Follow Your Dream - Music And Much More!

Tamar Sagiv is an Israeli-born cellist and composer. Her work explores themes of memory, identity, and emotional resonance. She is the recipient of the Zubin Mehta Certificate of Honour, in addition to an award from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. She’s performed as a soloist with orchestras in Israel and Germany, and at venues including Lincoln Center and Alice Tully Hall. She’s also reco...

Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner is a remarkable Rock Star concert pianist. He was a child prodigy. He began studying piano at 2. His First recital was at 4. He began college at 5. And he began performing regularly with orchestras at 6. At 16 he performed at the Kennedy Center in an Inauguration Concert for President Obama. He was the first American soloist to perform with the Iraqi National Symphony Orch...

Johanna Linnea Jakobsson is a terrific young Scandinavian artist. She’s a saxophonist, singer and composer from Denmark. Her music and her voice are beautiful, soft and gentle. She reminds me of a cross between Norah Jones, Diana Krall and Feist. Her latest album, "Don't Overthink It", has been named Album of the Year by Danish National Radio, and the track “Time” has been nominated as 'Single of...

Neil Stubenhaus is a legendary bass player who has performed with just about everyone. His credits list is like the NYC phone book. It’s 12 pages long with too many names to recite including Blood Sweat and Tears, Quincy Jones, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Whitney Houston, Roberta Flack and a zillion others. He’s been Barbra Streisand’s bassist forever. He’s also a fixture in the session world where h...

Julie and Steve Bernstein are animation stars as composers, orchestrators, arrangers, songwriters and singers. Each has won multiple Emmy Awards. They’ve worked on hit TV series like Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, and Freakazoid. Their Animated feature films include A Flintstones Christmas Carol, and Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars. In other respects, Julie has written string quartet arrangemen...

Marina Chiche is a renowned French classical concert violinist. She’s also a musicologist, a radio host, a speaker, and an author. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician at venues including the Berlin Philharmonie, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and the National Concert Hall in Beijing. She has a focus on great female artists of the past, and she strives to promote French culture bey...

Pascal Archer is the Principal Clarinetist of several orchestras including the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. He’s played with several Broadway Shows including Sweeney Todd, Mary Poppins, South Pacific, On the Town, Fiddler on the Roof and My Fair Lady. He is also the founder of Exponential Ensemble, a mixed chamber music group that creates educational programs and commissions new works connecting...

Shawn Jones is a Blues, Roots, Americana, Rock Singer-Songwriter and Guitarist for more than 30 years. He’s released six studio albums and three live albums. He’s a true road warrior, performing over 200 dates a year in the U.S. and Europe. He’s shared the stage with luminaries like B.B. King, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Leon Russell and Joe Bonamassa. His...

Tom Sleigh is a multiple award winning poet, dramatist and essayist. He’s written eleven books of poetry. His most recent is “The King’s Touch”, which won the Paterson Poetry Prize. His other works include “Army Cats”, winner of the John Updike Award, “Space Walk”, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award, and “Far Side Of The Earth”, which won an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Lett...

Lucy Kaplansky is a folk music star and singer-songwriter. She’s been called “the troubadour laureate of modern city folk”. She’s released 9 acclaimed albums. She was part of the folk supergroup “Cry Cry Cry” with Dar Williams and Richard Shindell. She’s been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, Morning Edition, the BBC and CBS Sunday Morning. She has sung with Suzanne Vega, B...

Lora Logic is a British punk and post-punk musician. In 1977, when she was 16, she became the saxophonist in Poly Styrene’s seminal English punk band, X-Ray Spex. They had a hit with “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!”. She went on to form Essential Logic, a post-punk band with duelling saxophones that released one album in 1979. 43 years later she released a second Essential Logic album together with a box s...

Patrick Hahn is an Austrian-born pianist and one of Europe’s most in-demand classical conductors. He’s the Music Director of Germany’s Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra and Opera, he’s the Principal Guest Conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra, and the Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. He also regularly performs with the Munich Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, the V...

Rachel Flowers is an extraordinary musician. She’s been blind practically since birth but that hasn’t held her back one bit. She is an amazing multi-instrumentalist. Her genres include classical, jazz, rock and pop. She plays piano, keyboards, flute, guitar, bass, saxophone and something called the Chapman Stick. She’s performed with Arturo Sandoval, “Skunk” Baxter, Dweezil Zappa, Rik Wakeman of Y...

Welcome to Part 2 of the two-part Special Episode introducing my new release, “MA PETITE FLEUR STRING QUARTET”. This work transforms my jazz ballad into a lush classical string quartet piece. The work has been praised by a host of Classical Music Stars, all of whom are listed below.  In Part 1 yesterday we listened to this new work. In Part 2 today we're going to introduce the incredible musicians...

Welcome to Part 1 of a two-part Special Episode introducing my new release, “MA PETITE FLEUR STRING QUARTET”. This work transforms my jazz ballad into a lush classical string quartet piece. I’m pleased to say that the work has been praised by all of the Classical Music Stars listed below.  In Part 1 today we’re going to listen to this new work. In Part 2 tomorrow we're going to introduce the incre...

Noel Brown is a Professor of Film in Liverpool, England where he’s a scholar of film, TV and animation. He’s published eight books, mostly on children's films, the most recent on the subject of Radical Children's Film and Television. And he’s also an expert on the Beatles animated film, “Yellow Submarine”, which he considers subversive.  My featured song is “I Wanna Be Your Girl” from the album Ea...

Frank Dupree is an award winning German pianist and conductor. He plays both classical and jazz. He performs with orchestras and also as the leader of his own jazz trio. Career highlights include performances with the London Philharmonic, the Bern Symphony and the Sinfónica Nacional de México. He’s performed at festivals around the world and at venues like Lincoln Center, Royal Albert Hall and Wig...

Larry Blank is a prolific Composer, Conductor and Orchestrator across Theatre, TV and Film. He is a 3x Tony Nominee and a 6x Drama Desk nominee. His works include orchestrations of Catch Me If You Can, White Christmas, Fiddler On The Roof and La Cage Aux Folles. He was co-orchestrator for the stage and film versions of The Producers, and additional TV credits include The Grammy Awards and The Acad...

Christian Wiggs is a musical polymath. He’s a singer, bandleader, lyricist, producer, director, record label executive, manager, and the host of “Off The Bandstand”. He’s performed at all the major clubs like Birdland, the Blue Note, Dizzy’s and at SXSW. He’s produced hit records for Benny Benack III and Emmet Cohen, two terrific young musicians. He manages Grammy and Tony Award winner Bryan Carte...

This episode introduces “DREAM INSPIRE”, my new App. It’s your personalized coach to Motivate, Pursue and Succeed at Your Dream.  I created this podcast in order to motivate and inspire people to follow their dream, just like I followed my youthful music dream later in life. Everybody has - or had - a dream. But very few of us ever pursue our dream. I didn’t want to be someone who looked back at a...

Brook Speltz is the acclaimed cellist of the internationally renowned Escher String Quartet and an artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He’s performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and recitalist throughout the world. He’s the First Prize winner of the Ima Hogg Competition. He has performed as a soloist with many orchestras, and he’s toured with the cello rock band Break of Rea...

Nan Schwartz is a Grammy winning arranger and a 5x Grammy nominee, and she’s a 7x Emmy nominee for her compositions for television and TV films. As a conductor and orchestrator, she’s worked on projects like In The Heat Of The Night, Argo and Harry Potter. She’s also collaborated on a ballet score. And she’s worked with stars like Natalie Cole, Ray Charles and John Williams. My featured song is “C...

Toby Gad is one of the most successful pop songwriters of this era. His songs have gotten over 19 billion streams and have won 3 Grammys. His hits include “All of Me” with John Legend, and Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry”, both of which won “Song Of The Year”. He produced and wrote Beyonce’s “If I Were A Boy”, and also albums for Madonna and Leona Lewis. He’s worked with Demi Lovato, Nicole Scherzin...

Lauren Ellis is a terrific drummer and composer from halfway around the world in Wellington, New Zealand, now living in Los Angeles. She’s worked with Peter Erskine, at USC's Music School. She plays with groups as diverse as the LA Philharmonic and with Seth Macfarlane. She writes commissioned works for jazz ensembles in the US and in New Zealand. And in 2022 she received an award in New Zealand e...

Juan Chiavassa is an Argentinian born drummer, producer, and composer. His work spans a number of genres, including jazz, Latin, R&B, soul, hip-hop, rock and world music. As a performer, he has collaborated with Mike Stern, Paquito D'Rivera, Esperanza Spalding, John Patitucci and Jimmy Haslip among others. He performed on The Tonight Show with Bad Bunny. One of the albums he produced was nominated...