Irving Gilmore
The Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival & Artist Awards are the legacy of Irving S. Gilmore, a Kalamazoo native whose deep love of keyboard music and support for struggling musicians are widely remembered. It was his devotion to keyboard music and its artists which inspired the creation and initial funding of the Festival through the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation.
In 1972, Mr. Gilmore created the Foundation to guarantee that his philosophy of giving would continue after his death. When he died in 1986, he left the bulk of his estate to the Foundation. Aside from the performing arts, the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation also supports human services, health, education and community development programs—all consistent with the virtues and philosophies of the late Irving Gilmore.
Despite his wealth, Irving Gilmore led a modest life, donating the bulk of his fortune to the less fortunate. His charitable nature was illustrated in countless, most often anonymous, ways. Stories of his philanthropy abound—from financially assisting poor, hungry and homeless people and the visually impaired, to anonymously funding the education of a promising music student, to quietly sending a grand piano to a pianist.
Gilmore was an accomplished musician himself. He began playing the piano as a child and studied in New York following his graduation from Yale University in 1923. In 1925, he returned to his hometown of Kalamazoo to help manage the family business, Gilmore Brothers Department Store. He remained an active manager of the store for 47 years, but his love of keyboard music and admiration for its performers never diminished.
Along with assisting young musicians during his lifetime, Gilmore also brought recognized pianists, including Van Cliburn and José Iturbe, for concerts in Kalamazoo. The “Starlight Symphony Concerts,” which he created and coordinated, were major concert events in Kalamazoo during the summers of the 1960s and ’70s. Gilmore retired in 1972, but remained active until his death at the age of 85 on January 17, 1986.
