Bar Crawl Radio

According to Britannica, a musical composition is the art of conceiving and creating music.  I love to sing, and I very much enjoy listening to music. That part I get, but to compose music, to pick out the notes, the instruments… I’m completely at a loss. Fortunately, we have three women composers with us today who will explain what it means to be a female composer in today’s music world.For this BCR program, we spoke with Svjetlana Bukvich, best known for her blending of classical music, media and electronic music.  Sarajevo-born and NYC-based -- Svjetlana is widely regarded as an innovative, dynamic, multimedia American composers.  Her music has been heard at The Kennedy Center, the Tribeca Film Festival, Brooklyn’s Bargemusic, Rose Studio at Lincoln Center – and many other venues.Beth Anderson Harold is a composer of new romantic music, text-sound works, and music theatre events. Her early work was considered post-Cagian and non-academic. Beth studied with John Cage, Terry Riley, Robert Ashley and Larry Austin at Mills College and U.C. Davis. You can catch her beautiful compositions at New World Records and many other places on the web.Gramophone described Debra Kaye as “an eclectic unfolding of creativity.” Debra has won 6 Global Music Awards and received grants from Mannes College, Meet the Composer, and Edward T. Cone Foundation; and commissions from the Howland Chamber Music Circle and Portland Youth Philharmonic; Ms Kay’s works have premiered at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, in collaboration with the Lincoln Trio and Daedalus Quartet. Rebecca McKean

We are looking forward to sharing a conversation about a great American -- Eleanor Roosevelt. Shannon McKenna Schmidt has focused her literary work on travel. She has written for National Geograpic, Traveler, Nashville Public Television and Arrive magazine – and has appeared on Morning Joe and The Travel Show with Arthur and Pauline Frommer.  We spoke to Ms. Schmidt about her most recent book “The First Lady of World War II: Eleanor Roosevelt’s Daring Journey to the Frontlines and Back.” American and architectural historian Deborah Gardner has worked with the Municipal Arts Society for landmark preservation and has written articles and books on the Roosevelts of New York. Ms Gardner has curated exhibitions at the Roosevelt House on NYC’s East Side, including one featuring Eleanor Roosevelt’s work with the United Nations to create the “Declaration of Human Rights.”This podcast was recorded on the porch of Gebhard's Beer Culture Bar.Alan WinsonCONTACT: barcrawlradio@gmail.com

BCR likes NYC and our like has grown since we learned about NYCH2O. For this program we talked with the founder and leader of NYCH2O – Matthew Malina. Matt works to educate New Yorkers about their city’s local water ecology – in order protect our natural water resources -- and with Peter Frishauf -- founder of Medscape – but for today – more importantly – Peter is an UWS community leader who works to make life in your neighborhood lively, diverse, and safe for all its citizens. We also spoke with Sophie Barno who guided us on a most wondrous walk around the Marine Park Salt Marsh in Brooklyn where we saw a pterodactyl -- well -- a couple of majestic egrets.Take-away: Do not miss visiting Ridgewood Reservoir - the magic place in Brooklyn.This program was recorded at Gebhard's Beer Culture Bar in Manhattan.If you have any comments or questions you can contact Alan or Rebecca at barcrawlradio@gmail.comAnd follow us on Instagram.

Rebecca McKean and I drove to Fonda, NY for the 25th Annual Kateri Peace Conference. We spoke with several major players in the contemporary "no war" peace movement in the United States -- who are working to help the rest of us see the insanity of war and its link to the climate disaster. The voices on this program include the following: Maureen Aumond, John Amidon, David Swanson, Gloria Caballero, Nick Mottern, and Debra Sweet. And thanks to Lew Tabackin for allowing us to us his composition "Garden at Life Time" to introduce the show.Alan Winson

Becky and I went on a tempestuous drag race at Gebhard’s Beer Culture Bar as we dug down into Drag culture with two young NYC Drag Queens following their command performance for an Open Streets event. We talked with Drag artists Ann Arky and Vampy Von Thickums Galore who had recently performed at the International Drag Queen Celebration on West !03rd Street organized by Park to Park 103 and Open Streets. Before talking to our guest performers we spoke with Bella Gallo a coordinator of the event.Alan Winson

I do not like roller coasters. For me -- the anticipated terror proceeding the drop along with the stomach-churning loss of gravity is not thrilling fun; it is just TERROR!Nevertheless, the roller coaster is a summer-fun staple for many of us. Another stomach-churning staple for fewer Americans is the memory of the United States Air Force dropping two atomic bombs on Japanese cities at the end of World War II. In fact, for many Americans, this was a good thing as it brought the war to an end faster -- despite ending the lives of over 200,000 Japanese civilians. Of course, few of us remember August 6th and 8th or are aware of the present-day dangers of nuclear annihilation.Is it possible that the fun of the roller coaster is based on a firm belief that it is safe - even though this is not entirely true. See "Swedish government investigators launch probe of deadly roller coaster accident."For over 80 years, my country has spent $Billions on modernizing and strengthening a world-ending atomic arsenal. There have been accidents -- but we are still here.This year I went to several anti nuclear proliferation activities on the anniversaries of the U.S. attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- at the Intrepid Air and Space Museum, at Times Square, and at the Japanese Consulate. This BCR program begins at the Intrepid on August 6th; the WWII aircraft carrier was celebrating its birthdayAlan Winsonbarcrawlradio@gmail.com

Rebecca McKean and I visited Alice Slater in her Upper East Side apartment. Since 1968, Ms. Slater has been an anti-war activist and since 1987 an anti-nuclear bomb protestor.  As a young mother she helped organize Eugene McCarthy’s presidential campaign working to end the war in Viet Nam and then got a law degree. Alice is the United Nations NGO Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and is on the Board of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, the Global Council of Abolition 2000, and the Advisory Board of Nuclear Ban-US which supports the mission of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in realizing the successful UN negotiations for a Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.Alan WinsonContact: barcrawlradio@gmail.com

One of our regular gigs is the West Side Community Garden Summer Concerts. The final offering of 2023 featured the luscious sounds of Afro-Haitian Jazz performed by Mozayik – led by drummer Gashford Guillaume – who has performed with Haitian superstars -- Emeline Michel and Beethova Obas.  And  at festivals in Amsterdam, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, St, Lucia, Martinique and many cities around the U.S.In 2000 Gashford and others started “Mozayik” – which is committed to the Haitian jazz genre. I sat down with Gashford – about a week after the concert to talk about Haitian Jazz and its link to the Haitian culture at Gebhards Beer Culture Bar on the UWS.Alan Winson - Co-Host BCR Podcasts barcrawlradio@gmail.com

Bar Crawl Radio podcast hosts sojourned back to the West Side Community Garden for a concert with the music duo, Brooklyn​-​Cumaná – Jorge Glem on the Venezuelan Cuatro and Sam Reider on the accordion.  We start with a delightful conversation with former Manhattan Borough President and present UWS City Council member -- Gale Brewer. We also invited her husband Cal Snyder because our goal was not to talk local politics; rather, we wanted to know about the life of our ubiquitous, hard-working, perpetual resident of the UWS -- Gale Brewer. Up until this podcast Gale had hidden behind her prodigious local accomplishments. We learned about where Gale grew up, how she met Cal, her early influencers including Bela Abzug and Gloria Steinem, her and Cal's many foster children and adopted son -- Mo Sumbundu -- and her favorite NY baseball team.And we talked with the musicians Sam Reider (accordion) and Jorge Glem (Venezuelan cuatro) about their synthesis of musical forms and their new album "Brooklyn Cumanå"