BROOKLYN READING WORKS

Songwriter Meets Singer and Sparks Fly

Michael Kingsley has been writing, arranging and producing music for over twenty five years His songs are about “romance and love and the vagaries thereof,” he says. Some of the songs have spiritual subject matter. “Other songs are pictures taken in the moments of people in especially poignant situations,” he adds.

As a producer, Kingsley has worked with singers in almost every genre – classical, pop, rock, jazz, r&b, country, musical theater and hip hop.

Along came Toni, a German actress and singer from East Berlin. When Michael met Toni in November 2013, he was impressed by “her husky, smoky voice somewhat reminiscent of a young Marlene Dietrich with echoes of the Weimar cabaret period with a very slight sprinkling of a German accent,” he says. Because of her unforgettable instrument along with her personal depth and her ability to “alternately seduce you and break your heart in the same song”, the composer found in Toni an excellent interpreter of his songs.

Toni, who has released two singles with Kingsley (the third one is scheduled to come out at the end of November) has been waiting to receive an artist visa for the USA for over fourteen months. Kingsley says that even though “the commercial sensibility in Europe seems to be more open to poetic expression than in the US, New York offers the most stimulating artistic environment there is. “For Europeans, it might also be a way to a freer, classless feeling with fewer limitations on the artistic self,” he says.

Kingsley believes that Toni brings a certain “Europeaness” to his songs and that she provides “a strong but delicate and incredibly honest and tender reading for the ballads and a playful, sensual, edgy attitude for the rhythm ballads and uptempo songs.

At his studio in New York City, Kingsley is currently working on the arrangements of two additional and “distinctly different” songs that he composed for her. “A brand new melody that I hear her voice on just came to me this morning,” he says. He believes that Toni is definitely is on her way to “stir up New York’s music scene with her “disturbingly beautiful timbre that is hauntingly delicate. Listener, beware.”

You can hear Michael and Toni’s music here:

http://www.cdbaby.com/Search/bWljaGFlbCBraW5nc2xleQ%3d%3d/0

MAY 12: EDGY MOMS 2015

Brooklyn Reading Works presents: EDGY MOMS 2015 provocative writing about mothers and motherhood. Curated and hosted by Louise Crawford and Sophia Romero

Tuesday, May 12 at 8PM

at The Old Stone House, 336 Third Street in Park Slope between Fourth and Fifth Avenues.(718) 768-3195

Directions: F train to Fourth Avenue, R train to Union Street

Wine and refreshments will be available

 

 

EDGY MOMS AND DAD 2015

 

--Julia Fierro (Cutting Teeth)

 

--Lisa Gornick (Louisa Meets Bear, Tinderbox), 

 

--Stephanie Thompson (Fearless Parenting)

 

--Sophia Romero (The Shiksa from Manila, Always Hiding)

 

--Sean Grover (When Kids Call the Shots)

 

--Jennifer Michael Hecht (Stay, The Happiness Myth, Doubt)

 

--Special reading of the Edgy Moms Manifesto by Louise Crawford

Feb 19 at 8PM: Brecht, Weill and Beyond

A Reading with Music

The Partnership: Brecht, Weill, Three Women, and Germany on the Brink
(Doubleday/Nan A. Talese – January, 2015)

Pamela Katz will read excerpts from her book, interspersed with several of Brecht and Weill’s signature songs performed by Karen Kohler accompanied by Benjamin Ickies. Karen will also perform some contemporary songs that owe a debt to Brecht and Weill. 

In her book, THE PARTNERSHIP (Doubleday/Nan A. Talese), Pamela Katz vividly portrays the tempestuous collaboration between the renegade poet and playwright, Bertolt Brecht, and the gifted composer, Kurt Weill. They were the geniuses who created the theatrical and musical masterworks The Threepenny Opera and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny amid the most turbulent years of the twentieth century. Unfolding within a broken society struggling to cope with what has passed — the Great War—and the Nazi threat to come, Katz’s intimate portrait not only illuminates Brecht and Weill’s volatile creative process, but also the spectacular Weimar Republic, the last burst of freedom before the darkness.

The magic of Brecht and Weill’s partnership was undeniable from the start: it began with the brilliance of their very first creation, “The Alabama Song, ” to the searing power of the “Pirate Jenny Song” and “Surabaya Johnny” But despite their fierce mutual respect for each other, the artists’ incompatible personalities made it impossible for them to inhabit the same room after only a few short years. Katz’s book portrays both the intense artistic process that transformed musical theater forever, as well as the tragic demise of the partnership that produced “The Moritat of Mack the Knife” in less than 24 hours.

PAMELA KATZ is a screenwriter and novelist whose most notable works are films made in collaboration with legendary director Margarethe von Trotta. These include Rosenstrasse, The Other Woman and most recently the internationally acclaimed Hannah Arendt which was selected as one of the New York Times' Top Ten Films of 2013. Katz teaches screenwriting at NYU's Tisch Graduate Film Program.

Internationally celebrated singer KAREN KOHLER is known for crossbreeding a range of musical styles – from European chansons, jazz and Delta blues to classical, rock-folk and cabaret. Winner of the Nightlife, Mac and Backstage Bistro awards for her decadent twists on multiple songbooks in five languages, Karen is the founding producer/director of the Kabarett Kollektif and Kabarett Fête. Her second album, Jam and Spice is dedicated to the songs of Kurt Weill.

January 15, 2015: New York Tendaberry: The Iconic Life and Songs of Laura Nyro

A celebration of singer/songwriter Laura Nyro (1947-1997) with Amy Burton, Lauren Fox, Ina May Wool, Janie Barnett, Nancy O Graham, Jennifer Lewis Bennett, Debbie Deane, Grace Cosgrove, Don Cummings, Erika Amato, Tim Moore and Special Guests. Including the songs, Wedding Bell Blues, Stony End, Sweet Blindness, Goodbye Joe, Poverty Train, Upstairs by a Chinese Lamp, Lonely Woman, Billy's Blues, Brown Earth and more.

RESERVE YOUR TICKETS NOW. 
TIckets are $25, which includes wine and refreshments.
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/975693

The Old Stone House, 336 Third Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn 11215

F train to Fourth Avenue, R train to Union Street. 

Space at the Old Stone House is extremely limited. Reserve your ticket now!

Dec 18, 2014 at 8PM: Literary Potluck

Potluck: a meal or party to which each of the guests contributes a dish. Come enjoy a tasty assortment of writing about food by some wonderful writers, including Susan Glauberman LaRosa, who writes the blog, A Cake Bakes in Brooklyn, Laura Zinn Fromm, author of Sweet Survival: Tales of Cooking and Coping, Brad Fell, known for his work on Queer as Folk,  Cathy Gigante-Brown author of The El, essayis Branka Ruzak, and novelist Karen Ritter, and cookbook author T-Dawg Martin plus special guests. Hosted by Louise Crawford at The Old Stone House. 336 Third Street, Park Slope, Brooklyn. $10 suggested donation includes treats. F train to Fourth Avenue, R train to Union Street.