Elisabeth has released five self produced albums, and has performed across the United States, Austria and Russia. Her music has been featured on National Public Radio, BBC-Radio, Japanese National Radio and CNN Spanish Radio. She has appeared on CBS’s Eye on People, ABC’s Good Morning America and BBC-TV.

No one leaves an Elisabeth von Trapp performance unchanged.  As someone once said, “Audiences of all ages are drawn by the promise of her famous name.  Awed by the beauty of her voice and musical arrangements, their hearts are touched forever by the astonishing sound of her unique new music.”

In anticipation of her appearance at The Flagpole Radio Café show on Saturday May 19th at the Edmond Town Hall in Newtown, Elisabeth was kind enough to speak with me about her family and her craft.   I found her to be candid and fascinating.  She has experienced music from an authentic multicultural perspective and it has shaped her life.  Her story may begin with The Sound of Music, and her experiences as a Von Trapp no doubt shaped her destiny, but after speaking with her or hearing her perform for a few minutes, you realize that is only the beginning of her artistry.  She is a musician of great depth, experience and even wisdom.  She characterizes her musical life as a “journey.”  She said she “needs to find the link between what my family has given me and what I bring.  I have done that all along, but this is a journey that is ongoing.”

-Martin Blanco

Martin Blanco: You were born into a family that has an extraordinary story to tell.  How has the experience of your parents and grandparents shaped your life?

Elisabeth von Trapp: As you know, the original story that many people link me to was a story about my grandfather and grandmother, my father and his siblings as seen through the eyes of my step grandmother,

Maria von Trapp.  I have nothing but the utmost love and respect for my family.  They became the Trapp Family Singers.  The Trapp Family Singers were musicians; they were true artists. They were dedicated, devoted, incredibly talented professional musicians who sang as a group for nearly 20 years. When I see pictures of them it almost makes me cry. They were so beautiful, my aunts so young and lovely, my father and uncles, so handsome and strong. Their life was an incredible story; it would make a great movie.

The public Maria and the private Maria were often conflicting anomalies, especially to her family and those closely connected with her. Like so many highly- driven and creative persons, she could be unpredictable. She was not above being formidable when she believed in an opinion or a cause and would move mountains to achieve her objectives.  This hard driving, sometimes austere woman created a legend. She was a mother, a step mother, a grandmother, a musician and performer.  She was a speaker, author, educator and public personality.

She was also my grandmother… my Mutta.  She spoke at my college graduation and I was at her bedside when she died.  I hold her memory dear.  Maria’s story is a saga of a remarkable and courageous woman whose life continues to inspire and fascinate those who encounter it.

MB: Where did you grow up?

EVT: For the first several years of my life I lived on the grounds of the Trapp Family Lodge, surrounded by family history, hearsay and lore, always in close proximity with Maria, with whom I shared many experiences.  Life as a young von Trapp was for the most part very quiet and uneventful, then at other times it was almost surreal. We grew up on a small Vermont farm, insulated from the world.  I have one sister and four brothers, we all grew up with a sort of quasi-celebrity status. We were well known, almost famous, because our family; my father, all of my

aunts, uncles, my grandmother and grandfather had been involved in something which made them famous.

MB:  Was coming from such a famous family ever difficult?

EVT: At times it seems that being a member of a famous family can be tricky. I’m known

before my music is heard, which isnʼt bad but it isnʼt easy. Often with that knowing

comes a host of preconceived notions of what I must be about. Growing up as a child

of a famous family can be difficult. Being a musical child from a famous musical family

can be extra challenging.

Even though I come from a musical family and the interest and musical

ability was in me, I found the more important experience in my life, that of

understanding my own musical journey really only crystallized when I moved beyond

my musical roots, traveled, met and performed with other musicians and explored

different musical genres.

MB:   HAVING PERFORMED ALL OVER THE WORLD, ARE THERE ANY COUNTRIES OR VENUES WHERE YOU HAD SUCH A GREAT TIME, YOU CAN’T WAIT TO GO BACK?

EVT: There were so many.  Coming to mind right now, I am remembering performing in Russia before the collapse.  I had a powerful experience in Israel; I spent half a year in Natanya.  I did not  understand until I got there, that I was on a pilgrimage to meet this extraordinary musician:  King David.  I stayed there and wrote wrote 15 songs.  It was his inner expression of music that shaped my experience.

MB: I never thought of King David as a musician, but now that you say it, clearly he was.

EVT: A prolific one and his legacy inspired me while I was there.

MB: Would you speak about your process of song writing?

EVT: For me, the most important aspect of songwriting is being aware of my musical thoughts. As I dabble in my playing of any instrument, I make up melodies that match how I feel at a particular moment. What I keep and hone to become a song are musical ideas that I love the most. Those choices are made, based upon my honest likes and dislikes while designing a melody or musical pattern.

I rely on my inner emotional landscape to sculpt in tone. I design a topography of melody and song which helps crystallize a memory or situation that I wish to remember. When I perform live, I travel and retrace these landscapes and breathe life into those memories and experiences.

I also rely on my emotional reactions, carefully listening, replaying these feelings that I have translated into tone. Sonic moments that I arrive at, in declaring my authentic feelings, are very different to me than just playing patterns or making up melodies.

That careful listening continues for days, for weeks or even years. Musical ideas that become the songs I finalize and perform must pass a test. These tonal designs usually resonate a deep feeling of joy, beauty or a sense of inner fulfillment. These songs must bring great satisfaction that continues while performing them over and over again.

Discovered melodies often play in my mind, clear and true as if I were listening to a recording. They appear during the day as I run errands, or when I wake up unexpectedly in the middle of the night. Tone is a very important expression that I relate to daily.

Most importantly, I must find time to engage in tone expression alone. It is in this contemplative journey where I find my best melodies.

In exchange, these melodies have become my comfort and have guided me to what I love to do. Sing and perform.

MB: How did you select your instrument?  Is there a story behind where or how it was made?

EVT: My instruments are piano, guitar and my voice. I was given a harp that I play to give me a variety of textural playing. Because different dexterity is required plucking the harp strings to playing guitar, I often arrive at new melodic patterns which opens me up to new musical thoughts and songs.

The most important thing for me as a musician is  knowing that my voice is my instrument. For me, emitting tone that best emotes the message of the song is the greatest and most thrilling work of singing.  My whole body is the instrument; the guitar is my accompaniment.   Now my voice has changed over the years. I’ve been working on my lower range now so that songs that I sung 15 years ago can be performed.  I am settling in a deeper place and it’s harder for me to attach to my emotions in a restaurant or in a festival.

MB: When you listen to music for pleasure, what music do you typically turn to?

EVT: Robert Shaw’s O Magnum Mysterium is an album I return to when I want to come to a peaceful zone.  It has become one of my favorites.  It’s just voice and the harmony and it takes me on a journey of all different composers who shape the tone.  My father loved Mozart.  He would cry sometimes at certain points.  He would talk at great length about how much joy Mozart brought to him.  I believed him.  I am finding that same source of joy as I listen to great works of music.  I grew up in the 60s and 70s and then The Beatles were my favorite.  People sometimes send me hymns and I might rework the lyrics because sometimes they’re too stodgy and they don’t speak to what’s happening now.

I remember as a young girl in Vermont, on cold winter nights I would sit on my bed in the dark, picking out a Scottish ballad on my guitar as the sounds of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on the phonograph would float up the stairs from the living room below where my mother sat knitting. Some of my earliest memories are of music.  Music has been a tremendous influence on my life.  It has had an impact on me and continues to guide me.  Music has given me a place to be.

MB: What might our audience expect from your appearance in The Flagpole Radio Café?

EVT: Well I’m bringing two remarkable colleagues, Paul Asbell and Peter Riley. Playing music with them is a joy.  I always come home satisfied. I’ll learn from them and the audience. This is the greatest gift from them.

I want to foster the enjoyment of people coming as an audience.  There is a dialogue we have with the audience.  If I bring my new music I have to make sure the audience is comfortable; the audience needs to know they might recognize something.  I work very hard in designing and choosing the material.  I’m looking to find songs that create a moment.  I’ll perform things they are familiar with, but then I might do something unexpected.

MB: What else would you like to share with us?

EVT: The influence of diverse music has helped me experiment with music and develop my

own sound. I am thankful for my many blessings and look forward to a life of music; creating,

performing and interpreting. I am happy, healthy and content. . . life is sweet.

MB: Thank you Elisabeth.  I look forward to seeing you Saturday.

Elisabeth von Trapp with  Paul Asbell and Peter Reilly will be the guest artists at The Flagpole Radio Café on Saturday May 19t  at 7pm at the Edmond Town Hall in Newtown CT.  For tickets and information visit www.flagpoleproductions.org or call Martin Blanco 203.364.0898.

Elisabeth von Trapp is the granddaughter of the legendary Maria and Baron von Trapp whose story inspired the beloved play and film The Sound of Music.  Elisabeth  has been singing professionally since childhood and has enthralled audiences from European cathedrals to Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center.  Producer Barbara Gaines remarked, “In Elisabeth von Trapp we have an artist who is a living member of an extraordinary family.  Like so many of you, I grew up with The Sound of Music and was touched by her family’s compelling story.  Elisabeth continues the musical traditions begun by her iconic grandparents and I am thrilled to have her perform in the show.”
Inspired by her father Werner von Trapp’s guitar playing and singing,  Elisabeth has carried on the legacy of the internationally renowned Trapp Family Singers. She began taking piano lessons when she was eight and by the age of sixteen she was playing guitar and traveling the back roads of New England performing with her siblings at weddings, gospel meetings and town halls.  Building on her famed family’s passion for music, Elisabeth has created her own artistic style, at once ethereal and earthy, delicate and powerful. Listeners have likened her to Judy Collins and Loreena McKennitt.  Critics have called her voice “hauntingly clear,”  “joyfully expressive” and  “simply beautiful.”

Elisabeth’s concert repertoire is as diverse as it is comprehensive.  With equal ease and eloquence she sings timeless wonders like Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Favorite Things and Edelweiss,  Puccini’s O Mio Babbino Caro, soaring gospel tunes, pop classics such as A Whiter Shade of Pale and her own stunning compositions.  In the spring of 2001 Elisabeth was granted permission from Robert Frost’s publisher, Henry Holt & Co., to sing parts of the poet’s oeuvre. Poetic License, released in June 2004, features the musical settings of poems by Frost and Shakespeare, a Japanese haiku and interpretations of Over The Rainbow / What A Wonderful World, Sting’s Fragile and Schubert’s An Die Musik.

On her summer 2005 release, Love Never Ends / Sacred Sounds, Elisabeth has collected, arranged and recorded some of her favorite hymns, psalms and chants with influences from jazz and gospel, contemporary and classical musical styles.

Elisabeth has released five self produced albums, and has performed across the United States, Austria and Russia. Her music has been featured on National Public Radio, BBC-Radio, Japanese National Radio and CNN Spanish Radio. She has appeared on CBS’s Eye on People, ABC’s Good Morning America and BBC-TV.

No one leaves an Elisabeth von Trapp performance unchanged.  Audiences of all ages are drawn by the promise of her famous name.  Awed by the beauty of her voice and musical arrangements, their hearts are touched forever by the astonishing sound of her unique new music.

Now completing its fourth season, The Flagpole Radio Café, is an engaging show created by Jim Allyn, Martin Blanco and Barbara Gaines in conjunction with the Newtown Cultural Arts Commission.  It features music by Jim Allyn and The Flagpole Radio Café Orchestra, a dynamic ensemble created for the show, and radio style comedy sketches by the Flagpole Shakespeare Repertory Theatre.  Each show features a musical guest artist such as Livingston Taylor, Jonathan Edwards, Tom Chapin, Peter Yarrow, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Christine Lavin, Roger Ball of The Average White Band, Deborah Henson-Conant and Yale’s internationally acclaimed male choir The Whiffenpoofs.

The Newtown Cultural Arts Commission was created by a town ordinance to stimulate, facilitate, coordinate and cooperate with existing artists and arts organizations in order to further the development of the cultural arts in Newtown.  The Commission began its work in June of 2007 and meets monthly. The current Newtown Cultural Arts Commission comprises the following Newtown residents: Commission Chairperson Jennifer Johnston, Recording Secretary Donna Mangiafico, Sharon L. Cohen, Robert Kaiser, Robert Rabinowitz, Donna Randle and Jennifer Rogers.  Anyone interested in filling vacancies on the Commission or joining the Auxiliary Board should contact the First Selectman’s Office in Town Hall at (203) 270-4201.

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The Flagpole Radio Café will be performed on May 19th at 7pm at the the Edmond Town Hall, 45 Main Street, Newtown, CT.  Tickets cost $25 for adults; $20 for students and senior citizens.  For ticket sales and information visit www.flagpoleproductions.org or call (203) 364.0898.

Well the next presentation of The Flagpole Radio Café is approaching. We’re back in business on March 24 with guest artist Livingston Taylor. If you are only able to see one of our shows this season . . .

you probably should have come in February to see Deborah Henson-Conant. Too bad if you weren’t there.

However, the one other show you should see . . . is this month’s show with Livingston Taylor. I am happy to say that the advance sale is terrific and it is distinctly possible that we may sell out. So I implore you to get your tickets as soon as you can. You can purchase your tickets in advance at www.flagpoleproductions.org.

I am also providing a link to Livingston Taylor’s website if you want to read about his most impressive career livtaylor.com.

I also want to remind you that the Stratton Faxon Challenge Grant is still in effect. We’re about half way to our $5,000 goal. If we can find 100 people to donate $25, we’ll easily meet the challenge. If you are moved to make a contribution, you can do so at our website while you are purchasing your tickets.

As always, please forward this to any friends who you think might enjoy the program. I hope to see you at the next show.

Best regards,

Martin

Livingston Taylor picked up his first guitar at the age of thirteen, beginning a forty-year career that has encompassed performance, songwriting and teaching. Born in Boston and raised in North Carolina, Livingston is the fourth child in a very musical family that includes Alex, James, Kate and Hugh. Livingston recorded his first record at 18 and has continued to create well-crafted, introspective and original songs that have earned him listeners worldwide.
From top-forty hits “I Will Be in Love with You” and “I’ll Come Running,” to “I Can Dream of You” and “Boatman” both recorded by his brother James, Livingston’s creative output has continued unabated. His musical knowledge has inspired a varied repertoire, and he is equally at home with a range of musical genres—folk, pop, gospel, jazz—and from upbeat storytelling to touching ballads.
Livingston has never stopped performing since those early coffeehouse days, touring with major artists such as Linda Ronstadt, Jimmy Buffet and Jethro Tull, and he maintains a busy concert schedule of over eighty shows a year. He is a natural performer, peppering his shows with personal stories, anecdotes and ineffable warmth that connect him to his fans. His relaxed on-stage presence belies the depth of his musical knowledge, and fans might just as often be treated to a classic Gershwin song or a selection from the best of Broadway.
As a full professor at Berklee College of Music since 1989, Livingston shares his experiences and knowledge of professional touring with young artists, just beginning to hone their skills. His course, Stage Performance (I and II) is one of the most popular at the College, and it gives him the ideal forum in which to impart the lessons learned through his own career to a new generation of musicians. His book, Stage Performance, is drawn from those classes will be available this fall.
Producer Martin Blanco remarked, “We have been looking forward to Livingston Taylor’s appearance with much anticipation. We are so fortunate to have such an accomplished and celebrated musician join our show. I can’t think of a better way to spend an early spring night.”

I want to personally wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. . .  so I’m sending this email.

While you’re enjoying your Thanksgiving dinner, if you find yourself perseverating about getting out to the Black Friday sales at 5am, I want to offer you this tranquil alternative.  You can complete much of your holiday shopping from the comfort of the reclining chair in which you are almost certain to fall asleep.  You can give the gift of entertainment by purchasing tickets to see The Flagpole Radio Café.  Look at all the great shows we have coming up

December 3                 Patty Larkin

February 4                   Deborah Henson-Conant

March  24                    Livingston Taylor

May  19                       TBA   (we are thinking about Paul McCartney, Joshua Bell, Lady Gaga, Wynton Marsalis, and President Bill Clinton. . .none of them are available, but we are thinking about them nonetheless).

There are many benefits to purchasing tickets to The Flagpole Radio Café for holiday gifts.  You finish the bulk of your shopping right now.  You’re supporting the local economy.  By supporting the local economy you’re sticking it to China!!!!!!!!  When you gift tickets to The Flagpole Radio Café everybody wins (except for the Chinese).  So visit our website for tickets and information www.flagpoleproductions.org

Our next show is coming up on December 3.  Patty Larkin will be our guest artist and you are in for a treat.  While she is an outstanding guitarist, she is also a composer of substance.  I am attaching a link to her website where you can listen to her music, read about her career, and enjoy some photos.  I hope you can join us on the third.  http://www.pattylarkin.com/

Once again, I ask you to pass this along to friends of yours who you think might enjoy hearing about our program.  This is one of our most cost effective means of marketing the show.  Thank you for your time and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Best wishes

Martin

Patty Larkin is part of the urban-folk and pop music phenomenon that spun off of the singer-songwriter explosion of the seventies.  A self described “guitar driven songwriter,” Larkin has wound her way through soundscapes of evocative vocals, inventive guitar wizardry and imaginative lyrics.  Her songs reflect a lyrical spectrum that comprises a rich diversity from impressionistic poetry to witty wordplay.

Patty Larkin grew up in a musical and artistic family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Descended from a long line of Irish American singers and taletellers, her mother was a painter, her sisters both musicians.  She learned at a young age to appreciate the beauty and magic of the arts.  She began classical piano studies at age 7, and became swept up in the sounds of pop and folk music in the 1960s, teaching herself the guitar and experimenting with songwriting.  An English major, Larkin sang throughout her high school and college career, starting out in coffeehouses in Oregon and San Francisco.  Upon graduation, she moved to Boston and devoted herself to music, busking on the streets of Cambridge and studying jazz guitar at Berklee College of Music and with Boston area jazz guitarists.

In 2010 Patty Larkin released a collection of 25 love songs in celebration of 25 years in the recording industry appropriately titled 25.  Here Patty has reworked 25 of her favorite songs in an acoustic, “unplugged” release, joined by friends along the way.  Guest artists include Shawn Colvin, Suzanne Vega, Bruce Cockburn, Mary Chapin Carpenter and others.  25 is the unplugged version of classic Patty Larkin love songs, created with a dream team of some of acoustic music’s heroes.  A collectible collection for fans and critics alike, 25 is an eloquent marker for an illustrious career.

Patty Larkin has been redefining the boundaries of folk-urban pop music for decades with her inventive guitar wizardry and uncompromising vocals and lyrics. Acoustic Guitar hails her “soundscape experiments” while Rolling Stone praises her “evocative and subtle sonic shading.” She has been described as “riveting” (Chicago Tribune), “hypnotic” (Entertainment Weekly) and a “drop-dead brilliant” performer (Performing Songwriter).

Producer Martin Blanco remarked, “Our last three shows have been impacted by extraordinary weather.  We are looking forward to having our next show impacted by an extraordinary artist.  Whether through her singing, original music, distinctive guitar playing, or her entire performance persona, you are certain to be captivated by Patty Larkin.”

It seems like the Labor Day Parade was just a few days ago, and already we are looking towards the November edition of The Flagpole Radio Café.

I am so excited about our next guest artist Deborah Henson-Conant.  How shall I describe Deborah Henson-Conant?  I know, I’ll lift some artfully worded phrases from her press materials:

Deborah Henson-Conant: a prolific composer, a revolutionary harpist and a performer of irrepressible spirit.

Deborah Henson-Conant is a Grammy-Nominated artist who sings and plays the harp, tells stories and composes symphonic music that runs the gamut from bombastic to tender. She has been described as “the wild woman of the harp” by bandleader Doc Severensin.  Her playing ranges from raucous to delicate and her performances blur the line between musical performance and theatrical event.

Deborah herself is impossible to categorize. She has made her own path, composing musical theater since the age of 12, first studying classical harp, then developing her own version of swing and Latin jazz and finally synthesizing all three elements into a new genre of musical performance. Her shows mix jazz, folk and flamenco with a theatrical narrative of storytelling and humor.

If you visit our website:  www.flagpoleproductions.org  you can link to her website where there are clips of her extraordinary performances and her fascinating biography.

Here are some quotes (I especially like Doc Severensin’s praise).

San Francisco Examiner
“She set the crowd afire … Strong fingers, quick mind… [she] puts harp and soul into it.” Phil Elwood

Doc Severinsen
“You play the !@#%! out of that thing!”

Amazon.com
“With her cobalt-blue electric Irish harp slung around her neck, she gives Celtic bardery a new image.” John Dilberto

Boston Globe 
“… a night with Henson-Conant is some enchanted evening … although the sound that comes out is still heavenly, it’s a far more sensual notion of heaven than the ones we learned from Sunday school or Saturday morning cartoons … with a presence that seems to combine Carly Simon and the comedian Catherine O’Hara, Henson-Conant commands the intimate setting … from the outset …” Ed Siegal

Boston Herald
“Henson-Conant is a creature of fantasy in appearance: her long braids interwoven with colored ribbons hanging down her back, short black dress, one red shower of stars for an earring and silver-spangled cowboy boots. The lyrics are delivered in styles ranging from poetry to scat, as if there’s nothing a harp and its mistress cannot accomplish together … you must see the infinite possibilities Henson-conant brings to the instrument.” Iris Fanger

(I know Ed Siegal and Iris Fanger personally. . .they hate almost everything so when they like someone this much, it’s really, really good).

I don’t want you to miss this extraordinary performer.  Plus, you can count on Jim and the band for plenty of great music and The Flagpole Shakespeare Repertory Theatre will try to be funny this time.

One more thing.  The holidays are just around the corner.  Why not give the gift of music to your friends and loved ones.  A pair of tickets to see Deborah Henson-Conant make a swell gift.  Patty Larkin and Livingston Taylor are just around the corner.  Share the fun of our show with the special people in your life.

Don’t forget your teachers either.  When I was teaching dramatic literature at American University, I’d hate it when the class moms collected money to give me Dunkin’ Donuts cards for my holiday tribute.  I bet your children’s teachers are tired of that too.  Why not chip in and buy them a pair of tickets to see The Flagpole Radio Café instead?

As always, please pass this along to anyone you know who might enjoy this offering.  I look forward to seeing you at the next show.

Best regards,

Martin

Deborah Henson-Conant is a prolific composer, a revolutionary harpist and a performer of irrepressible spirit. . Her playing ranges from raucous to delicate and her performances blur the line between musical performance and theatrical event. She’s a cross-genre, Blues-Flamenco-Celtic-Funk-Folk-Jazz dynamo. She tells tall tales with the ease of a stand-up comic. She solos and wails like a rock guitarist. She turns music into theater and theater into something lyrical. See her once and you’ll never look at the harp the same way again.

Deborah Henson-Conant has toured with the Boston Pops, opened for Ray Charles at Tanglewood, jammed onstage with Bobbie McFerrin and offstage with Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, and starred in the PBS special “Celtic Harpestry.” She’s been featured on shows from CBS’ “Sunday Morning” and NBC’s “Today Show” to NPR’s “Weekend Edition” and the Food Network’s “Warped,” and interviewed by hosts and journalists from Scott Simon, Susan Stamberg and Studs Terkel to Charlie Rose and Joan Rivers.

Her DVD & CD project with the Grand Rapids Symphony, “Invention and Alchemy,” received a Grammy Nomination and is appearing on PBS stations nationwide. The project features her one-woman show with 80-piece orchestra. The DVD is a full-length concert program with over 45 minutes of behind-the-scenes features; a multi-camera, surround-sound disc, shot in hi-definition. It has an Emmy-winning director, Grammy-winning sound engineers and a program of symphonic music theater that brings Deborah’s show closer than the front row.

Producer Martin Blanco reflected, “Part of the aspirations of The Flagpole Radio Café show and the mission of the Newtown Cultural Arts Commission is to bring extraordinary and distinctive performers to Newtown.  Deborah Henson-Conant is a musician whose artistry answers that call in both the virtuosity of her musicianship and the imaginative way she approaches her instrument.  Her work is a delight for the senses and will have great appeal for anyone regardless of their musical taste.  We are all looking forward to her appearance with much excitement.”

            Four decades into a stellar career of uncompromising musical integrity, Jonathan Edwards continues to deliver songs of passion, insight and humor; all rendered with his pure and powerful tenor voice.  Mr. Edwards remains a vital artist in today’s folk and Americana music scenes.  His impressive repertoire includes classics such as ‘Honky Tonk Stardust Cowboy,” “Sometimes,” “One Day Closer,” “Don’t Cry Blue,” “Emma,” “Everybody Knows Her,” “Athens County,” “Shanty,” and of course the beloved anthem “Sunshine (Go Away Today).”  After 40 years, “Sunshine” continues to be embraced by faithful followers and new fans alike.  Since 1971, Mr. Edwards has released 15 albums, including Blue Ridge, his standard-setting collaboration with bluegrass favorites the Seldom Scene, and Little Hands, his collection of children’s songs which was honored with a National Library Association award. 

            Producer Martin Blanco remarked, “I am happy to announce that Jonathan Edwards  will open our fourth season.  He is a journeyman musician in the best folk and rock traditions with a strong following in Connecticut.  Many people will immediately recognize his perennial favorite “Sunshine,” but they will also recognize and enjoy the full depth of his repertoire.  Like most everyone else,  The Flagpole Radio Café has been challenged by the atrocious weather in August.  I believe our show with Jonathan Edwards will bring much needed joy and excitement to our community in the post-Irene days.”

            Mr. Blanco added, “The Newtown Cultural Arts Commission is also happy to invite all patrons who purchase tickets in advance to a pre-show reception in the Alexandria Room.  There will be light refreshments, music, and a chance to chat with The Flagpole Radio Café performers.  I hope to see you there.”

            Now beginning its fourth season, The Flagpole Radio Café, is an engaging show created by Jim Allyn, Martin Blanco and Barbara Gaines in conjunction with the Newtown Cultural Arts Commission.  It features music by Jim Allyn and the Radio Café Orchestra, a dynamic ensemble created for the show, and radio style comedy sketches by the hyperbolically named Flagpole Shakespeare Repertory Theatre.  . Each show features a musical guest artist such as Tom Chapin, Peter Yarrow, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Christine Lavin, Roger Ball of The Average White Band, Vanesse Thomas and Yale’s internationally acclaimed male choir The Whiffenpoofs.

You know now that the days are getting longer and the snow is melting, that can only mean one thing: It’s CMT exam season. For all of you who have children in the CT public school system, that means lots of pressure from school for your children to get a good night’s rest and for you to provide a wholesome and nutritious breakfast every test morning; the implication being that normally your children are watching The Tonight Show or playing video games until the wee hours and you feed them Twinkies, cigarettes and Mountain Dew for breakfast.

Anyway, I hope you have a joyous CMT Season, and remember to purchase tickets for The Flagpole Radio Café on March 19th. Singer, songwriter, raconteur Christine Lavin is our guest artist and she will be sensational. Now as an added bonus, Christine is conducting a Knitting Circle in the Alexandria Room for any audience members who would like to join her. This is not one of my peculiar jests; she indeed conducts knitting circles everywhere she performs and I understand they are quite popular. The knitting circle will begin at 6pm and continue until show time. If you have friends who never socialize because of their commitment to knitting, now is your chance to get them to breathe a little fresh air and enjoy each other’s company.

I also wanted to let you know that Kate Katcher (from The Flagpole Radio Cafe) has her own theatre company in town and it is doing quite well. It is called the Stray Kats Theatre Company. This company of professional actors presents staged readings of new works, American classics and full length radio shows. I’ve been impressed by the two shows I’ve seen and this Friday March 11 at 7:30pm, they are presenting a new work titled In the Middle of Nowhere by Kent Brown. I thought you might be particularly interested, because film stars Keir Dullea and Mia Dillon will be performing. Mr. Dullea has had an impressive career on stage and film, but he is most remembered for playing astronaut Frank Baumon in Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001 A Space Oddyssey (and its sequel 2010…).

One last item: The Newtown Cultural Arts Commission has created an e-newsletter that lists upcoming cultural events in Newtown. I have taken the liberty of including a link to this newsletter. If you would enjoy receiving updates of cultural activities in Newtown once a month, you can subscribe to the Newsletter by clicking on one of the subscription links. If you are not interested, you will not receive any further issues from me nor will I try to compel you to subscribe (even though I will be gifted a new iPAD and a bottle of 20 year old single malt scotch, if I can get 500 people to subscribe).

I look forward to seeing you on the 19th (and maybe this Friday). As always, if you have friends and loved ones who might enjoy learning about The Flagpole Radio Café, please feel free to pass this along to them. Thank you for your indulgence. See you soon.
Best regards,
Martin