WMUK Culture

Today would have been Dacia Bridges' 47th birthday. The performer, who died of a brain aneurysm in 2019, was re-building a music career from Kalamazoo, after garnering considerable international success on the music scene in Germany. Bridges was working on an album with the Dacia Bridges Project, an all-female lineup of Michigan-based musicians. She was also raising her daughter, Billie Sky, as a single parent, and filming a documentary about an untold piece of Kalamazoo history, the Kalamazoo Boxing Academy, among other things.

In a conversation that frequently references Dacia's spirit and personality, bandmates Carolyn Koebel and Cori Somers, and La Luna Studios' Ian Gorman, talked to Cara Lieurance about finishing seven songs (including "Unpredictable Child" and "Road Back To You") for release on Bandcamp (available locally at Green Light Music).  Proceeds will go toward a fund benefitting Bridges' daughter.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things is the newest film by screenwriter/director Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). It's currently available on Netflix, and as Madeline Cimini and president Dhera Strauss of the Kalamazoo Film Society tell Cara Lieurance, it's worth talking about. The KFS is inviting people to tune in on a "Virtual Lobby" Zoom session, Wednesday, Sep 16 at 7 pm. The link is available by contacting the society through its website.

The arboretum at the Kalamazoo Nature Center will ring with more than birdsong on Sunday, Sep 13 at 3 pm. Six performers and ensembles, invited by the Connecting Chords Festival, will be stationed at different points along the paths, allowing visitors to wander and listen. The performers are world music percussionist Carolyn Koebel, Ugandan singer/dancer/multi-instrumentalist Samuel Nalangira, the Celtic group Hazeltree, singer/storyteller Sidney Ellis II, Scandinavian duo Norse Code, and the Middle Eastern group Bahar Ensemble. Koebel, Nalangira, and Connecting Chords executive director Elizabeth Start joined Cara Lieurance for a preview.

Last week, Anne Harrigan revealed the details of the 2020-21 season of the Battle Creek Symphony, which begins on October 17, 2020. On the 19th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Harrigan and Cara Lieurance each share their experiences of that day.

Jessica Mallow Gulley's first nine months as executive director of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra have been extraordinary ones. Pulling off a spectular 100th season was supposed to be the first order of business, but the COVID-19 pandemic soon put plans for the season in disarray. Since then, Gulley and the other members of the KSO staff have planned, re-planned, and re-re-planned ways to keep the music alive, and to stay connected to the wider community.