Bring your dancing shoes to swing and sway in the aisles for the Kalamazoo College Jazz Band fall concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, November 10, in Dalton Theatre at Light Fine Arts.
The free performance’s theme will be Giants Walk Among Us, which is also the title of the first song. The opener, by Rich Woolworth, features a trumpet and saxophone solo. The concert then will spotlight more songs by the “giant” composers of jazz and eight other solos for saxophone, both alto and tenor, while featuring Isabella Pellegrom ’25, a guest vocalist, with favorites such as Scarborough Fair.
Afterward, make plans to attend the Kalamazoo Philharmonia fall concert, titled In the Bloom of Youth, at 3 p.m. on Sunday, November 12, in the Dalton Theatre. The performance will feature the works of composers who died young including Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Othello Suite; Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 129; and Vasily Kalinnikov’s Symphony No. 1 in G.
The Philharmonia 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 importance in greater Kalamazoo.
For more information on both concerts and ensembles, contact Susan Lawrence in the Department of Music at 269.337.7070 or Susan.Lawrence@kzoo.edu.
The Kalamazoo Philharmonia fall concert, titled “In the Bloom of Youth,” is scheduled for 3 p.m. on Sunday, November 12, in the Dalton Theatre.
Join the College Singers for an eclectic mix of great songs by Queen, Prince, Beyonce and more while exploring music from the Renaissance to today. The open-to-the-public fall concert, titled Casino Royale, is scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday in the Dalton Theatre lobby.
The ensemble, 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 concert is free, although donations are appreciated. For more information on the performances, contact Susan Lawrence in the Department of Music at 269.337.7070 or Susan.Lawrence@kzoo.edu.
The College Singers will perform in their fall concert from 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday in the Dalton Theatre lobby.
The Academy Street Winds will open its 2023–24 season with an all-Celtic program titled Celtic Mist and Magic at 7:30 p.m. Friday, October 27, at Dalton Theatre.
Some of the programmed tunes will include Loch Lomond, Danny Boy, Irish Washer Woman and Riverdance. The Scottish and Irish Societies of Kalamazoo will also be on hand to display an array of kilts, plaids, flags and information booths. Plus, a piper will call the concert to order followed by the Academy Street Singers in a candlelight procession performing Skye Boat Song.
The Academy Street Winds, formerly known as the Kalamazoo College Symphonic Band, functions as a beloved creative outlet for woodwind, brass and percussion students. Community musicians joined the ensemble in winter 2016 to expand the group’s sound and capabilities. Director of Bands and Professor of Music Thomas Evans serves as the group’s conductor.
The concert is free and open to the public. The Department of Music recommends that attendees arrive by 7 p.m. to experience pre-show activities and reserve seats. For more information, contact the music department at 269.337.7070 or susan.lawrence@kzoo.edu.
The Academy Street Winds will conduct its first concert of the season, titled “Celtic Mist and Magic,” at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Dalton Theatre.
The Virupannavar Family Merging Rivers Endowed Fund for Hindu Faith and Cultural Studies at Kalamazoo College is sponsoring and organizing a free concert of devotional Indian classical music on Tuesday, October 3, at 7 p.m. in Stetson Chapel.
The concert’s title, Bhakti Rasamanjari, includes references to devotional worship emphasizing mutual attachment and love of a devotee and a personal god; essence, in particular the characteristic quality of music, literature and drama; and the blossom that flowers on a tree before the fruit, according to Chandrashekhar and Sushila Virupannavar. The couple established the fund to enhance experiences for current and future students while honoring the opportunities K offered two of their children who graduated from K.
“Like all art forms in Indian culture, Indian classical music and dance art are believed to be a divine art form, originating from the Hindu gods and goddesses,” the Virupannavars said.
Utsad Rais Balekhan and Utsad Hafiz Balekhan will be among the musicians performing Indian classical music at 7 p.m. Tuesday, October 3, in Stetson Chapel.
The concert features world-famous, seventh-generation Hindustani vocalists and sitarists the Khan Brothers—Utsad Rais Balekhan and Utsad Hafiz Balekhan.
Hindustani music is associated with north India and primarily uses Hindi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Urdu and Braj Bhasha languages. The sitar is a plucked, stringed instrument used in Hindustani classical music. A sitar can have from 18 to 21 strings, with six or seven running over curved, raised frets and being played directly, while the remainder resonate with the played strings.
The Khan Brothers will be accompanied by Atul Kamble on tabla and Shri Gangadhar Shinde on harmonium.
A tabla is a pair of small hand drums of slightly different shapes and sizes, somewhat similar in shape to bongos. A tabla is the principal percussion instrument in Indian classical music and is essential in the bhakti devotional traditions of Hinduism and Sikhism.
The harmonium is a stringed instrument that, in Indian music, is a portable, hand-pumped wooden box.
The Khan Brothers are of the Kirana/Dharwad gharana, which means they are part of a school of music tied to Kirana, a town in Uttar Pradesh, in northern India. The Kirana style emphasizes perfect intonation of notes. The city of Dharwad, where the Khan Brothers have seven generations of family roots, lies in a region particularly associated with the Kirana gharana.
The Virupannavars said the concert fits the focus of their family fund on Hindu faith and Indian cultural studies.
“This will be a display of Hindu devotional music, expressing love and devotion to one divinity,” Chandrashekhar said. “Secondly, it will be a beautiful display of Indian musical cultural tradition by eminent performers and esteemed scholars who come from our region in India.”
Merging Rivers in the fund’s name is borrowed from the 12th century Shiva saint Basava, who spread his messages in simple, short poems called vachanas, which ended with the Lord of the Merging Rivers, amplifying the concept of unity, union and oneness with the eternal.
The Virupannavar family expressed appreciation for the College’s support of the fund, including support from Sohini Pillai, assistant professor of religion and director of film and media studies, in helping to shape the fund’s focus and bring the concert to campus.
“Hopefully, this will be a long and beautiful journey,” Sushila said. “Two of our three children attended K, had a great education and became doctors. We are proud of their accomplishments and of our decision to send them here.”
The Virupannavars hope the concert inspires K students to learn about and try sitar and tabla. In service of that, the performers will also deliver a demonstration and talk to a music class the day of the concert.
“Kalamazoo is a renowned location on the world’s music map,” Chandrashekhar said. “Our family is excited to celebrate that great and long Kalamazoo music tradition, by adding a small element of Indian classical music essence, with a very sincere hope that it will grow and blossom.”
A musician known for working with pianists from around world will conduct a concert at Kalamazoo College this weekend through the Gilmore.
Maria João Pires launched the Partitura Project in Belgium in 2012, aiming to encourage cooperation and social engagement among pianists while steering the dynamic between artists toward altruism rather than competitiveness. She will lead a 10-day workshop of that project in Kalamazoo and perform at 4 p.m. Sunday in Stetson Chapel with her students.
Pires is known for her lightness of touch, vital imagination and masterful interpretations of Chopin, Schubert and Mozart. She has devoted herself to expressing the influence of art in life, community and education.
“We have a responsibility to lead our life in the best possible way, to help others and to share this planet with compassion,” Pires said. “Music and art are the deepest expressions of our soul and the direct transmission of our universe. I think everyone is born an artist and art should be shared with all people on this planet.”
In-person concert tickets for the general Kalamazoo community are $35 for adults and $7 for students 7 and older.
K faculty and staff are eligible for buy one, get one free tickets. K students are eligible for single free tickets. At the Gilmore website, click “Promo Code” on the upper right of the ticketing page. Students should use the code KCSTU23. Faculty and staff should use the code KC23. Click “Apply Promo Code” and choose your tickets. The discount will be applied at checkout.
Rush tickets will also be available with a K ID on the day of the concert when the box office opens on site.
Maria João Pires will lead a 10-day workshop of her Partitura Project in Kalamazoo and perform at 4 p.m. Sunday in Stetson Chapel with her students.
Three concerts over the next two weekends are sure to please a variety of music lovers while spotlighting the talents of Kalamazoo College students. All three are free and open to the public.
The first concert, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 5, in Dalton Theatre, will conclude the season for the Academy Street Winds, directed by Professor of Music Tom Evans. Their presentation, titled VivaEspaña,will feature some of the driving rhythms, lush harmonies and toe-tapping melodies associated with the vibrant Spanish culture. A rousing paso dobles, an exhilarating dance suite titled Dazas Cubanas, the wind band classic El Camino Real by Alfred Reed, and The Impossible Dream, sung by the Academy Street Chorus, will be among the featured songs.
There was standing room only at the band’s last concert, so arrive early to ensure a seat. As your reward, attendees can enjoy several selections by the Academy Street Winds Flute Quartet during the concert’s prelude.
At 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 12, in Dalton Theatre, hear the Kalamazoo College Jazz Band, which Evans says is among the best he’s led in his 28 years at K.
The performance will feature classics such as Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil, Charles Mingus’ Boogie Stop Shuffle, Duke Pearson’s Jeannine, Oliver Nelson’s Checkpoint Charlie, David Benoit’s Café Rio, and George Gershwin’s Summertime, which will be sung by Isabella Pellegrom ’25 in a new, hip arrangement. Plus, per tradition, the band will have a dance number at the end, allowing attendees to dance themselves.
Finally, the Kalamazoo Philharmonia, directed by Department of Music Chair Andrew Koehler, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 13, in Dalton Theatre.
In the Orthodox Christian tradition, keeping eternal memory is the promise given by the living to the recently deceased. In honor of the thousands who have died in Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, and of the resilient Ukrainian culture that Russia has tried to appropriate and erase over centuries, the concert will be both a celebration and an act of mourning.
Professor of Music Tom Evans will lead the Academy Street Winds and the Kalamazoo College Jazz Band in concerts on Friday, May 5, and Friday, May 12, respectively.Kalamazoo College Associate Professor of Music Andrew Koehler directs the Kalamazoo Philharmonia.
A centuries-wide sampling of Ukrainian music will be featured including the bright, recently discovered Symphony of Maksym Berezovsky, which connects Ukraine to the wider trends of classical music in Europe; the charming, early Romantic symphony-overtures of Mykhailo Verbytsky, the author of the Ukrainian national anthem; the brooding late-Romantic lyrical lament of Viktor Kosenko; the angular, muscular music of Soviet composer Boris Lyatoshynsky, written for a movie about the patron saint of Ukrainian letters, Taras Shevchenko; the folk-inflected dance suites of Levko Kolodub; the hypnotic, sacred stillness of composer Hanna Havrylets; and Mykola Skoryk’s timeless Melody, an unofficial second national anthem of Ukraine.
For more information on these concerts, please call the Department of Music at 269.337.7070.
The Gilmore is scheduling two concerts on campus at Stetson Chapel and the Kalamazoo College community is invited to attend both at a discount.
First, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet will perform at 7:30 p.m. this Thursday. The world-renowned performer has recorded more than 50 albums and performs a range of solo, chamber and orchestral pieces at worldwide venues. In the 2022-23 season, he is performing with colleagues including Renée Fleming, Itzhak Perlman, Michael Tilson Thomas and Emanuel Ax, and he is playing Debussy’s Préludes in Switzerland, Canada, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and throughout the U.S., including at Carnegie Hall.
Thibaudet’s recordings have received two Grammy nominations, and his 2021 album Carte Blanche features a collection of deeply personal solo piano pieces never-before recorded by the pianist. He has also worked in film, as a soloist in Dario Marianelli’s award-winning and nominated scores for Atonement, which won an Oscar for Best Original Score, and Pride and Prejudice; in Alexandre Desplat’s soundtrack for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; and in Wes Anderson’s film, The French Dispatch.
Then, Maria João Pires will perform at 4 p.m. Sunday, May 21.
Pires launched the Partitura Project in Belgium in 2012, with the aim to encourage cooperation and social engagement among pianists, while balancing the dynamic between artists toward altruism rather than competitiveness. She will conclude her nine-day workshop for pianists with a solo and joint performance with her students. The program and participants will be announced from the stage.
The Gilmore has scheduled a performance by pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet to take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 30, at Stetson Chapel.
A piano master admired for her interpretations of Chopin, Schubert and Mozart, Pires is known for her lightness of touch and vital imagination. She has devoted herself to expressing the influence of art in life, community and education. Reflecting on this philosophy, she has said, “We have a responsibility to lead our life in the best possible way, to help others and to share this planet with compassion. Music and art are the deepest expressions of our soul and the direct transmission of our universe. I think everyone is born an artist and art should be shared with all people on this planet.”
Born in 1944 in Lisbon, Pires gave her first performance at age 4, and received Portugal’s highest award for young musicians at age 9. She gained international recognition upon winning first prize at the Brussels Beethoven International Competition, commemorating the composer’s 200th birthday in 1970. Pires has appeared all over the globe with major orchestras including the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Wiener Philharmoniker.
Faculty and staff are eligible for buy one, get one free tickets to both concerts. Students are eligible for single free tickets.
Before adding tickets to your cart for the Thibaudet concert or the Pires concert on the Gilmore website, click “Promo Code” on the upper right of the ticketing page. Students should use the code KCSTU23. Faculty and staff should use the code KC23. Click “Apply Promo Code” and choose your tickets. The discount will be applied at checkout. Rush tickets will also be available with a K ID on the day of the concert when the box office opens on site.
Kalamazoo College music ensembles are widely known for conducting performances all over the world, yet a recent appearance provided a first-of-its-kind venue for the Kalamazoo College Singers.
On March 2, the 30-student group had the opportunity to perform at the Ionia Correctional Facility in Ionia, Michigan, about 78 miles northeast of campus—an opportunity that College Singers Director and Assistant Professor of Music Chris Ludwa says he had been pursing for nearly 15 years.
“It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to engage in music in prisons,” Ludwa said. “It’s very easy when you’re in the academy to spend all your time focused on the academy, and I feel called to bring music to this particular population. It doesn’t make sense to me that when somebody gets locked up, we take away from them the things that may in fact provide the greatest sense of peace, serenity or calm. This is a world with so many inequities. We need to balance the opportunities that we’re providing for people of means, with those who are—for whatever reason—not able to access or experience live musical performances. Everybody’s soul hungers for it.”
Plans for the event at the prison developed as the College Singers have sought more performances in the community in recent years. Ionia Correctional Facility Chaplain Casey Cheney was thrilled to welcome the group when Ludwa reached out.
When March 2 came and the bus departed, Ludwa talked with the College Singers on the ride to Ionia about their expectations for the visit and who they might see.
“I asked the students if they have ever broken the law or broken any rules and not been caught,” he said. “Every hand went up, underscoring that most of us have a lot of preconceived notions about who’s in the prison system. We assume that we know more than we do about people who are imprisoned, but in a country whose justice system favors one population over another, that is an assumption that only furthers the systemic issues we see around us.”
Upon arriving in Ionia, the group spent about an hour going through security. “The guards did everything from checking what was on our person to taking our socks off and running scans on the bottom of our feet to make sure we weren’t bringing in any contraband,” Ludwa said. “They were checking our keyboards. Some of the students had their mouths swabbed.”
As they proceeded further into the prison complex and walked across the yard, they found themselves surrounded by razor wire, and they caught a rare glimpse of life inside the facility.
“You see these guys in the library and in the lunchroom, dressed in their blue uniforms,” Ludwa said. “But when you get into the performance hall, they’re an audience like any other. In the performance hall, there are no labels. There’s no ‘them’ or ‘us.’ You’re just all experiencing music together.”
Prison officials had taped off seats in the auditorium, putting at least 50 feet between the inmates and the College Singers. The singers stayed onstage for most of the performance until they decided to come offstage to perform a gospel piece led by Tyrus Parnell ’25, followed by the spiritual Down by the Riverside as a finale.
“When we joined them, they engaged in a different way,” Ludwa said. “It’s like we tore down this wall, literally and figuratively. When Tyrus performed, one of the inmates spontaneously got up and started applauding spontaneously. He was so encouraging of what Tyrus had done.” Then came a post-performance Q-and-A that Ludwa described as amazing.
The College Singers have performed at a variety of sites around the country including churches and concert halls.
College Singers Director and Assistant Professor of Music Chris Ludwa has made it a goal to perform at more sites in the community.
The College Singers performed March 2 at the Ionia Correctional Facility.
“They asked the same kinds of questions we get whenever we go on tour,” he said. “Whether we’re at a wealthy, predominantly white church in the middle of a city or a prison in a rural area like Ionia, the questions show us that music is universal.”
After the performance, Chaplain Cheney reached out to Ludwa to thank the group for coming: “Our men have experienced so much violence, so much trauma. They lack so many things we take for granted and the live musical performance reminds them what a beautiful place this world can be and is.”
In hindsight, College Singers representatives such as Keegan Sweeney ’24 said K professors engage in conversations around social justice, equity, the prison industrial complex and injustices in society, so it’s important that the College offers ways to engage with it.
“I appreciated the opportunity to see a part of American life that few college students our age experience,” Sweeney said. “Walking out of the auditorium, many of us were already reflecting on our experience. As we passed the window of the prison law library—several people sat inside, their noses in textbooks. Next to the window was a classroom with a group, deep in conversation.”
“I was reminded of the injustices endemic to our system and the stark comparison of the classroom and law library to our campus dorm rooms and K classrooms—where we discuss the same system, but rarely ever see it for ourselves. At the same time, I think the classroom and library humanized incarcerated people, those who only show up in statistics to many of us.”
Jacob McKinney ’26 said, “I wish we could have talked more to the people who came and watched because I felt like we connected with them when we were offstage. I could see some of them smiling and clapping along to Down by the Riverside and it brought a great amount of emotion to me. It was a really special experience.”
Ludwa said, “For me, it was the quintessential education experience that is a part of the K-Plan, where we plan what we’re going to learn about in the classroom, and then we experience it ourselves because the firsthand learning is so much more influential. It helps take something from theoretical to practical. Once the students do that, they have a better sense of the human toll these systems of injustice cause.”
Ludwa added that the trip scratched the surface of his dream, and from an emotional standpoint, it far exceeded his expectations of what he hoped the both the inmates and the students would get from the experience.
“Perhaps we go back in and do a workshop on singing. Then eventually it becomes a regular performance venue. The key is to build relationships.” The challenge is finding funding, as the trips carry an expense with them, and it’s important to avoid that expense being something that further underscores the inequities amongst students in terms of financial means.
Sweeney said, “We came to sing, but I think we left having learned something that you cannot teach in a classroom. I cannot speak for everyone, but I know that I got a dose of reality that day. As our bus pulled out of the parking lot, leaving to come back to campus, I was reminded to live each day with more intention and not to take privileges for granted.”
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Three concerts in the coming week will put Kalamazoo College students center stage along with a mix of community music partners.
First, the Kalamazoo Philharmonia will hold a recital titled The 9th at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Dalton Theater at Light Fine Arts as a tribute to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
The performance will include a collaboration with the Kalamazoo Bach Festival Chorus and feature soloists Madelaine Lane, soprano; Carrie Ledet, mezzo-soprano; Jonathon Lovegrove, tenor; and Trent Broussard, baritone. Tickets are $2–$5.
Led by Director Andrew Koehler, the Kalamazoo Philharmonia brings together students, faculty, and amateur and professional musicians. The group won The American Prize in Orchestral Programming—Maestro Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award in 2014 and has produced several CDs. It also has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning.
The Kalamazoo College Singers will have a free performance at 4 p.m. Sunday in the lobby at Light Fine Arts. The hour-long program, simply titled RE, will focus on restoring many of the things we lose in the struggles of daily life within themes of revival, restoration, reparation, resurrection, recirculation and respiration.
The Kalamazoo College Singers will perform at 4 p.m. Sunday in the lobby at Light Fine Arts.
The 35-singer ensemble features students representing majors from music to chemistry. They’re from locales as close as Kalamazoo and as far as Colombia. Nature enthusiasts and environmentalists will appreciate the texts centered on Earth’s natural beauty. Other works link the power of nature with the beauty of languages such as Mandarin, drawing together similarities from across the globe.
Sophomore Tyrus Parnell, a multi-talented musician and Presidential Student Ambassador, will direct the choir in a gospel piece. In solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, the singers will perform pieces by luminaries for queer rights such as the Indigo Girls and kd lang. The whole evening wraps up with a bit of Stevie Wonder and a setting of the spiritual Down by the Riverside.
“If audiences have never experienced a concert in the lobby of the Light Fine Arts building, they are in for a treat, as the acoustics are superb for a cappella singing, as most of this concert is,” College Singers Director Chris Ludwa said.
Finally, the International Percussion Ensemble will perform a free concert at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 8, in the Dalton Theatre. The group—which includes African drums, Japanese taiko drums and Caribbean steel drums—features individuals with varied musical backgrounds from K, nearby institutions, and the general community.
Two Kalamazoo College music ensembles are sure to excite and entertain audiences this weekend with their winter performances.
A wide variety of styles will be performed from second-line New Orleans to blues and swing when K’s Jazz Band takes the stage at 8 p.m. Friday, February 17, at the Dalton Theatre. Directed by Music Professor Thomas G. Evans, K’s Jazz Band pulls together a collection of contemporary and classic jazz arrangements to provide the participating students and the audience with an electric experience. Listeners are encouraged to dance if the music inspires them with the enthusiasm of the musicians making the band special.
At 8 p.m. Saturday, February 18, at Dalton Theatre, join the Academy Street Winds as the group pays loving tribute to legendary film composer John Williams. Led by conductor Evans, the ensemble will perform selections from Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, War Horse, Star Wars, Jaws, Indiana Jones and more. The group is especially proud to share the stage with Music Department Chair Andrew Koehler, who will perform the violin theme from Schindler’s List.
Kalamazoo College’s Jazz Band and the Academy Street Winds are sure to excite and entertain audiences this weekend under their conductor, Music Professor Thomas G. Evans.
