Season 3 Episode 12: Jee-Hoon Krska -- Founder of Keys 2 Success, Electrical Engineer, & Pianist

Welcome back to another episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. I'm your host Yukimi Song, and today's episode is a heartwarming, emotionally moving, and inspiring one, so I suggest you to have facial tissue or handkerchief handy. So for anyone listening or watching The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song for the first time, welcome. I'm a classical pianist and educator from New York City, and this podcast is for anyone who plays the piano, loves listening to piano music, or for someone who is currently pursuing a career in piano or works in the music industry professionally. In each episode, we interview a guest speaker who has been breaking exciting new ground in the music industry. Before getting started, I want to thank Amazing TPP fans and listeners for tuning in. Please rate the show and review it on Apple Podcasts because every rating review will help people find the show. So let me reveal the name of the guest. It's Dr. Jihoon Kerska, the founder of Keys to Success, MIT graduate, electronic engineer, and pianist. Since the launch of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, I wanted to interview her so badly because I have been following Dr. Kerska and her work for Keys to Success on social media and even from From what I saw on social, what she's been doing through this nonprofit organization is outstanding. So what exactly is Keys to Success? Well, you're about to find more about this amazing organization directly from the founder, Jihoon, but let me share what it says on its website. Keys to Success was founded by Jihoon Kerska, a Juilliard-trained classical musician with a doctorate in electrical engineering from MIT. Who wanted to provide the young children of Newark the cultural enrichment. So I just finished interviewing her a few minutes ago, and wow, Jihoon is an incredible person— strong, kind, generous, plus a great storyteller. So please stick with me till the end of the episode because you get to hear how she overcame her own challenges in her youth and became who she is today. So off we go. Please enjoy the show. You are listening to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century. I am delighted and honored to welcome Dr. Jihoon Kerska, the founder of Keys to Success, electrical engineer, and pianist. Keys to Success is a program she founded in 2016 to improve the lives of children growing up in the most underserved areas in Newark, New Jersey through music education. Dr. Kerska studied piano in the Juilliard Pre-College Program and has an extensive performance career playing at prestigious concert venues such as Boston Symphony Hall and Lincoln Center. She also has had opportunity to perform with the world-renowned cellist Mr. Yo-Yo Ma. While enjoying her musical path, she Kerska decided to pursue academics in engineering at MIT and achieved the highest degree, PhD, in electrical engineering and computer science. She continued her engineering career in the semiconductor industry for the following 20 years. During that time, Dr. Kerska was actively involved in the Newark community and a series of projects for its youth. Through this experience, she saw firsthand the effects of generational economic disparity. As a result, she developed a passion for investing in youth lives, ultimately leading to her decision to withdraw from her engineering career and work full-time with the children of Newark by founding Keys to Success. So, Jihoon, welcome and thank you for being on my show. Yay!

Great, my pleasure.

Thank you, thank you. And then you're finally here. I've been wanting to interview you since the launch of this show, and whether someone recommended to be in touch with you or someone, uh, somehow we were connected on Instagram, so I've been following you on social and love your work at Keys to Success. And before getting into your incredible life— once a Juilliard Pre-College student turned to become the engineer with a PhD from MIT with a Fulbright Scholarship, oh my gosh— so I think everybody wants to know what is Keys to Success. I mean, dropping all this amazing career and then you found this wonderful organization. So let's start with that. We will talk more detail later, but briefly, what is Keys to Success?

Well, Keys to Success, we bring classical music training, particularly focusing on the piano, to students in Newark. The main difference of what we do is that we go to the students. We go into the neighborhoods and deliver the piano lessons there, and rather than having the students come to a central location. And the other thing that we do slightly differently is that the program is 100% free for everyone who is involved. So we don't charge the families, and we don't also don't charge the host institutions. And the reason we do that is for the sake of equity.

Wonderful. And then currently, how many students are involved?

We have, um, 150 students, slightly over right now, involved in Keys to Success. And they rate— the age range is very large. You know, we start as, as young as pre-K and we go all the way through high school, and our goal is always that we try to stay with the students as long as we're able to.

I want to know, you know, before being an engineer and before being this nonprofit founder, you started as a musician. Music is a big part of your life, so let's start with that. What's the relationship to music? How did you discover the love for music?

I, uh, I'm a Malaysian. I was born in Malaysia, and, um, a Chinese Malaysian actually. And if you know anything about that culture, pretty much every little, um, Chinese girl in Malaysia grows up playing the piano, at least during my, um, you know, my era. And so it wasn't anything unusual that I played the piano, but what was unusual was my mother. My mother was particularly ambitious for her kids, and she was determined that we weren't just going to play the piano like everybody else, but that we were going to be the best in the whole country. So—

Oh my goodness.

Yeah, Tiger Mom to the nth degree. So my mom, she knew how to help us practice. That was the main thing. So ever since we started piano at the age of 6, we practice a lot. And in Malaysia, they go through the basically a British system, Royal Conservatory, right? And so we would take those exams every year. And actually, I guess, you know, when you practice that much, you end up being pretty good. So my sister and I— I have a twin sister. My sister and I would consistently get, you know, the highest marks in the whole country and things like that. Fast forward, we come to America when I was 11 years old. Our entire family immigrated to America and primarily for our sake, to give us opportunities. And my mom, you know, she decides, hey, you know, I heard Juilliard's a really good go, why don't we just see if we can get in? So she calls up Juilliard Pre-College, and it just so happened she was able to get through to Olena Yusuelsky, who was the director of the Pre-College program in the '80s. And Yusuelsky listened to us, and she knew that we weren't actually quite at the Juilliard level. But she wanted to invest in us. So Ms. Fuske took us under her wing, and literally for a year and a half, I was back down doing 5-finger scales and completely redoing my, my whole technique. And of course, later when she entered us into the audition, we, we got in.

Wow.

Yeah, Ms. Fuske, uh, actually, she, she's really quite an unusual person. She's still alive, and I, I actually just saw her recently at the pre-college reunion.

Oh wow, really?

Yeah, really emotional for all of us to get together again.

I bet. And then I know I read your articles and everything, and you mentioned that your mom would sacrifice her time and effort in your education and would have like a round trip to, you know, taking subway and buses and to just for you to get into Juilliard Pre-College.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because Susie lives up up in the Bronx area. So we went all the way from Queens, taking subway and then the bus and then walking a little bit. And yeah, it was quite the trip.

Wow. I actually watched your performance. This is like totally pretty recent. So that's like, you know, turn the clock forward and 2020, I think it's during pandemic, 2020 or 2021, you were performing Variations on a Theme of Koreli by Rachmaninoff. And, uh, yeah, marvelous.

So You know, Ms. Fuske's teaching style was that she, she actually really pushed us hard by entering us into competitions. So we were constantly in competitions and constantly performing. For me, you know, it was actually so important to have that because as my mother actually, a couple years after arriving in America, got cancer. It was cancer of the breast, and, you know, back in the '80s, there really was not a lot of good treatment for that. So it was very traumatic for her, and as a result, for my sister and I as well. And, you know, but even as her treatment went, you know, up and down through all kinds of changes, I could focus on music. I could focus on just, you know, learning a piece and getting ready for the competition and having a goal to keep me going, right? For me, you know, that, um, it stabilized me, right? And it helped me feel like I had a place in this new country, even though things in my life was very tumultuous. My sister and I in particular performed a lot because, you know, twins So Ms. Wooski actually had us work on a lot of two-piano repertoire, two-piano concertos, as well as two-piano, just two-piano music. And we actually played with several orchestras because of that. And actually, probably the most significant one, I would say, was In my junior year, which was 1985, Ms. Woo-suk arranged for my sister and I to perform with the orchestra in Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center. And we were playing Carnival of the Animals. And at that time, my mom was actually really sick because the cancer went from breast into her liver. It just went all over the body. So she had not been able to come out of bed for a while by then, but on the day of the concert, she just decided this is important, you know, this is why we came to America, this is why I worked my whole life and sacrificed for my family, right? And she willed herself out of bed, she got dressed, put on makeup, and she actually looked really good. I remember seeing her you know, in the audience, right? I remember seeing her, even though she was, you know, already very, um, you know, shrunken. I could see the pride in her face. I could see that she was happy. And, um, that turned out to be really one of the biggest performances my sister and I did in high school, but it was also the last one that my mom saw. She passed away a couple of weeks after that.

Wow. So she just pulled herself together and to see this amazing concert, one of the best concerts you ever gave. She must know something. Yeah. At that time. Yeah. Wow. And that's so devastating. What sort of tragic or trauma you had to go through, even just to taking care of your mother in such young age. And, but still you have to focus on your academics. And then also, plus, what's amazing is as you're going through these hard times, but you have these amazing opportunities to be able to perform. Yeah, yeah, that's incredible. And what struck me about that phase of your life, you wrote a little note to your mom after she passed away, and it's like a poem. And let me just read it for my audience. My house falls down every day. Jump to break the ceiling, but it is too high. Try to leap out window, but the crowds jeer me. Hear, it's different there next door. The house will never fall. I can get there if I knock hard enough. That is a beautiful poem. And but tell— tells me how desperate you were, and I'm sure there is like a sense of isolation and loneliness, not only from the loss of your mother. So, but how were you able to survive that phase?

Looking back, you know, I know that I'm a child of charity, really. You know, for sure my piano teacher played a huge role because, you know, she didn't stop entering us into competitions. And after my mom died, she, you know, actually stepped up in her role in taking care of my sister and I. But also, you know, the extended family helped, right? My dad was always there. My dad, you know, he— I don't talk about him much because you know, he was more in the background compared to my mom. But after my mom passed away, you know, he definitely stepped more into my life, right? And he is a different kind of— he's a gentle parent, you know, he's not that tiger mom. So we also had a church, you know, the minister and even the congregation, they, they continue to stay in my life, really. You know, one, one of them actually ended up coming to my wedding. This was like 20 years later. It was like a long time later, right? You know, we certainly didn't make it in this country because of pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We had a lot of people helping us, right? I have a very distant, somewhat distant cousin who grew up in America, was a professor at NYU, and he and His wife at the time took my sister and I around to visit different colleges and introduced us to MIT, right? So we're definitely, um, and then not to mention so many relatives who sent money and, you know, just kind of made sure we, we were okay. I wouldn't say it's easy, but my— I also know now that I'm older, my experience is also not unique, you know, especially with the kids and the families that I work with these days, I find so much resonance in that, you know, this is not a unique story.

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Yeah. So I went to MIT because my mom told me before she died that I'm not to become a musician. Frankly, I'm back to music. So I applied to MIT. I didn't even apply to any kind of conservatory. So I knew that I was going to become an engineer because my mom told me I was going to become an engineer.

Okay.

This is what my dad was also, actually. My dad also was an engineer. And I applied to MIT, but I loved piano a lot, so I continued playing the piano when I was at MIT. I had a private lessons with David DuVall. Really? Wow. Yeah, yeah.

And, um, so MIT has a musical department, or—

it's actually pretty good. I mean, the, the music department, the professors are amazing. It's very small, of course, as you can imagine, um, but the quality is amazing. Yeah, I continue to perform, um, and continue to improve on The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song.

And you got to perform with Mr. Yo-Yo Ma. Tell me a little bit of that experience.

So, as you may know, John Harbison is a composer, and he's a professor at MIT. So at the time, yeah, he was coaching my chamber music group, and he had written a— he was commissioned to write a piece for Yo-Yo Ma to perform with the Boston Symphony, I believe. And so of course, John Harbison wanted to make opportunities for his students, so he created this opportunity for us to be the accompanying pianists. So that was amazing experience for us.

Anna, your career is in a semiconductor industry, and when I first saw, I thought it was a musical terminology, conductor, but It wasn't. And then you were working in that industry for like 2 decades or something after graduating. So what is semiconductor industry?

So it just refers to the material that's used to make the computer chips. So every cell phone, every computer has these little chips in there, which is like the brains of the computer or phone. So it's like, you know, I worked on all the way from just looking at how long that chip is going to last to helping to be part of the team to design the new chips, you know. So I did all kinds of work in there. Yeah, I'm really thankful for all the opportunities that I had when I was in semiconductors. I met a lot of great people and For sure, I developed a lot of the skills that I needed to start Keys to Success because, as I said, I was in many different roles. I managed people, I managed projects, I was in the strategy organization, so I understood how to build business cases and, you know, how to do projections and all those things that you need to run your own organization.

What do you think about your musical career? Did it help to be a good engineer or good student at MIT and eventually to be the founder of organization?

Let me tell you a little bit more about my musical career. It's, um, and I, you know, I just kind of played music. I never thought about what it meant for many, many years, right? And actually, in 2001, I stopped playing the piano. So 2001, my son was born, and I thought, uh, I gotta focus, um, on my career and raising my son, so something has to give. So I gave up piano. I actually completely stopped playing it. I wasn't playing chamber music, wasn't doing anything with it. Um, this went on for more than a decade, and then out of the blue, my piano teacher from MIT, you know, who consultizes quite a bit with in the Boston area, he writes me a handwritten letter, which who does that anymore? But he did. And he said, "Hey, listen, I've been invited to be a soloist with The Piano Pod with the Boston Pops, and I thought it would be fun if the two of us played the Mozart Two Piano Concerto." He had no idea that I stopped playing piano because I didn't keep in touch with him, right? So I said, "Oh, yeah, of course." I took a bunch of time off work actually to just like brush up on piano again and then perform, which was amazing. But what that made me realize was that, you know, playing the piano, of course, is good for your brain, it's good for your emotional development and everything, you know, everybody knows that. But it made— it made me special, right? It gave me opportunities that I would never have otherwise, right? Because I love being an engineer, but you know, I was just one of many engineers, right? But playing the piano gave me— gave my life some— a different dimension that I wouldn't have had if it wasn't for music, right?

Right.

So actually, it was that realization that made me stop and think Oh, I wonder if that's something I can do in Newark. So, um, during my whole career in engineering, my family and I, we have been involved in Newark volunteering, you know. So we were involved in a youth program where my kids were, you know, participating in it along with kids who lived in public housing in different places in Newark, and they're just growing up alongside them. And I, I could see that developmentally my kids had an advantage because they had access to lots of extracurriculars, right, that kids in Newark at the time, because there was no music or any kind of art in the school at the time, had no access to. But for many years I didn't know what to do about it because I could see, you know, there were lots of really dedicated teachers doing what the best already, and which is great. Um, and I wasn't trained as a teacher, but when this happened with the Boston Pops, I realized I could give them maybe some music, right? Music lessons, which could possibly open up new doors for them. Who knows what's going to happen, right? So, um, so that's, um, kind of the very long-winded way of answering, you know, how to I'm starting, you know, Keys to Success, right? And what music had meant to me all these years. Music has always given me opportunities, and I didn't appreciate it until I was almost 50 years old.

So you moved to Newark with your family and then started doing community work, maybe through local organization or maybe church or something like that. Then what did you see that maybe your children had or you had, but those that the children of that community didn't have?

To be more precise, I live in a suburb of Newark, so it's called New Providence. It's about 5 to 10 miles away. It's very close, but New Jersey is somewhat segregated. So in our community, the public schools have excellent music programs. Excellent. My son actually never took private lessons, but, you know, had amazing music training, musical training. And my two daughters had access to this great school nearby, Wharton Arts. You know, they took piano lessons there. So— So I'll tell you what I saw, right? So I got involved in Newark throughout church. We decided to attend church in Newark, and the kids I was working with, we started— I started working with them in kindergarten. And what was interesting for me anyway, even though I grew up in New York, I didn't really— I'm seen outside of my own bubble much, you know. So I came to Newark with some preconceived notions which were not correct, as it turns out. So when I started working with kids in kindergarten, I found myself being surprised to learn that all kids are the same, right? Which kind of shows you like that's Oh, just prejudice on my part, you know. Why should I be surprised? That should be just true, right? You know, they were equally capable in doing, you know, things at the kindergarten level, right? Whether it's puzzles or learning the ABCs or whatever it is at the kindergarten level, right? And they were all eager to please, eager to learn. But actually, by first grade, I started seeing differences. Differences in reading level and, you know, say mental math, you know, things like that, right, that kids were developing in. And then by third grade, they were practically in different grades already in terms of developmental— it started really fast. That was surprising to me. And the only thing I could really point to that was like truly different between what my kids were given versus the friends who were growing up in Newark was that, um, my kids had, you know, like the Mommy and Me type music programs, right? We signed them up for like art classes or, you know, just things in the rec center, right? Children in lower income households spent their time helping their family at a very young age, which is actually not a bad thing, right? It actually, it creates a kind of person which sometimes is lacking in children growing up with more affluent households, right? Yes, a little bit more self-sufficient, a little bit more, um, aware of their responsibilities, right? So, but that was differences, right? And unfortunately, in our society, you know, what you get in your math and English score and your language arts scores mean a lot, right? I mean, a lot. And nobody's measuring how mature you are as a person, right?

So eventually, what inspired you to get into Keys to Success? Did— have you started teaching piano lessons, or can you tell me?

So actually, I've always said that, oh, I will never teach piano. I'm a terrible teacher. I can't do that. I can perform, but I can't teach. And I, you know, I always, you know, you probably know when you play piano, everybody's asking you to teach their kids, right? And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm going to destroy your kids if I teach them. So, but then, you know, like this thing happened with the Boston Pops, which made me think, oh, maybe I want to bring piano lessons to— it's a new work. And then one of my— two of my good friends, actually, they immediately spoke up and said, Yeah, you could teach our kids. You can experiment. You can experiment with teaching with our kids, and which I am eternally grateful for because, um, as soon as I started teaching them, I realized I loved it. But still, I was, um, you know, probably because of my background in the corporate world, I approached all of this with caution. Um, I, I would say I did some market research A lot of market research, actually. I made appointments to meet with as many people from— who are involved in music education in Newark as possible. I volunteered my time with music schools to learn what's happening on the ground. And through that, actually, I met some champions. So, um, I would say one champion would be Marshall Kumaho. She is the vice president of New Jersey Symphony Education Department, and she continues to be a good friend to help, uh, keys to success. Um, so she was able to give me a lot of guidance, but she also told me something that, you know, it's actually very hard to get into the school system, which is what I wanted to to do, because that's where the kids were gathered, right?

Right.

And that, you know, really the only way to do it was if the parents advocated. So, well, I actually had some good friends, right, in Newark, because of all those years I've been volunteering. So I went to a mom who lived in Pennington Court public housing, and, um, I said to her, you know, I would love to teach piano at South Street School, which is a school near the public housing. And she immediately went and spoke with the principal the next day. She was actually at a hospital at the time. She called me and she said, "Hey, I got you. The principal said that she'll speak to you tomorrow." I went in, I spoke with the principal, and literally that week I was in there teaching. Actually, what opened the door at the very end was the community. It was, it was, you know, it wasn't people with titles or anything like that. It was just a mom speaking on my behalf and opening that door, right?

Right, right. Oh, it's a powerful thing. And then not only that group of people who helped you through the community, but also to be accepted in that community of new work, right? That's a different story because you don't want to go in there thinking, hey, I have this amazing thing for you. I don't think anybody wants to hear that.

Nobody wants that.

Yeah, right, because nobody wants to be sympathized. Nobody wants to feel like, yes, how will you do this?

For me, so that's actually, that's an excellent question. That's actually the key to the success of Keys to Success, actually. It's the community engagement, acceptance, I would say, acceptance, right? And it's particularly striking because I'm Asian, right? I can, you can see, oh, that's one, that one does not belong in that picture. So, so the first community You know, the way it got opened up to us took a long time, right? And I didn't do all that work. It was primarily the church. There were members of the church who, like, you know, this took like, I would say, 20 years for the relationship to build to the point where the mom would go and open the door for me at the school, right? Well, that was our first location. So then the question for me, you know, a few years back was, how do I replicate that in other areas in Newark, right? Newark is large, it's like New York City, right? It's large. So, um, I realized actually what I need is a relationship with somebody who's already embedded in the community. So that person or group, usually a person, would then transfer their credibility to me. So, for example, on the west side of Newark— the first location was in the east side. On the west side of Newark, I have a partner. Her name is Marcia Heard, and we worked together over the pandemic. It really wasn't a long time, you know, and then we just saw that we saw life the same way, right? In very, very similar ways. We value the arts, Now the big difference is Marcia spent her entire life in Newark. She raised her kids there, you know, they're very successful young people, but she also knows the struggle of being in the Newark school system, right? So Marcia actually literally found a space for us to teach him, and she literally went down her street knocking on doors to tell parents about Keith's success and enroll them in The Piano Pod with him. So that's, you know, it's where— it's not really, um, very glamorous when you think about it, but it's very human, right? Right. Comes down to a person trusting another person telling another person about it, right?

And, um, that's the true grassroots.

Yeah, it's truly grassroots.

Yeah. Wow, that is incredible.

Yeah. And I have other stories like that too. So, you know, Keys to Success, we have never advertised. We never advertise. Um, and it's all about students telling their friends, who then joined the program, who then convinced their parents to let them do all these different things with us. So, you know, it's, you know, word of mouth. Wow.

You know, I'm really not here to, you know, specifically, um, light certain group of people or, or economic background. That's not what I I'm here for. What I'm here for is about how you created this really meaningful two-way community, right? So I think, yeah, what you're doing is incredible. Now, and then also, we always lately, especially after, you know, May 2020, with Mr. George Floyd's unfortunate death, and then that brought up a lot of conversation about inclusion. And even in classical music, people started to include more piano literature by composers of color, people, person of color and everything. But we— I'm thinking, but it's amazing. That's great. But we have to be very careful about inclusion in how you want to include.

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, completely, completely. Yeah, yeah, because, um, um, yeah, and we can talk a lot more about it. I can just tell you, um, about, you know, how we think about it, right? When we think of, um, making a program diverse, right, we, we think about, oh, bringing in So in, in, in a, in the case of educational program, we think about just like bringing in people from different backgrounds and putting them together, right? But in, in my experience, I learned that there's actually a cost, a very high cost for doing that. And there's also a very high reward if you are willing to pay that cost. Okay. So what do I mean by the high cost, right? The cost is this, that you cannot come in contact with somebody who's so different than you without being willing to be changed yourself. Because when somebody is so different than you, they have something to teach you. And it's not something that we are all excited to learn. To be taught by somebody else, right? Right. But it's, um, so that's the cost, right? But what is the reward, right? For me, what I found is that, um, the only way I can explain this is that my life is richer because I can— I'm not only living life through my own lived experience but I have somebody else's lived experience to, um, let me just give you an example. So for example, right, um, actually, so I just came back from visiting my aunt in Malaysia. She's getting old and her memory is fading, right? So I recently, um, cleaned up her house, put a lot of things away which I loved. I loved seeing how clean it was. But what was even more meaningful was when I brought her into the house to look at things and to see her kind of go through things slowly and examine what I've done with it, right? It's living life through another person's eyes that makes you know that you're not alone in this world, right? And that, you know, there's— we're in community together, right? That is the richness from when I am able to see the world, right, through Marcia's eyes, right, or through, you know, one of my, um, students' eyes, or whatever it is, right? That is the richness that I, I have experienced in my own life. So inclusion, right, I would say, um, it always has to start with yourself, right? Um, don't just, um, especially when you're dealing with kids, say, you know, we're just gonna bring, you know, one of each kid and make them get along, when on the staff, if we don't have that diversity, we are not modeling that acceptance and learning from one another, then why are we doing that with the kids, right?

Of course.

Yeah. So, um, on our staff You know, um, we're very, very intentional about having diversity in their staff. Same thing with them, the board, and the board level is the same way. In fact, we skew more towards the underrepresented, historically underrepresented minorities, because that's community that we're working in.

Thank you for saying this. I've always wanted to talk about the true meaning of inclusion, it's really your willingness to feel what it's like to be in the other person's shoe. That's, that's hard, actually. It's really hard to do. You think you're doing it, but you're not. And, uh, to— because you have to become vulnerable. And yeah, so, wow, thank you. Now I wanted to ask so many more questions now, so How are you actually operating? So you mentioned that like there's no school building, right? So then, but I saw the video clips of children playing keyboard, like I don't know how many keyboards. I thought, I don't know how you do it, but how does this happen? And it seems like the piano lessons or group lessons take place every day.

So yeah, every day different locations.

Do you bring them each time, or the keys, keyboards?

Um, so I'll tell you how, how we do this. So, um, we're supported primarily by individual donors, actually. So 80% of our income is from individuals and from small sums, just to kind of—

like myself. I—

oh yeah. For sure like yourself. So it's like, um, so I'll give you just some numbers just to kind of give you a sense, right? So, um, we have, um, about 400 donors, but any given year it'll be like 250 donors, right? Only 5 of those donors donate more than $10,000 a year, okay? Everybody else is donating smaller sums, right? So the average being like $100. Okay, so, um, we also have, um, we don't charge the parents and we don't have a requirement for donation or volunteer time either, but the parents voluntarily donate as well, right? Yeah. And so, um, you know, we have donors that give $25. It's not I always say, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart, it's not the number that matters, right? Because every donation says, "I believe in you," right? That is actually what counts. So in terms of the instruments, um, interestingly, we haven't bought a single instrument. So because I live in New Providence, it's a relatively, um, you know, well-resourced neighborhood. So when I started, I just kind of put a word out and say, hey, we're doing piano program, you guys have any keyboards lying around? It just came pouring in. So, and even some of those 88 keys are donated, right?

Wow.

Only this year we got a grant from a foundation, a $10,000 grant, which we use a portion of it to buy keyboards, but that's it. Everything, every other keyboard is donated.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah, so that's the thing, you know, um, it's part of what we try to do in Keys to Success is bring communities together, right? So, you know, in one community like New Providence, there's a keyboard that's sitting in the basement unloved, unused, right? But we give it to Keys to Success and it's played on every day, right? So in terms of moving keyboards around, we do a combination of things right now. We teach online. We teach in person. We teach in permanent, relatively permanent spaces, you know, like the church where you saw the concert. They gave us storage space. So we do have to set it up, but it's not like we have to lug it that far. It's like, you know, 20 feet or something. And then we set it up for the practice, right? There are other spaces that we have to bring the instruments in and set up every time. And in the summertime, we teach outdoors. We teach in gardens. And, you know, we have a portable battery source, and we can teach in sidewalks, anywhere, backyards. And so that model we're actually calling The Piano bus model. Right now there's no bus, but we're working towards this model where we're gonna have a trailer attached to a minivan so that we can bring instruments everywhere. And, you know, even when the weather is bad, we can teach inside the trailer. And so that's the model. We go to the students, we go to wherever they're at.

Amazing. It's hard work too.

We have a lot of young people carrying Okay, that's great.

How can I and The Piano Pod listeners participate in your work? So first you said a person like me, I can donate. Uh, can I donate through your website?

Yes, absolutely.

It's keysnewwork.com.

Okay.

All right. I will list that in the description as well. What else can I do?

We love visitors, especially musicians, actually. We love visitors. We use volunteers all the time, but I understand, you know, your listeners are all over the place. There's one way that lots of people can participate, whether you're near or far, and that's through our PracticE-A-Thon, which is held every spring, and that is our spring fundraiser. It kind of came out of the pandemic, actually, because we're trying to think what we're going to do for fundraising. And so the Practice-a-thon, think of it as like a walkathon, right? So, you know, you practice. In this case, you send in a clip of you practicing or performing. I find a lot of classical musicians would rather send in a clip of them performing than practicing. And then you raise money, you know, you tell your friends about it and you raise money for— in this case, we use the practice song to raise money for our summer camps.

Any success story, any stories, a student's story from Keys to Success?

And I want to tell this story because it illustrates that just like for my life, success was not a straight line, right? I went from, you know, being on top of the world in Malaysia to kind of going through lots of depths. And then, you know, so, um, it's the same with our students. Um, one child who started with us back in 2016, her name is Anya, and, um, Anya lives in Pennington Court, and, um, she, she's always so eager to play piano. She would— we taught at one school when we first started, you know, this is pre-COVID and when we could teach in schools, and Anya would, you know, sneak out of lunch to practice extra with us. And as a result, she, you know, she got really good. But as we started working with Anya a little bit more, we realized that she actually couldn't read yet. She was in second grade, but she couldn't read. So, but it also was puzzling because through piano I could tell she could read music, she could learn how to play piano. So obviously, you know, she's very intelligent, right? Um, so, um, we weren't willing to accept that she couldn't read. So one of my volunteers, um, went out, got some books, you know, just children's book, regular children's books. And every day when after she would practice, we would read with her. And then lo and behold, she learned how to read. Just that year she learned how to read. And that year also she made principal's list, right? Oh yeah, she did great, she did great. But unfortunately You know, the policies of the school was working against her. So that year, unfortunately, she got transferred to another school. And remember, at that time we were stuck in one school, so we couldn't follow her, um, with her musical journey. And, um, after that she got transferred to another, another. By the time she was in 6th grade, she had been in 4 schools. And as you can imagine, that does not help with academics, and that, that's so much disruption. So, um, well, Anya though, it turns out COVID was a mixed blessing. It was a blessing and disgrace because we were forced to go online. So, uh, you know, just like everybody else, we were all afraid to teach online before the pandemic, right? And then we all figured out how to do it. So, um, we figured out how to teach online, and then Anya came back on just like everybody else.

Wonderful.

So, but, um, you know, but there was a gap already, right, in her education. So she came back, and, um, at that time, um, again, one great thing about Zoom is all teachers know is that you become so intimate with their whole family because everybody— you can see everybody in the background. Yes. So we got to know her godfather who is this wonderfully committed man who made sure she came to lessons on time and even sometimes would buy her a dress if she needed it for a concert or whatever, right? So, um, so through Zoom, we actually became closer with the family, and we've been able to work with Anya even more. So this weekend, Anya is going to be auditioning for Arts High. Ah, oh my goodness! I feel like my own child is auditioning.

I bet.

Yeah, so we're so Excited, so excited, and we're so proud, really. She's like, because, um, she's one of our first students, and, you know, she's really the first ones that have started with us that are now getting into the high school age, right? So, um, for us to be able to see her this far, we're very, very thankful for everything that has happened along the journey.

Wow, look what happens with the seed that your mother planted in you, and then despite of her unfortunate such an early, you know, death, but it's, it's, it's keep growing. And then how many people, how many lives you are touching now, right? And how many lives you are changing, and also they are changing your life as well. Oh, this is wonderful, amazing. So what's your vision for the future of Keys to Success?

So one of the things One of the things that I dream of is that right now we are so unique. There's absolutely no competition for our services. That's why we don't need to advertise because the kids just keep coming in, right? I hope that by year 15 there's stiff competition because there's gonna be lots of organizations going out there to where the students are living to serve them there, right? Not just with piano lessons, but with art lessons, dance lessons, any, all the art forms, right? So my dream is that there will be will be a lot of organizations that are doing what we're doing.

I know you have the event coming up April 2nd. That's Baroque Orchestra of New Jersey is collaborating with you. So can you tell us a little bit?

The Baroque Orchestra is led by Robert Butz, and they are great community orchestra and also a little crazy because they're not afraid of taking chances. So, and that, for that I'm grateful, um, because this was actually, I think, back in 2019 when we first played on stage with the Baroque Orchestra. You know, kids were itty-bitty back then, and, uh, but, um, Meister Butz took a chance and said, yeah, let's perform together, you know. So we love collaborating with the Baroque Orchestra because, um, it lets the students know that an audience who's willing to listen to a professional orchestra is willing to listen to them, that our students are worth listening to, right? It's gonna be August 2nd, it's Sunday, at the St. Elizabeth College.

Is it August or April?

Oh, April.

No, it's okay. No, no, no. Oh, great, great. Are you performing anytime soon?

Well, my next planned performance is It's gonna be in November, a solo performance. I'll do something in November in the Madison Arts area. They have something for Thanksgiving every year.

Oh, are you live streaming the concert?

I'm sure that can be done.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that way your audience can watch your live performance. So before we go, two things. So one is, any advice for young musicians who are currently in college or starting out their career in music?

I'm not sure if it's advice, but I would say I just want them to know they hold in their hands the power to change the world. Because as we all have said many, many times, music is truly the common language amongst us, right? And there's opportunity, especially with classical music, to make that a reality.

So how we can get involved with Keys to Success is just go to keysnewwork.com and then find out more information about the organization. So this has been a really heartwarming and inspirational conversation, Jihoon, and then I enjoyed so much. Now before we go, Jihoon, we have one more thing to do. It's called rapid-fire questions. So this is part of the show where I get to ask fun questions to each guest. However, as silly as these questions may sound, your answers will reveal who you truly are. So are you ready? Okay, yeah, please answer them with the shortest responses as possible and no explanation needed. All right, question 1: What's your comfort food?

Nasi lemak, Malaysian food.

Cats or dogs?

Dogs, for sure.

So what is your word or words to live by?

God is good.

What is the most important quality you look for in other people?

Acceptance.

Name 3 people who inspire you, living or dead.

My husband Shane. Oh, I see I'm gonna run out of numbers. My kids. And my aunt who I just visited in Malaysia.

Then name one piece in your current playlist.

What is that Howl's Moving Castle song called?

I have no idea.

I think it's just called Howl's Moving Castle. Okay, I listen to it endlessly.

Okay, sounds great. So last question. Fill in the blank: Music is blank.

Delicious.

Thank you so much. So this concludes this episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Jihoon for joining our show today and sharing your stories and insights and expertise. And you can find more information about Keys to Success through its website at www.keysnewwork.com. And we want to encourage our audience to check out the website and, and to see how you can get involved with the organization. And all the links are listed in the description. And thanks to our wonderful audience and fans for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review it on whatever the podcasting platform you use. And if you're watching us on YouTube, remember to hit the thumbs up button and subscribe to our channel. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. The links are in the description. If you're interested in being the guest or recommending someone to be on our show as a guest, or you'd like to sponsor, collaborate with us, shoot us an email at ThePianoPodNYC@gmail.com or send us a DM via social media. We will see you for the next episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. Thank you, Jihoon, and then bye everyone. Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.