The Irving S. Gilmore International Piano Festival will feature the finest international pianists playing classical, jazz, and pop music. The piano will be center stage for Gilmore-commissioned world premieres, free community concerts, films, musical theatre, and so much more.

Festival Schedule:

12:00 PM: Isaiah J. Thompson Trio

Isaiah J. Thompson, piano
Barry Stephenson, bass
Matthew Lee, drums

Jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer Isaiah J. Thompson won the 2023 American Pianists Awards and the Cole Porter Fellowship of the American Pianists Association. As a performer, he aims to express joy and convey his personal experiences through music and his everlasting love of jazz. His recording debut was featured on Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Handful of Keys album with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Wynton Marsalis. He worked on the Golden Globe-nominated soundtrack for Motherless Brooklyn, was named a Steinway Artist, and won the 2018 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award.

Location: Civic Theatre Auditorium, Kalamazoo

2:00 PM: Mark Nepo: Drinking from the River of Light

Kalamazoo-based poet, philosopher, author, and educator Mark Nepo will explore the lifelong process of listening, reflecting, and expressing, and on how bearing witness to the truth of living reveals the mysteries of life while introducing each of us to our very personal voice. Through poems and stories, Mark will explore the nature and practice inherent to the life of expression, by which we can strengthen our connections and find our way.

Location: Kalamazoo Public Library- Central Library

7:30 PM: Paul Lewis: Schubert Sonata Series IV

In a special Festival event, British pianist Paul Lewis will present a survey of Franz Schubert’s monumental contribution to the classical repertoire: his piano sonatas. Mr. Lewis has received critical and public acclaim worldwide, consolidating his reputation as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of the central European classical repertoire. He regularly works as a soloist with the world’s great orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, and the Royal Concertgebouw, and Cleveland Orchestras, among many others.

Location: Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU