Local Music

On Sunday, July 28, beginning at 1 pm, nine Kalamazoo Academy of Rock bands will take turns entertaining a crowd in the Old Dog Tavern's outdoor beer garden for their 10th anniversary concert. Cara Lieurance talks to KAR general manager Bob Wallis and two young musicians enrolled in KAR - Kirsten Nelson (guitar, vocals, bass, drums) and Gordie Jennings (keyboards, vocals) - about how the academy gets kids started on the rock & roll path while teaching them valuable lessons about working with others, time management, self-discipline, and more. 

Along with the nine current KAR bands, the celebration will also include an 8-member alumni band, and a surprise mystery guest who will appear on Sunday. The celebration is expect to last until around 8 pm.

Growing up in a very musical family helped steer three of the four Walvoord siblings into professional music careers. Amanda Dykhouse is the concertmaster of the Holland Symphony, Jennifer Walvoord is the concertmaster of the West Michigan Symphony, and Martha Walvoord is the associate professor of violin at the University of Texas at Arlington.

For the first time, the three sisters will perform at the Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck in programs at 7:30 pm on Thursday and Friday, July 25 and 26. Joining them are two musical spouses: pianist Drew Le, who co-directs the festival with Jenny Walvoord, and bassist Jack Unzicker, who is married to Martha Walvoord. Martha Walvoord tells Cara Lieurance about her family's love of music, and about how they came up with pieces for multiple violins to play in their sister celebration.

On Wednesday, April 15, 2020 in Chenery Auditorium, two classical music stars - American soprano Renee Fleming and Russian-born pianist Evgeny Kissin - will perform a program of songs and solo pieces as part of a handful of appearances in the United States, including stops at Carnegie Hall in New York and the Symphony Center of Chicago. Pierre Van Der Westhuizen, the executive director of the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, talks about the special qualities that made each performer a legend in classical music, and share some of the behind-the-scenes preparation that his organization carries out to help the artists perform at their best.

Tickets for this event will be made available to Gilmore Keyboard Festival donors on Nov 3, 2019, and to the general public in January, 2020.

The Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck continues this week with festival co-directors Jennifer Walvoord and Drew Le joining Grand Rapids Symphony musicians Leslie Van Becker and Alicia Eppinga in a program of Piazzolla, Mozart, and Schoenfield. In a conversation with Cara Lieurance, Le introduces his fellow musicians and shares his thoughts on Piazzolla's "Spring," from Four Seasons in Buenos Aires, Mozart's Piano Quartet No. 1, K. 478, and Paul Schoenfield's Café Music. He also shares the news that he and his family are moving to Ohio, where he will be an assistant professor of piano at Kent State University. They will return each summer to direct the Chamber Music Festival of Saugatuck.

The Kalamazoo Symphony and Kalamazoo Public Schools' after-school music program, Kalamazoo Kids in Tune continues beyond the school year, offering six weeks of summer programming. Artistic director Ben Gudbrandson says it's a time when the skills they built might otherwise get rusty, and just as importantly, kids benefit from the familiar routine of rehearsal and performing. Craig Freeman, a leading brass instructor for KKIT, added a jazz unit to the program this summer, and alongside the orchestra and its chamber ensembles, Kalamazoo Kids in Tune will give two public concerts this week.

On Tuesday, July 16, the orchestra will play at the Portage Public Library at 1 pm - 1:30 pm. On Thursday, July 18, they'll be downtown on the Kalamazoo Mall from 11:45 - 12:15 pm.