Last month, the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival named Pierre van der Westhuizen as its next director. The South African pianist and arts administrator will take the helm this January following the retirement of Daniel Gustin, the current director of 18 years. Widely credited with boosting the visibility of the prestigious Cleveland International Piano Competition, van der Westhuizen brings impressive administrative chops to The Gilmore — as well as the perspective of a renowned musician and passionate educator.

Torrey Thomas has been teaching dance — or what he calls “Torreography” — for more than 20 years. He was born and raised in Grand Rapids and loves his roots here in West Michigan. He is known around the community for his eccentric personality, talented dance moves and teaching abilities, working with theater productions and giving lessons. Recently, Thomas received a Grand Award for best choreography for his work on Ragtime at Grand Rapids Civic Theatre. We talked with Thomas about where his passion to teach, dance and work comes from.

When they were first released, some holiday classics could hardly be considered successes, said James Sanford, a film critic and former creative manager of Kalamazoo’s Alamo Drafthouse.

A Christmas Carol has taken many forms, but a two-day run with Grand Rapids Ballet will be one of the most unique by far.

UICA Executive Director Miranda Krajniak is giving the community an early Christmas present with new admission fees that will make the venue accessible to low-income adults and children.

Confident that Muskegon Museum of Art is in capable hands, retiring Executive Director Judith Hayner said her replacement, Kirk Hallman, has a connection to just about everything and everybody.

A self-taught artist who grew up in the rural south during the civil rights era, folk artist Winfred Rembert draws and speaks from experience, weaving together leather, color and real-life injustices to make meaning of painful memories.

Holiday live entertainment options abound this time of year in Southwest Michigan, but perhaps none so festive and crisp as the Canadian Brass Christmas concert at Miller Auditorium in Kalamazoo, which kicked off the season mere days after Thanksgiving.

Christopher Wheeldon, the British-born Royal Ballet trained dancer and one of the world’s most innovative and celebrated choreographers, created a ballet based on An American in Paris, the iconic multiple Oscar-winning 1951 Vincente Minelli film starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, in 2005 for New York City Ballet, but he had never before directed actors.

Between the two acts of Seeing/Seen, Wellspring/Cory Terry & Dancers’ Fall Concert of Dance, the audience is invited onto the stage to interact and make noise with drumsticks on the Singing Wall Sculptures, an enormous set of suspended gongs and other metalwork created by Lisa Renee Coons and Steven E. Pierce that is prettier to look at than to hear.