- December 14, 2025
When local musician Kermit Allison began singing in his church choir at age 8, he never expected that one day he’d end up hauling his piano around Palm Coast on a trailer and plopping it down on street corners to perform for charities or just for fun.
But he has, and with a new company called Jubilate Productions he founded last year, he’s been recording it all, too.
Allison, 51, has directed church choirs, composed music, and in 1999 created Allison Piano Works, through which he teaches piano and voice lessons and restores, tunes and sells pianos and other instruments.
Sometimes he performs in public, always drawing a crowd.
“The customers just loved it,” said Penn Walker, 50, and a manager at Public in Palm Harbor Shopping Center, where Allison has often brought a choir — and a full-size piano — to perform Christmas carols. “They just thought it was a great thing to have them in the store doing that.”
When Allison moved to Palm Coast to be near his wife’s family, he was doing marketing for a communications company and didn’t expect to work in music.
But soon he was playing at religious services.
“We were at the Temple Friday, we were playing for Seventh-day Adventists Saturday, and we were some kind of Protestant on Sunday,” he said.
For eight years, Allison directed music at the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church on Belle Terre Parkway, and with Allison Piano Works, he struck out on his own.
"My wife and I decided, 'Well, let's hang a shingle and see what happens,'" Allison said. "We were instantly busy."
Allison expanded into recording in November 2012, housing Jubilate — the name is from a Latin word meaning “rejoice” — with the Allison Piano Works shop at 4 Hargrove Grade, Suite F, in Palm Coast.
It’s a small business, Allison said, but he enjoys it. He often records his own performances, which draw in business, though not always for him.
The first time he performed outside in Palm Coast, he was heading into a Publix around Christmas time with his wife, Janice, when they passed a man in a Santa uniform taking donations for the Salvation Army.
A New Yorker by birth, Allison remembered the bands that would play to solicit donations for the Salvation Army years ago in New York, and he had an idea.
“I put my piano on a trailer and went down to the Publix in Palm Coast. And we challenged the Salvation Army that if they’d let us sing Christmas Carols, we could at least double their collection rate within two hours.”
He did. And in future years, he brought more performers and drew dozens of listeners.
Now he’s using his audio and video skills to record those performances, and up-and-coming performers he finds through his shop. He records for profit, but he also likes using his recording skills to help young performers improve.
“I enjoy videotaping performances, and then cuing people in on how they could better do a premium job on something,” he said. “That offers a real learning opportunity.”
