Thank you so much.

Welcome to Illuminance!

Amazing to have you with us tonight.

This is a musical salute   to the magic of Bannerman Castle, and you're going to see some magic after this show, I tell you.

Totally incredible.

Thank you so much for being with us tonight.

Thank you each one of you for supporting the Bannermen Castle Trust and our music mentorship programs, and our incredible students.

So tonight you've already   heard the students over at the stage.

Let's have another round of applause for them.

So we're going to tell the story of how this Castle was built.

So Francis Bannerman VI was   born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1851.

And when he was three years old, his family decided to take that huge adventure and move to New York.

A six week journey on The Constantine.

They were a young family.

Francis, aged 3, had a brother who was only one year old and a sister Jane who was eleven.

Just a young family coming   with nothing to a totally New World.

The next piece I wrote is called Primordial.

Thank you so much.

So when young Frank Bannerman was   ten years old, the Civil War broke out and his father had to go and join the Union Army, and he had to quit school and start   working to earn money for his family.

And they lived near the New York harbor.

So he would deliver newspapers to the sailors, and he also found that rope was in high demand, and he could get an old anchor and use it as a grappling hook, and find bits of material like rope in the New York Harbor an he could sell them, and the next piece describes the excitement he felt when even at that young age he was able to support his family.

And that turned into something which was really beneficial for him later in life.

Here we have Vivaldi's Winter, first movement.

Thank you so much.

There's another really similar story in Cinema Paradiso.

In that beautiful movie we're going to play the theme song of it right now, where again, a young boy who through a challenge of having to take over running the projections on a movie theater because the projectionist went blind, he actually used those challenges to become a great movie director.

So I'd love to invite, to the stage   Sal Lagonia, another Salvatore to play the trumpet.

And it's incredible to have you with us Sal, thank you!

Cinema Paradiso.

Amazing, Sal, thank you so much .

Thank you so much for being here tonight.

So when, Frank Bannerman's dad,   who was also called Francis Bannerman V came back from the Civil War, his son had accumulated so much material that he had found in the New York harbor, that they decided to open a store together.

Many people think that was the first Army and Navy store .

And they embarked upon an amazing journey together.

So this is the excitement of starting a new business, maybe challenges as well.

This piece is called Awakening.

Thank you to my incredible band!

On keyboards: Matthew Watanabe Percussion: Michael Feigenbaum On drums: Simon Fishburn On bass: Lavondo Thomas A nd on piano: Jeff Miller Oh they're amazing.

So, sadly also in 1872, Frank's father   who had been wounded in the Civil War died and the next piece is called Prayer.

We've all lost people recently.

So I know their spirits are here,   they're in bliss with us and supporting us.

And this is also   to my husband Joe tonight.

This whole show is dedicated to him as well.

He's with us and really inspired us this whole time.

Thank you.

So this store you know, became, well, Frank Bannerman just became really,   really successful   at his business, it's kind of amazing.

He got really interested in weapons   as historical artifacts.

He loved the stories of the valor behind them.

He knew where every weapon that he bought had been used, and this was really his passion and his love.

And he became so successful that he moved out of Brooklyn and bought a store at 501 Broadway in Manhattan.

In fact from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

And they said: "Well, we'll   sell it to you on one condition..." "... t hat you open up a free military   museum in the building", which he did.

He was really interested in weapons from all around the world, so there was a lot of incredible information and interesting artifacts there.

And he was in fact a very peaceful man and prayed always that this museum would become the Museum of Lost Arts.

There's Frank Bannerman, he's become the largest buyer of military surplus in the world and he started selling to countries around the world.

You know, if you don't want state   of the art equipment, Frank is your man.

And he sold to... ...South America, Central America.

In fact, he really became quite a World Citizen which is the title of our new song by Michael Feigenbaum and me.

On keyboards: Matthew Watanabe On percussion: Michael Feigenbaum On drums: Simon Fishburn On bass: Lavondo Thomas And on piano: Jeff Miller So, in 1898 Frank Bannerman bought up 90% of the military surplus from the Spanish-American War.

And that was a lot of stuff.

And included things like gunpowder and so his neighbors next to his warehouses in Brooklyn, went: “You’re not storing that here.” So he had to look for a place for his arsenal.

And ei t he r he or his son w a s one day traveling up the Hudson River and guess what they found?

This beautiful island, Pollepel Island, as it's officially called.

And he was like “let's buy that island”, and so they did.

In 1900 they bought it from Mary Taft for $600.

Although they had a lease of $1000, which had to be paid back in two to three years.

And he set to work.

He got a company in Beacon to build the arsenal and then he started having fun building this fantastical Castle And it was kind of cool.

He lived   in the Hotel Margaret in Brooklyn w ith his family.

So you know, on a bedside table , normally, there used to always be in a hotel you'd have a little notebook.

P retty small , y ou know , about this big.

So he would just draw sketches of the Castle.

He used no architects.

There's hardly any right angles in the   whole of the buildings on this island.

And he just gave it to his workers   and builders , and said “build that" .

And so they would set to work and   build, and build, and build.

He would come up frequently and check what they're doing and if sometimes he would be like:   “I didn't draw that!” They'd have to pull the whole thing down   and put it up again the way he wanted it.

Anyway, he built this gorgeous, kind of Scottish fantasy-like , I mean he was very proud of his Scottish heritage.

Got some Moorish culture in there it's got some G audi maybe.

Just true Americana, as T h om Johnson says.

I love that.

So anyway he was having fun and   that's what we're going to do right now with this piece: Csardas.

Unbelievable timing,   the spirits are with us, I tell ya That was Joe.

Hi!

He was like “Hi!” Unfortunately, Frank Bannerman did become ill. And, just lived to see that the   war was over, on November 11th, 1918, but did die on November   26th, 1918.

And after that Helen, his wife Helen and his sons took over the business.

But their sons wanted to do something   else and the Castle   started to fall into   disrepair.

Until finally, the family realized we need to sell it and they sold it to the people of the state of New York in 1967 The land and the castle continued to deteriorate, until in 1993, Neil Caplan and T h om Johnson and Jane Bannerman, who was Frank Bannerman's granddaughter , and others got together   to form the Ba nn erman Castle Trust.

Ah yeah!

And they spent 10 years really clearing everything up , conserving the island   until it was available to the public, open to the public in 2003.

They were able to initially open it to the public and since then they have been really working hard.

They've completely renovated this building here.

The museum you saw, they've done all of that and all these beautiful gardens.

So I just want to say the biggest   thank you in the world, Neil and T h om, for the fact that we're able to be here tonight.

We couldn't be here if it wasn't for you.

Thank you for creating this magic.

It's unbelievable.

So with that shall we have some fun.

Thank you so, so, so, so much for being here tonight.

Thank you to my amazing band.