By K.D. Norris
ken@wktv.org
March is Women’s History Month, and St. Cecilia Music Center is, itself, a huge part of the history of women in Grand Rapids.
Dating from 1883 when several musically talented women, led by Ella Matthews Peirce, formed a society to “promote the study and appreciation of music in all its branches, and to encourage the development of music in the community”, St. Cecilia has been offering music education and performance.
When asked, current St. Cecilia executive director Cathy Holbrook will gladly talk in great depth about the history of the society, or the beautiful building it built and which continues to host world-class concerts as well as community and youth musicians.
But when Holbrook is asked about the Center’s biggest March event, the first annual Helen DeVos Legacy Award dinner on March 23, she has a little extra spark in her words.
“At this inaugural event we will honor the late Helen DeVos for all of her efforts promoting the cultural life in Grand Rapids — really, helping to create the cultural life in Grand Rapids,” Holbrook said to WKTV. “In subsequent years we’ll choose a different woman in West Michigan who has had positive impact on the arts … to get the Helen DeVos Legacy Award.”
Tickets are still available for the Helen DeVos Legacy Award dinner.
Holbrook stressed that this award is not only to honor Helen DeVos this year, but for many years to come — to help, in St. Cecilia’s way, to remember her caring and giving ways.
“The DeVos family has been very supportive of St. Cecilia, but really supportive of the cultural life of Grand Rapids,” she said. “It is funny, because Mr. DeVos made it very clear that (supporting cultural life) was really Helen’s bailiwick. So it is really so important for us to honor her, and everything she did. …
“But we knew that it would be important to her and the family that we were honoring other people as well. … She would not have wanted it to be about her, but about other people.”
Initially, though, it is more than fitting that St. Cecilia’s new award will first honor the late Helen DeVos, who was a lifelong benefactor and supporter of many arts organizations in the community, including St. Cecilia.
After all, St. Cecilia’s stated mission is “to promote the study, appreciation and performance of music in order to enrich the lives of West Michigan residents.”
It could be argued that it was a mission of Helen DeVos to “enrich the lives of West Michigan residents” as well.
Just as those women back in 1883 envisioned.
For more information about the history of St. Cecilia Music Center, follow this link. For more information on the Helen DeVos Legacy Award dinner and tickets, visit scmc-online.org .
