Morning Edition; Jay Gillman

It's morning edition on KRPS. 2020 was a challenging year, but performances and concerts continued in new ways. Pro music at Joplin also hired a new executive director, and he joins us this morning. Jay Gilman, good morning, and thank you for some of your time. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. So, first I ask what it's been like taking over Pro music at Joplin during this time that people can meet in person for concerts or performances, and what are some of the challenges and discoveries that you've had since taking over the job? Yeah, well, it's been tough. Going through both a leadership transition here at Pro Musica and this one-centred century pandemic is not easy for any organization, especially those like us, whose mission is to bring people together in often intimate settings with non-amplified music to be together for concerts. I'm fortunate that Pro Musica is incredibly well-regarded in the community. We have a deeply connected board, and of course the work we do is fantastic.

So in that way, we've got some wins at our back, but this hiatus that we've been forced to endure in terms of public concerts has been an interesting welcome to the position and of course to Joplin. Yeah, Pro Musica Joplin is incredibly well-known in the community. Not only in Joplin, but in the Southwest Missouri, I've gone to a couple of your guys' concerts and no matter the venue, it is packed, like it is filled. People are standing up to when you guys bring in performers and groups. And also since you've started at Pro Musica Joplin, you've created a program called The Overtures of Hope. Could you talk about that? Yeah, Overtures of Hope is a temporary initiative that we implemented here when we realized that the packed public concerts that you're talking about are not possible. We see Overtures of Hope as a cultural response to the military flyovers and the outdoor rounds of applause that took place earlier this year in support of frontline healthcare providers.

So through safe means, we're bringing small ensembles of chamber musicians to perform tribute concerts to uplift healthcare workers and other marginalized communities that have been severely impacted by the pandemic. We've reached nearly 200 patrons to date with those concerts and we're going to be resuming Overtures of Hope tribute concerts after the holidays. Do you have any firm dates on that or just planning for the future right now? We are going to be working with Access Family Care come February to do a series of performances with them. Those performances of course are not public so it's an interesting thing to talk about. We go into facilities and have performances for patients that happen to be there and of course the healthcare workers who are performing but it's an interesting dynamic because we're used to talking very concretely about our performances but in this case, we're happy to sort of talk about them after the fact but in the moment because of social distancing and

all of that, it's an interesting place for us to be with those. It is, yeah, because normally people are used to showing up to the concerts and it's stuff like that for being very public, you're a public organization but these are kind of public private concerts in a way. I mean, I'd be excited if the concert showed up to my workplace. Exactly, yes. So they are. They're free to those who are at these facilities but of course when we're visiting a place like Mercy Hospital or Lafayette House or Access Family Care, they obviously have intense restrictions on who's able to come into those places due to healthcare restrictions and so we're performing for those who happen to be there whether working that day or a patient who is there to receive care. And as the vaccine is rolling out, there's two or three vaccines right now as we record this interview, do vaccines or the hope that they hold, change your plans into the summer or into the fall, how do you plan for artists or groups to come to Southwest Missouri and

perform if you are for later this year? Yeah, you know, we're in the midst of implementing a program called the Missouri Arts Council Art Safe Initiative. That's a program that's going to allow us to resume concerts in safe, new modifications regardless of the vaccine. That said, we're obviously thrilled that the vaccine has rolled out, I think, a lot more quickly than people realized and so we are going to be moving ahead more quickly than we might have been with our 2021-22 planning. We're also going to be re-announcing a revised season in just a few weeks and one of the things that patrons will see is that we're going to be doing reserve seating, which is new for us as an organization with free attendants, so we'll be doing free reserve seats. But people are also going to see a number of outdoor performances that are much easier

for us to do in the art safe certification landscape. So regardless of a vaccine, we're moving forward with the lessons that have been learned of the last few months to make sure that we can have concerts in safe ways. But the vaccine, of course, gives us tremendous hope for the sector and from my perspective, I'm very excited for our musicians for whom this has been a incredibly challenging time that they now have a breath of fresh air with the vaccine on their eyes. Yeah, you brought up outdoor performances and I just, just the other day, I spoke with Emily Fronkowski of Connected Culture and in about two years from now, we'll have the Cornell Complex, built downtown Joplin, two years seems close and far away at the same time. What is the Cornell Complex going to mean for an organization like ProMusica? Well, we're thrilled to be one of the founding tenants of the building, of course alongside the lead tenants and stewards of the building, Connected Culture and Spiby Center for the

Arts. ProMusica is a floating organization and we bring performances all throughout the community. That's not going to change when we move into the center, but it is going to equip us with an incredible new venue and a sense of community and conductiveness in downtown that is going to be tremendously exciting. So, for us, it's a really exciting moment as we mark ten years since the tornado and all of the development that's been happening over downtown. And now, of course, this pandemic, that center is going to be something that we are going to be very thrilled to be a part of in, as you said, the two very short, but very long time away years until it's completed. Right, yeah, Joplin, tornado anniversary coming up, ten year anniversary, mid-May later this year.

Yeah, I mean, the city has gone through a real transformation since the tornado with the new high school, the new library, the Cornell complex. I mean, there's a lot to be excited about, I think, with the Cornell complex and ProMusica moving into it, of course, with Connected Culture and the Spiby Center for the Arts. This seems like a great opportunity to become the executive director of ProMusica, Joplin. You're new to the role. So what are your some of your goals and what do you see the future of the organization as? Yeah, I'm very fortunate to receive a lot of positive momentum from our past 41 years. And so a lot of what we're going to be doing is really doubling down on the things that ProMusica does well. In terms of our short-term future, I think we're going to be really focused on preserving the highest quality of performing arts ensembles that we bring in to the region from across the U.S. And internationally. We're also going to be focusing, I think, more on articulating and emphasizing the cultural fabric of the region and of Missouri.

There are a lot of living composers, for instance, who reside in or are from Missouri. And we want to be celebrating those folks as well. So while we're bringing in musicians from outside, we also want to be showing to the outside the cultural assets that we have as a region and as a state. So we're going to be emphasizing, I think, that musical lexicon and some of the talent that we have from the state into our conversation as well. Lastly, I would say that my focus, especially in the role that I'm in, is really focused on cultivating the next generation of classical music lovers. So we're going to be really continuing our commitment to arts education, reaching thousands of young people in the region through our programs, and also focused on cultivating younger and more diverse patrons to join us at our concerts. Jake Eelman, Executive Director of Pro Music at Joplin.

Thank you for some of your time this morning. Thank you so much.