Hunkered Down

This will be our second visit with the renowned poet of the Puerto Rican diaspora – Martin Espada - and with his partner and wife, Lauren Schmidt -- poet, writer, teacher and worker in the field of the socially oppressed.   Rebecca McKean and Chris Brandt and I – Alan Winson—spoke with Lauren and Martin on Bar Crawl Radio – Episode #88. For this Hunkered Down Podcast we found the couple cozied together in their home in Shutesbury, Massachusetts with their Pomeranian – Fenrir – named after the giant wolf that ate Norse gods. You can hear her panting in this recording.

We spoke about their lives in the wilds with bears and gigantic sink holes -- and they shared their concerns and worries and hopes about our Pandemic Times. Martin reads a soon-to-be published poem from his book “Floaters” -- a love poem to his wife. A poem that resonates with much broader ideas of freedom and bravery and positive opposition to entrenched power – about Chilean Victor Jara – poet, theatre director, and political activist who was tortured and killed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet – “That We Will Sing”    Lauren reads a poem of oneness -- filled with palpable imagery by Marge Piercy –“The Art of a Blessed Day.”  

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A conversation with musicians Art Davis and Monty Renov of Evening Peace.

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Judith Olson studied violin and piano at The Julliard School and now teaches and performs at the Bloomingdale School of Music. She is both a collaborative and solo performer and has toured throughout North, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Korea. And enjoys working with music composers on their pieces.

Born in Germany, Rolf Schulte started playing the violin at five under tutelage of his father. 

At 14 - Schulte made his orchestral début with the Philharmonia Hungarica in Cologne -- playing Mendelssohn’s Concerto. He has performed with orchestras throughout Europe and premiered many new works – His many recordings include Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto. Rolf Schulte’s experiences and contributions to the contemporary music world is extensive and cannot be represented in such a brief introduction --

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A huge thank you goes out to Joel Bernstein for inviting actress Kathleen Chalfant for this Hunkered Down conversation. Ms Chalfant is a celebrated and honored stage, film and television actor. She debuted on Broadway in Dance With Me followed by M. Butterfly.  She has won numerous awards for her varied, powerful performances – in original Broadway productions. In Wit she played a scholar battling cancer – in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America she played several roles including Hannah Pitt and Ethel Rosenberg.

I am not going to get into her extensive film and television work. And on top of the thrill of meeting this great actress – Kathleen is a fun and generous person to talk with.

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I met actor Joel Bernstein at a BCR recording -- #52 – at the time he had been in Russia with The Medicine Show Theatre’s production of "14 Little Red Huts." Joel is a complete actor – stage – film -- television -- and was most recently seen in a recurring role in “Mozart in the Jungle” playing Warren Boyd the orchestra’s first violinist. He has been on episodes of “Law and Order” and "The Chappelle Show" and most recently the 2017 film “The Meyerwitz Stories.”

Contact: Alan Winson - [email protected]

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I met Gene Pritsker at Milicia Paranosic's birthday party, last year. She heads up an Paracademia Center for Music and #Collaborative arts. And Gene Pritsker is the leader of the band Sound Liberation and the co-director of Composers Concordance. These two are versatile, talented musicians. They are innovative and have performed all over the world. Gene is a composer – guitarist – rapper / DJ – band leader – music producer – and other stuff that I am still learning about. He has composed over 700 pieces of music of all sorts. Bar Crawl Radio featured this amazing musician on episode #38.

Milicia Paranosic is a Serbian-born, NYC composer – performer – producer – educator – film-maker who runs the annual Make Music Harlem and Add a Movie Film Festival and Ladies First event and is finishing up an opera based on the Odyssey called “Penelope and the Geese” to play in Mexico and Saugerties as soon as the Pandemic peters out. 

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The Shrill Collective is a musical and theatre group of women who write, produce and perform in socially and economically relevant plays to raise money and awareness. Their goals is to give women and non-binary artists a platform to share their artistic perspectives. Chelsea Feltman had been on Bar Crawl Radio #85 podcast to talk about her groups activism. Kristina Cole is an actor-director-writer who has appeared on "Billions," "Parenthood," and "The Black List." Lynda DeFuria hails from New Jersey and grew up in Las Vegas. She has produced two albums of her piano-driven pop songs-- and was almost on a cruise tour of "Kinky Boots" when the pandemic hit.

Contact Alan Winson at [email protected]

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