heavy use, and so it is important both to start with strong pianos and for students to learn how to care for them.
“Students learn to take care of their own instruments,” Lawrence said. “Pianos seem more like furniture to some people in some ways, and they may think it’s going to be there forever, and it’s not if you don’t take care of it. We have covers and locks on all the performance pianos. It’s important that we teach anyone who comes in and uses a piano how to take care of it.”
With that careful maintenance, and aided by recent improvements to climate control in Light Fine Arts, the music department expects the keyboard renewal project to make a difference on campus and in the wider community for years to come.
“Our annual maintenance fund helps us do simple things, like keep the pianos in tune, and maybe some basic action regulation to make sure the hammers are the right shape to hit the string in the right way and create the range of sounds that you want,” Koehler said. “Then sometimes, of course, like we’re seeing here, whole things have to be replaced, or much more significant work has to be done to re-regulate aspects of the complex machine that is the piano. We’re grateful to these organizations for supporting this work, because in the 20 years we’ve been waiting to get this done, these complex machines kept getting worse. It’s just wonderful to turn the corner on this, and we should be in a good place for 10, 20 years or even longer.”
Shayna M. Silverstein, an associate professor of performance studies at Northwestern University, will visit Kalamazoo College on Friday, November 1, to discuss the topics in her book, Fraught Balance: The Embodied Politics of Dabke Dance Music in Syria.
At 4:15 p.m. in Dewing Hall, Room 103, Silverstein will talk about dabke, one of Syria’s most beloved dance music traditions, which is at the center of the country’s war and the social tensions that preceded conflict. Drawing on almost two decades of ethnographic, archival and digital research, Silverstein’s book shows how dabke dance music embodies the dynamics of gender, class, ethnicity and nationhood in an authoritarian state.
Silverstein, originally from Spokane, Washington, has studied in New Haven, Connecticut, and Chicago; lived in New York City, Washington, D.C., Syria, and Lebanon; and is now permanently based in Chicago. She holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University.
The lecture, sponsored by K’s Department of Music, is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Music Event Coordinator Susan Lawrence at 269.337.7070 or Susan.Lawrence@kzoo.edu.
Northwestern University Associate Professor of Performance Studies Shayna M. Silverstein.
Music has always been a part of life for Tyrus Parnell ’25, and his summer 2024 internship was no exception. Working for the Helen L. Fox Gospel Music Center in a Community Building Internship (CBI) through the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) immersed Parnell in the field he loves and helped him prepare for life after college by redirecting his future path.
Growing up in a musical family, Parnell has sung for as long as he has talked and drummed since he was a toddler banging on his family’s pots and pans. In middle school band, he frustrated his parents by bringing home a new instrument every few weeks. “I just really like them all,” he said. By seventh grade, he was training his ear by teaching younger band students. In high school, he became an unofficial assistant to his choir teacher, helping run rehearsals.
“I’ve always been really integrated into the music aspect of my life, and teaching it came easily for me,” Parnell said. His plan coming to Kalamazoo College was to teach music of some sort at the high school or college level. His advisor, Chris Ludwa, suggested that a CBI with the Helen L. Fox Gospel Music Center would tie in perfectly with Parnell’s K-Plan and his quest to find his avenue within music.
The internship at Helen Fox offered Parnell the opportunity to both teach and work behind the scenes administratively. He was surprised to find that while he enjoyed the teaching, he truly thrived in the music center’s office.
“I really found a knack for administration and being in the weeds a little bit with trying to make sure that every kid that comes through any type of program is accounted for, they have what they need, and just doing the big reach to help as many as possible,” Parnell said. “I was helping with writing grants, planning schedules, learning the software that we use, and being an extra pair of eyes, extra pair of ears, helping to manage what we’re doing great, what wasn’t going so great.”
In the center’s summer program, Parnell taught piano to a class of students ranging in age from about 6 to 15.
“We did a little showcase at the end of it, which was really fun,” Parnell said. “As diverse in ages as my class was, they all had to start at the beginning. It was nice to see how at the end, they were helping one another, knowing their strengths and weaknesses, and leaning on each other to learn the pieces.”
Parnell also taught drumming through the center’s summer camp. Working with another drum instructor, they planned a routine with choreography around a Motown theme. The camp also included a trip to Detroit and a visit from a former member of a Motown singing group, the Velvelettes.
“It was nice to have that moment where it felt like our community stretched and was really kind of just all over,” Parnell said.
Through the CBI, Parnell developed and practiced skills that will serve him well in any future endeavors, including flexibility and adaptability (the center’s shared space in the Douglass Community Center sometimes necessitates last-minute changes in plans) as well as patience and understanding with different family dynamics and life experiences. In addition, he learned about himself, his own strengths and challenges, his preferences and skills.
“It’s been so much that I’ve taken away from the internship, and it’s given me a good look as to what nonprofit work entails,” Parnell said. “I really appreciated that.”
At K, Parnell has served in various roles in the music department and different ensembles, including as section leader for the College Singers and co-music director for the a capella group Premium Orange. He also serves as minister of music at his church, Sanctuary of Praise, and helps run a ministry-related podcast, Driven in Purpose. Parnell has been a President’s Student Ambassador since his second year at K. Heading into his senior year, the music and religion double major is exploring a new interest in digital music, writing an album, planning a live recording, and looking ahead to grad school and beyond.
Tyrus Parnell ’25 interned at the Helen L. Fox Gospel Music Center in a Community Building Internship this summer through the Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement.
Parnell has served in various roles in the music department and different ensembles at K, including as section leader for the College Singers and co-music director for the a capella group Premium Orange.
“Where I want to go for grad school is the biggest unanswered question, because I know the work I want to do,” Parnell said. “I really have found a love for nonprofit, so I would like to stay in that realm. I want to go to graduate school for public administration and learn how to best serve nonprofits or even start my own.
“I think that music will always be a part of my life. In some way, some of the work I do will probably heavily rely on music, but it’s really finding your voice with the music. I’ve always wanted music to be the thing that opens a conversation. For me, music has been a way to communicate what I couldn’t with words. It’s the emotion behind music. There’s this subliminal message happening that I’m just playing and dialing into. I remember my grandmother telling me, whenever you are going through a block or going through a hardship or whatever, you let it out through your music. Let that be your outlet. That’s the relationship I have with music.”
Three Kalamazoo College music ensembles are concluding their 2023–24 academic years with spring concerts in the coming days, starting tonight, May 29.
International Percussion
Tonight’s International Percussion performance, beginning at 7, will take place outside, in front of the Light Fine Arts building. There will be chairs and grass to sit on. Bring a blanket if you would like to sit on the lawn.
Carolyn Koebel is the director of both groups within International Percussion, the West African ensemble and the Japanese Taiko ensemble, which are a combination of K students and community members who learn drumming techniques and then play together as a group.
The free concert will feature marimba player Julia Holt ’24, performing two selections written by composer Keiko Abe, who collaborated with Yamaha Corp. to develop the modern five-octave concert marimba. The Taiko ensemble will present two selections dealing with the giving of gifts to the Taiko community from special sources with music shared by Sensei Esther Vandecar.
Taiko drummers will be among one of two groups performing in the International Percussion ensemble at 7 tonight, May 29. Three ensembles have planned their spring concerts for this week.
College Singers
The Kalamazoo College Singers, under the direction of Associate Professor of Music Chris Ludwa, will present “Be Like Water.” The free concert—slated for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 30, in the lobby at Light Fine Arts—will present songs from a variety of sources and styles from the Renaissance, folk and popular music, each one centered on a theme of water. The concert is designed to uplift, inspire and transcend the current climate around politics, economics and war, offering a bit of hope.
Academy Street Winds
With nearly 50 years of teaching and conducting experience from elementary school through higher education, Academy Street Winds Director Tom Evans will lead the group for the last time in a concert titled, “It’s Time to Say Goodbye.”
All the music selected on this program has special meaning for him, which he will share at the concert. The compositions being performed are Festive Overture by Dmitri Shostakovich, Second Suite in F by Gustav Holst, As Summer Was Just Beginning by Larry Daehn, Canzona by Peter Mennin, Stormbreak for percussion octet and band by Jim Casella, and English Folk Song Suite by Ralph Vaughn Williams. The free performance is scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Dalton Theatre at Light Fine Arts.
For more information on any of these ensembles and their performances, contact Susan Lawrence in the Department of Music at 269.337.7070 or Susan.Lawrence@kzoo.edu.
Under the direction of Andrew Koehler, the Kalamazoo Philharmonia will perform Carmen on Friday in Grand Rapids and on Sunday in Kalamazoo.
Carmen is one of the most popular and frequently performed operas in the classical canon. Composer Georges Bizet died at just 36 years of age, only a few months after the premiere of his magnus opus, while early audiences in Paris were still scandalized by the way the topic and music broke conventions.
According to the Philharmonia’s season brochure, “The verité grittiness of the story, full of soldiers, thieves, cigarette factory laborers; the disastrous (if compulsively watchable) choices of the male protagonist, Don José; the seductive qualities of Carmen, precisely because of her complete disregard for societal niceties; and, of course, the picaresque, effortlessly melodic music of Bizet: all of these combine to create one of the most arresting dramas ever created, one whose influence was felt in almost every opera that followed.”
Professor of Music Andrew Koehler will direct the Kalamazoo Philharmonia this weekend in a semi-staged opera performance of “Carmen” in collaboration with the West Michigan Opera Project.
Friday’s free performance will start at 7 p.m. at Fountain Street Church, 24 Fountain Street NE, Grand Rapids.
On Sunday, May 19, the Philharmonia will play at 3 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 212 S. Park Street in downtown Kalamazoo. Tickets will be sold at the door and will cost $7 for general admission, $3 for students and free for Kalamazoo College students. Credit cards will be accepted.
Founded in 1990 by Barry Ross as the Kalamazoo College and Community Orchestra, the Kalamazoo Philharmonia brings together students, faculty, amateur and professional musicians of all ages to perform great music.
For more information on this concert, contact Susan Lawrence in the Department of Music at 269.337.7070 or Susan.Lawrence@kzoo.edu.
Music Professor Tom Evans says he has dreamed of seeing a standing-room only crowd for a Kalamazoo College Jazz Band performance since he arrived at K in 1995.
He’s never truly had that experience. But if there’s ever a time for a packed house, it’s this Friday, May 10, during Evans’ last concert as the Jazz Band’s director. The free and open-to-the-public performance—aptly themed That’s All, Folks—will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Dalton Theatre at Light Fine Arts.
The concert will leave its audience Feeling Good, which conveniently is the final tune on the docket. Other selections on the program have special significance as they were among the first songs Evans played in his high school jazz band. They include Fever, Soulful Strut,Kickin’ It, Blues for Percy,Intro to Art, Out of the Doghouse, Hard Right and Puente Ariba. Attendees are encouraged to bring their dancing shoes to swing and sway in the aisles should the music inspire them to do so.
“Finding the right words to express my gratitude to all my students and colleagues, from 1976 to the present, is difficult,” Evans said. “Quite simply, my career has afforded me some of the best experiences of my life. As such, I am sincerely grateful to all who have supported me along the way. And I am especially grateful for those with whom I’ve had the pleasure of making music. While my years of teaching and conducting were meaningful and momentous, I also hope that they were meaningful and momentous for those who shared my journey. How lucky I am to have had something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
A new Kalamazoo College student organization will participate in the winter term’s International Percussion concert at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 13, in Dalton Theatre at Light Fine Arts.
The Steel Drum Club—dedicated to classic rock, modern pop and calypso music—will play mainstream songs such as Free Fallin’ by Tom Petty, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana and Story of My Life by One Direction.
Separately, the music department’s Taiko Drums group, led by International Percussion Ensemble Director Carolyn Koebel, also will perform. The Taiko ensemble unites individuals with varied musical backgrounds from K, nearby institutions and the general community. The ensemble’s performances regularly include solos, group drumming and collaborations with other complementary instruments.
The concert is free and open to the public. For more information on this event and others sponsored by the Department of Music, visit music.kzoo.edu/events, call 269.337.7070 or email Susan.Lawrence@kzoo.edu.
Taiko drummers will be among the performers featured Wednesday, Marc 11, during the winter International Percussion concert.
The Kalamazoo Philharmonia will spotlight three composers in a concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 9, in Dalton Theatre at Light Fine Arts. All three are known for taking the smallest components of their music and transforming them in brilliant ways to show how contrasting passages can share many of the same fundamental features.
The performance will include music from mid-20th century Czech composer Miloslav Kabeláč, who developed inspiration from a divine cosmic order of stars into The Mystery of Time; German composer Johannes Brahms who looked to the stately St. Anthony Chorale of Joseph Haydn for his inspiration in the piece Variations on a Theme by Haydn; and American composer Samuel Barber, who took the contrasts of a four-movement symphonic form and combined them into a unified piece titled Symphony in One Movement.
The Philharmonia, conducted by Music Director Andrew Kohler, unites students, faculty, amateur musicians and professional musicians of a variety of ages to perform symphonic music. Having grown since its inception in 1990, the ensemble has been recognized as an arts organization of high importance in greater Kalamazoo.
Tickets are available at the door and cost $7 for general admission, $3 for students, and are free for students of Kalamazoo College. For more information, contact Susan Lawrence in the Department of Music at 269.337.7070 or Susan.Lawrence@kzoo.edu.
The Kalamazoo Philharmonia will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 9, in the Dalton Theatre at Light Fine Arts.
Two Kalamazoo College music ensembles, the Bayati Ensemble and College Singers, will blend their instrumental and vocal talents in a unified concert this Sunday, February 25.
The Bayati Ensemble specializes in Middle Eastern music. Its members range from people who grew up with Middle Eastern music and culture to others who are learning about it for the first time. The group is co-directed by Associate Processor of Music Beau Bothwell and Ahmed Tofiq. The College Singers, led by Associate Professor of Music and Director Chris Ludwa, includes about 30 students who are music majors and non-music majors, offering a different approach to choral singing with a focus on social justice.
The free concert is scheduled for 4 p.m. at the Dalton Theatre. For more information, contact Susan Lawrence in the Department of Music at 269.337.7070 or Susan.Lawrence@kzoo.edu.
The Bayati Ensemble was created from the Bahar Ensemble, a group of five professional members, who played Middle Eastern music and performed frequently at events in Kalamazoo.
