Hunkered Down

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Tara O’Connor plays the flute and Daniel Phillips -- the violin. They are most accomplished, versatile and sought-after classical musicians - whose performance and teaching resumes are vast. 

Daniel Phillips is a graduate of Julliard and founding member of the Orion String Quartet and is a regular performer at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He has performed as a soloist with the Pittsburgh, Boston, Houston, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Yakima symphonies, and many others.

Tara O’Connor's repertoire spans every music era. She is a Season Artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, also played with the Orion String Quartet, St, Lawrence Quartet, Emerson String Quartet and many others. She conducts a legendary master flute class in Banff Center in Canada every summer.

Tara and Daniel recently took over the artistic directorship of the Angel Fire Music Festival. And they are married and live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with their miniature dachshunds, Chloé and Ava. 

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Judy Dodd began acting on stage and film at an early age and then discovered her love and talent for writing one-act plays. I met Judy at The Alternative Theatre Company in Manhattan at a staging of her one-act play – Lunatic --  for the Altered Minds Play Series. For this Hunkered Down episode, we spoke about Ms Dodd theatre and film experiences and began the conversation with her family’s immediate struggles with COVID19. 

I thank Joel Bernstein for helping produce this Hunkered Down podcasts. The opening music is provided by Steven Feike’s Jazz quartet playing at the Gin Mill.

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J.T. Rogers must move. It is reflected in the dynamism of his Tony Award-winning play "Oslo" and in the way he perambulated around his office during our HD conversation. Clearly, this artist thinks on his feet.

“Oslo” -- first produced on Broadway in 2017 -- is a heart-wrenching telling of the back-channel meetings started by a Norwegian couple to bring Palestinian and Israeli leaders together to talk about peace—person to person. Of course, in the end, the resulting Oslo Accords failed to bring peace to the region.

J. T. Rogers' works include: One Giant Leap, Blood and Gifts, The Overwhelming, White People, and Madagascar. “Oslo” was his first Broadway play.

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What is an actor? For instance -- can a disabled person play an able bodied character? How stuck are we in our imaginations? Is it possible to look beyond physical characteristics and focus just on the character being performed?  Anita Hollander has performed in major theatre venues throughout Europe, Asia and America as an actress, singer, composer, lyricist, director, producer and teacher. As a two-time cancer survivor, Anita has negotiated over half her 50-year performing career on one leg, And she has worked to raise awareness about issues surrounding the disabled actor.

Ms. Hollander has premiered new works of composers and playwrights at Carnegie Hall, Playwrights Horizons, Kennedy Center, and New York Shakespeare Festival, where she sang original work of Philip Glass. She received a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Musical.

CONTACT: Alan Winson [email protected]

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For eleven successful seasons -- Kathryn Erbe played Detective Alexandra Eames to Vincent D’Onofrio’s Det. Robert Goren on Law and Order: Criminal Intent.  Prior to Criminal Intent – Ms. Erbbe appeared as a death row inmate on the award-winning TV series OZ. This talented actor has worked steadily in television, film, and theatre since she graduated from NYU in 1989 and most recently appeared in Sam Levinson’s teen slasher film – “Assassination Nation.”

For this episode, Ms. Erbe talks about her early work in television with Lynn Redgrave on “Chicken Soup,” her experiences of working on “Criminal Intent,” and her work in theatre. At the end of conversation, Ms Erbe reads from Arthur Miller’s “The American Clock” -- a “radio show” being produced by the Steppenwolf Theatre.

CONTACT: Alan Winson -- [email protected]

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This episode opens with Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 3 Op 30 performed by the Fred Sherry String Quartet.  Why that piece? For me – it reflects the anxiety of this 'coronafied' moment and a fevered hope for change. 

About Fred Sherry -- Allan Kozinn – music critic for the NY Times -- wrote – “Few musicians have been as devoted to new and difficult music as he has, both as a soloist and through his involvement with ensembles like the Tashi Quartet, Speculum Musicae and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. But this man is so much more. I knew going into this conversation with Fred Sherry that there would be a problem in having a brief conversation. This man’s experiences are so deep and creatively varied and influential over many decades – that finding a focus would be difficult. And I was right. So – maybe we can see this as the start of a conversation with this most talented and creative musician.

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John Miller plays the bass and if you were a fan of that amazing, fantastical series about a NYC symphony orchestra – you know John Miller as Dee Dee – the drug supplying timpanist in “Mozart in the Jungle.”  John’s only other acting role was in Cy Coleman’s “I Love My Wife” for which he won a Drama Desk Award. 

But John Miller is mainly a Music Contractor having put together the pit bands for over 130 Broadway productions.  He has worked on Broadway's biggest hits such as “The Producers,” “Jersey Boys,” and “Hairspray.”  And -- as a bassist -- has played with Madonna, Bob Dylan, and Elvis Costello, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and the New York Philharmonic – to name a few. I caught up with this Upper West Sider hunkered down in his rural home with his wife, Connie Barron, on the NY–Massachusetts border.

Contact: Alan Winson -- [email protected]

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