During this ArtBreak, Elizabeth Start will offer an overview of the history and mission of Kalamazoo’s Connecting Chords Music Festival, including a description of their 2025 collaboration with K-RESA Education for the Arts to bring San Jose Taiko to town for a public performance on March 25, coupled with concerts for youth. Carolyn Koebel will join Start to give a short demonstration of taiko drumming.

A Kalamazoo native, Start is Executive Director of the Michigan Festival of Sacred Music, which presents the Connecting Chords Music Festival. She is a cellist with the Kalamazoo and Elgin Symphony Orchestras, an award-winning composer, and Secretary-Treasurer of the Kalamazoo Federation of Musicians. She is a member of the Chicago Composers’ Consortium, the Chicago Musicians Club of Women, and the International Alliance of Women in Music, for whom she provides CD reviews.