Kenwick residents Connie Milligan and Lee Carroll have married their love for music, art, hospitality and travel into a new local non-profit. Photo by Ryan K. Morris
When Connie Milligan met Lee Carroll, there was instant chemistry. She was hosting a party at her home, and Lee was in the band she’d hired to play. Having both ended long-term relationships, they knew what they wanted out of life. That happened to be the same thing: an existence devoted to travel, music, art and entertaining.
And today, the couple is dedicating much of their spare time and energy into a new initiative that marries all those passions, while also enriching the lives of others.
Called Green Room Exchange, the project is designed to bring musicians, artists and educators from other cultures to Lexington to perform locally and work with local talent. Operated as a non-profit organization under the umbrella of LexArts, the program sprang from the couple’s experiences while traveling.
During their travels – which have included Italy, Ghana, Cuba, Mexico, Amsterdam, Portugal, and Belgium – Lee and Connie always try and connect with the artistic community in each locale. They often sing the praises of Kentucky while overseas and have subsequently convinced several people they’ve met abroad to visit the Bluegrass State.
“Since Lee is a musician, we always see live music when we travel, and I love art, so I make friends with the tour guide or the interpreter or the artist,” Connie said. “Between the two us, we draw people in.”
“One of our dreams was to see the world, but we wanted to see it through the eyes of the people who lived there and not of a tourist,” she added.
Long before starting the initiative, the couple hosted lively parties with live music in a large room in their Kenwick home – which happens to be painted green. It became an important part of their lives. When they thought about taking their desire to integrate art and music from other cultures into their lives and community, they decided that the name “Green Room” spoke to what they want to create. Aside from being an offstage hospitality area for musicians, where artists often share experiences, the “green room” suggests, “a cultural exchange between the people here and people from other countries.”
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A recent party at Lee and Connie’s Preston Avenue home was designed to help raise awareness and money for the initiative, with live music, a silent auction and other activities. Photo by Ryan K. Morris
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A recent party at Lee and Connie’s Preston Avenue home was designed to help raise awareness and money for the initiative, with live music, a silent auction and other activities. Photo by Ryan K. Morris
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Writer Ed McClanahan (left) and Lee Carroll mingled at a recent gathering at Carroll’s Preston Avenue home to help kick off The Green Room Exchange. Photo by Ryan K. Morris
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A recent party at Lee and Connie’s Preston Avenue home was designed to help raise awareness and money for the initiative, with live music, a silent auction and other activities. Photo by Ryan K. Morris
For several years now, Lee and Connie have welcomed professor Gideon Alorwoyie, a renowned master percussionist and educator from Ghana, along with his group Afrikania to Lexington, hosting a series of local events that have ranged from drum and dance workshops at the Living Arts and Science Center to performances at local venues featuring Afrikania and Lee Carroll’s Afro-funk All-Stars – an assemblage of local musicians such as Tripp Bratton, Willie Eames and David Farris, along with musicians from New York City and Ghana. Carroll and Milligan have formed a close friendship with Alorwoyie over the past six years and have hosted him and his band at their home (and the homes of their neighbors) several times.
This month, the official onset of the Green Room Exchange will help usher in a new cross-cultural series of events, welcoming celebrated Cuban singer Xiomara Laugart, along with her son, pianist Axel Laugart, and composer and multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Ragonese to Lexington for a series of jazz concerts. They discovered Axel while on a trip to New York City.
“He speaks limited English, but his knowledge of music is extraordinary,” said Milligan. “After we met him, we learned that his mother had recorded 17 albums and is considered the voice of Cuba.”
On Sept. 14, the Laugarts will perform on the main stage at Lexington’s Latino Festival, accompanied by esteemed Lexington percussionist Tripp Bratton. On the following night, a special collaboration with Origins Jazz Series and the Lexington Chamber Orchestra will present the Laugarts onstage at Tee Dee’s Lounge, as a kickoff event for the Origins Jazz Series’ second season. Later this month, Lee and Connie will host what they are billing as a “Cuba Intensive” – and the official launch of the Green Room Exchange – at their Preston Avenue home.
After visiting Cuba on a university-sponsored trip earlier this year, the couple will welcome their interpreter from that trip, Alberto Gonzales Rivera, to Lexington, offering the opportunity for guests to learn about Cuba from his vantage.
In addition to bringing artists to Lexington and sponsoring concerts, lectures, and other creative events, the couple is also working to achieve the next phase of their project – documenting the process. They are working with local videographers, photographers and sound engineers to record, as they put it, “the spirit and creative expansion that occurs with cross-cultural exchange.” Additional goals include creating a physical recording with photography and sending local artists abroad to study the music, arts and cultures of other countries.
“We do this because we love it, but we realized that if we wanted to do this on a larger, more meaningful scale, that we can’t do it by ourselves, and that’s what drove this,” Lee said.
One thing that has stuck with the couple while traveling to other countries, particularly rural cultures, is seeing how people really depend on one another.
“When we go to rural villages, we see the integrity and dignity with which the people live, often without much in the way of resources or education,” said Connie. “We have been humbled everywhere we go, and part of our intention is to highlight the beauty of these cultures, to lift them up and to showcase how we are more similar than we are different.”
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Cuban singer Xiomara Laugart and her son, pianist Axel Laugart (pictured here) will perform two shows in Lexington in September. The shows are partnerships between the Green Room Exchange and Latino Fest (Sept. 14) and Origins Jazz Series (Sept. 15). Photo furnished
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Cuban singer Xiomara Laugart (pictured here) and her son, pianist Axel Laugart will perform two shows in Lexington in September. The shows are partnerships between the Green Room Exchange and Latino Fest (Sept. 14) and Origins Jazz Series (Sept. 15). Photo furnished