Sounds of Encouragement

Artist Gurm was born in India, grew up in China and currently resides in Thailand. Having grown up and been schooled in an international environment, immersed throughout in a multi-cultural atmosphere, she has always been fascinated with the unique cultural elements and stories from all over the world. After following art as a passion since her middle school days, she honed her skills by doing a Masters in Visual Arts (Studio Art) in Hong Kong. She works in the medium of drawing, painting and mixed media, and also enjoys writing and vlogging. She has had several solo exhibitions in China and has gained recognition of her art globally. Gurm’s artistic inspiration comes from everyday life. She is interested in creating works that represent the familiar world around us. By looking beyond the obvious, Gurm reconstructs the everyday environment around us into something artistically unique, which allows the audience to discover beauty in unusual places.
For Gurm, art is not only a way to express herself, but also a therapeutic path of self-discovery. She likes to think that she has not found art, but rather art has found her. She perceives art as a medium to radiate bliss and peace of mind, and to bring life to the present moment. Gurm wants people to look at her artworks and experience the same feeling she has while creating them – freedom, satisfaction, and a journey of self-reflection.

See and Learn about Gurm's art athttps://gurmsart.com

Top 5 Songs of Encouragement
1) "Imagine" by John Lennon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugrAo8wEPiI
2) "Lean on Me" by Bill Withers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtC1W-6hwIU
3) "Firework" by Katy Perry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGJuMBdaqIw
4) "This is Me" from the Greatest Showman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjxugyZCfuw
5) "Best Day of My Life" by American Authors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y66j_BUCBMY

Lauren Best lives where the Pottawatomi River meets Georgian Bay, on the territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (now known as Owen Sound, Ontario). She is an interdisciplinary creative with a multifaceted community arts practice interweaving her work as a poet, musician, and composer/creator.

Lauren left her small Ontario town as a young singer-songwriter keyboardist and returned to become Poet Laureate Emeritus (Owen Sound, 2017-2019). Lauren is included alongside other Poets Laureate Emeritus in the City of Windsor’s South Shore Collections series, A Manor of Words: Poetry at the Manor 10th Anniversary Anthology (Black Moss Press, 2022). Her poems are published in Spike: Poems in the Time of Pestilence (Cannon Creek Press, 2021).

Lauren’s 2010 chapbook Resound Re:Sound is a collection of lyrics written in Owen Sound between 2004-2008. Lauren’s music has been heard coast to coast since her debut album release in 2011, and she’s collaborated across genres and art forms with work in music, poetry, theatre, film and digital media.

During more than a decade of community engaged arts, Lauren has partnered across sectors spanning education, cognitive neuroscience research, healthcare, social service, and cultural organizations. In 2022 she teamed up with Seattle-baed saxophonist Steve Treseler to create the Infinite Improvisation Podcast.

Lauren’s new performance pieces combine poetry from her first full-length poetry book Just Leaves (2023), set within a soundscape of keyboard and vocal improvisation paired with lyric melodies.

You can learn more about Lauren and order her book, Just leaves at www.laurenbest.com

You can also collaborate with Lauren by checking out https://bestpracticearts.com/index.html

Tune in for Part II to hear Lauren's Top 5 Songs of Encouragement and MUCH MORE!

Lauren Best lives where the Pottawatomi River meets Georgian Bay, on the territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (now known as Owen Sound, Ontario). She is an interdisciplinary creative with a multifaceted community arts practice interweaving her work as a poet, musician, and composer/creator.

Lauren left her small Ontario town as a young singer-songwriter keyboardist and returned to become Poet Laureate Emeritus (Owen Sound, 2017-2019). Lauren is included alongside other Poets Laureate Emeritus in the City of Windsor’s South Shore Collections series, A Manor of Words: Poetry at the Manor 10th Anniversary Anthology (Black Moss Press, 2022). Her poems are published in Spike: Poems in the Time of Pestilence (Cannon Creek Press, 2021).

Lauren’s 2010 chapbook Resound Re:Sound is a collection of lyrics written in Owen Sound between 2004-2008. Lauren’s music has been heard coast to coast since her debut album release in 2011, and she’s collaborated across genres and art forms with work in music, poetry, theatre, film and digital media.

During more than a decade of community engaged arts, Lauren has partnered across sectors spanning education, cognitive neuroscience research, healthcare, social service, and cultural organizations. In 2022 she teamed up with Seattle-baed saxophonist Steve Treseler to create the Infinite Improvisation Podcast.

Lauren’s new performance pieces combine poetry from her first full-length poetry book Just Leaves (2023), set within a soundscape of keyboard and vocal improvisation paired with lyric melodies.

You can find Lauren on socials and athttps://laurenbest.com or athttps://bestpracticearts.com/index.html

Lauren's Top 5 Songs of Encouragement:
1) This Joy by The Resistance Revival Chorus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TbDPwA09Bc&t=15s
2) Soy Yo by Bomba Estereo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxWxXncl53U&t=48s
3) Fool for Waiting by Dan Mangan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W4sCAl1qzY
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJjDQ_OzLt8
4) Mississippi Nuthin' by Shovels & Rope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMKxTjo21bI&t=21s
5) Don't Quit on Me by Richard Laviolette
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVBDEsGcj8g&t=95s

Chris Rugowski is the man, or chicken as he is known to many, behind Chicken or The Egg Photography. He is a photojournalist who captures your authentic story. As of 2023, he’s been in photography for about a decade, and in that time has gone from hobbyist with an iphone doing a full time job in software engineering (i.e. living in the matrix) to breaking free of the matrix to become a full time freelancer living the photography, music and journalism life.

His main focus of photography is events, music and street lifestyle. His unique vision and ability to capture life and scenes has led to work with high profile music festivals such as Rock Fest and Mile of Music, both of which get 100,000+ in attendance. He has worked with Tough Mudder, and is a staple photographer for the Downtown areas of Green Bay, WI.

He is a recording artist, with his band Age of Fable (progressive rock) and solo project The Finest Faux (acoustic rock). Age of Fable has had radio play from the Midwest all the way to Australia, with multiple singles being released from their concept album Modes of Persuasion, which focused on the concepts of Pathos, Ethos, Logos. You can find Age of Fable on any of the streaming platforms.

He writes for The Business News covering all types of business news from small startups to companies with worldwide presence. Musically, he writes for MyGlobalMind a metal and rock publication. He photographs and reviews concerts, and writes album reviews.

Top 5 Songs of Encouragement
1) Sunshine by Atmosphere
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AckhnLpwceM
2) Lose Yourself by Eminem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YuAzR2XVAM
3) Look What Happened by Less Than Jake
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTpAF8PSj-4
4) Disenchantment by Meshuggah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0jlf9MICv4
5) Pardon Me by Incubus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxgHjhc0t3Y

Bonus Track
Fire Fighters by Age of Fable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap2lmnE1GqU

Pam Asberry, M.M., has over forty years of professional experience as a music educator, adjudicator, performer, recording artist, speaker, author, composer and arranger. A BMI artist, she has released nine solo piano albums to date and her music can be heard on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, Sirius XM, and elsewhere. Described as “a new age solo pianist of uncommon melodic grace, insight and heartfelt intuitiveness” (Jonathan Widran, The JW Vibe), Pam Asberry is an award-winning performing artist and composer who combines contemporary, new age and classical sounds to create music that is alternately melodic and graceful, dramatic and powerful, peaceful and hypnotic. Classically trained from the age of seven, she completed a master’s degree in piano performance and piano pedagogy and maintains a private teaching studio in Lawrenceville, Georgia, offering both virtual and in-person lessons in piano, clarinet, music theory, and composition. She has played concerts across the United States and abroad and her twin passions are sharing her music and the stories behind them with listeners around the world and inspiring others, especially young people, to find their own joy in music making.
Follow Pam on Social media and find out more at
https://pamasberry.com

Top 5 Songs of Encouragement
1) All Will Be Well by the Gabe Dixon Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2-3ooX_XkQ
2) After the Storm by Mumford & Sons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqUsAHTUPTU&list=RDYqUsAHTUPTU&start_radio=1
3) The Wall by Kansas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKY_Bh53YDE
4) The Wexford Carol with Yo-Yo Ma & Alison Krauss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxDZjg_Igoc
5) Metamorphosis by Pam Asberry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9i49zPO96o

To keep the show ad free, go to www.buymeacoffee.com/Encouragement

Asher began classical violin training at the tender age of
2 and had already performed with the Buffalo
philharmonic by age 13.
Asher’s expertise in improvisation across multiple genres
has led him to a career as a soloist in demand,
performing at venues such as Madison Square Garden,
Hammerstein Hall, Lincoln Center, the Jacob Javitz
Center and across four continents. Asher has also been
featured on PBS, and has made headlines on CNN,
WABC, NBC, and the New York Post among many other major news
sources. He has been booked to perform at special events for Google,
Nickelodeon, TNT, National Geographic, Citigroup and a list of notables including
George W. Bush, Ivana Trump and many others.
In 2014 Asher lived a musician’s nightmare when he lost the strength to play his
violin for a number of years. Refusing to accept conventional advice he found a
way to heal, building his strength to an unprecedented level. He used this
experience as fuel to reinvent his live concerts as a high-energy contemporary
violinist. In only a few months, Asher learned to merge, popular tunes and
breakdancing choreography into his performances.
Asher also uniquely performs as a DJ violinist bringing his experience as a live
performer and technical prowess as an audio editing and mixing guru to
countless clubs and stages.
Asher has been privileged to teach children and adolescents from under
resourced neighborhoods in the Bronx for almost 4 years. This has fostered his
drive to make a positive imprint on others.
With a growing fan base in the tens of thousands, Asher is working to influence
societal norms and conventional thinking about musical performance, helping to
break down social and physical barriers for his fans and beyond.
https://www.asherlaub.com/home
Fanlinks:
https://fanlink.to/asher
https://AWAL.lnk.to/xwoLQ

Top 5 Songs of Encouragement:
1) "You Raise Me Up" sung by Josh Groban
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfO8j7ObZVY
2) "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btPJPFnesV4
3) "Roar" by Katy Perry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CevxZvSJLk8
4) "Stronger" by Kelly Clarkson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn676-fLq7I
5) "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k8craCGpgs

Bonus track
"Subtle Pulse" by Asher Laub and Porter Singer
https://open.spotify.com/track/6KRnefUR0QljOpMk0Dfmbp?si=c91cd685d893422a&nd=1

Katie Dahl is a songwriter and playwright whose work is as expansive as Lake Michigan and as deeply rooted as its rocky coastal bluffs. A small-town celebrity on the Wisconsin peninsula where her family has lived for 175 years, she is now a radio-charting folk artist who tours around the world. Clear-eyed and tough-minded, fresh and funny, Katie “delivers razor-sharp lyrics with a hearty, soulful voice” (American Songwriter).

Katie’s four albums of original songs showcase her creamy alto and trademark wit, as well as her unflinching authenticity. Her recent work finds her exploring more vulnerable territory than ever before, from anxiety to body image to the challenges of growing up queer in an evangelical church. Richly steeped in the American songwriting tradition, Katie navigates the muddy waters between the personal, public, and political with tenderness and dexterity.

Katie is currently working with renowned producer Julie Wolf on a new album slated for release in early 2023. Her previous album, Wildwood, was produced by JT Nero (Birds of Chicago) and features Allison Russell; that record’s “Worry My Friend” hit #6 on the folk radio charts in 2019. Her song “Crowns” spent a month at #1 on the charts in 2015.

Katie is also a playwright; her latest musical The Fisherman’s Daughters (2021) tells the story of two sisters in 1908 who fight the state of Wisconsin’s efforts to take their rural homestead via eminent domain to make a state park. Victory Farm (2012; co-written with James Valcq and Emilie Coulson) is a fictionalized account of the real-life German POWs who came to Wisconsin to pick cherries during World War II. Both plays were made into live cast recordings.

Katie was a college freshman in Minnesota when she slipped on a patch of sidewalk ice and broke her wrist. Suddenly unable to play the oboe in her college orchestra, Katie used her newfound free time to learn guitar, teaching herself chord shapes as she strummed the strings with her stiff right hand. Nine years later, that icy day has proven to be a blessing in disguise, leading Katie into a life of work that Dar Williams calls “the very best kind of songwriting.”

Don't forget to buy Katie's latest Album Seven Stones!
https://katiedahlmusic.com

Top 5 Songs of Encouragement
1) "May I Suggest" by Susan Werner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW1DDSQnEYo
2) "Grow Your Flowers" by JT & the Clouds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RntOMgWg7SM
3) "Hammer and A Nail" by The Indigo Girls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTI2GGNFR_U
4) "Nobody's Crying" by Patty Griffin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGlNEbFuN9g
5) "Sacristy" by Katie Dahl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8o19TND2yI

Photo Credits: Wolfskull Creative & Kelly Nicolaisen

Owner/Instructor at the Linda Kennedy School of Piano and Voice, Linda began as an educator, arranger and performer at the age of 14. 
Mrs. Kennedy is both a degreed and Nationally Certified teacher.  She is a former instructor for Yamaha International and Kimball International.  Mrs. Kennedy is a member of Kansas City Music Teachers Assoc. and former Executive Board member.  She is an Executive Board Member of Olathe Music Teachers, member of Kansas Music Teachers, Federated Music Teachers and Music Teacher National Association. 

Mrs. Kennedy has judged many piano, vocal and instrumental music competitions, and was given a Judge’s Award for her work as a judge in the Iowa Yamaha Clavinova Festival.   

Linda Kennedy was awarded Teacher of the Year by Steinway & Sons in 2016 and 2021. 

Linda is currently an executive board member of OMTA, Federated Music Teachers member, and KMTA and NMTA member.

https://www.lrkennedypianoandvoice.com

Top 5 Songs of Encouragement
1) "Unstoppable" by Sia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaEG2aWJnZ8
2) The Joy of Life" by Kenny G
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd-A72uoh-U
3) "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyGY2NfYpeE
4) "I'm So Excited"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iwBM_YB1sE
5) "Walking On Sunshine"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPUmE-tne5U

Amy Rood Miller is an accomplished private music instructor, music therapist, and performer. She has sung numerous roles and performances in and around the NYC and Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas. In 2014 she founded Creative Music Lessons, LLC, a company that provides a more fun and interactive approach to musical instruction. This distinctive teaching style combines the soft skills of a music therapist or music educator with the technical skills of a classically-trained performer. Her company has now grown to become a group of 10 talented instructors offering in-home lessons and some group programming to students of all ages, levels, and instruments. Amy currently resides in Westchester, NY with her husband, Terence and their toddler Coralyn. 

You can learn more at https://www.creativemusiclessons.com
For more information about music therapy, go to https://www.musictherapy.org

Top 5 Songs of Encouragement
1) Baroque and Blue: Suite No. 1 for Flute and Jazz Piano by Claude Bolling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq74JQ1Q9uw
2) Grande messe des morts, Op. 5, "Requiem": Agnus Dei
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjbtWRJQBdc
3) Golden Gate Orch. - Five Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue - 1925 California Ramblers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9lckkO3izg
4) Sara Bareilles - You Matter To Me (Official Audio) ft. Jason Mraz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH9gLM4I7tY
5) Beverly Sills - Ah fors'è lui...Sempre libera LA TRAVIATA Stereo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mvj1kE91E4

For Peter's bio, see the show notes for Part 1 of the interview.
Visit Peter's website at
https://www.bazylistudio.com/bazyli-studio-wearable-art-gallery

Inspirational Art/Artists
1) La Sagrada Familia Basilica by Antonio Gaudi
2) artist Nick Cave
3) "Seaweed" by Lenore Towney
4) "Shakespeare is in the Alley" installation by Skye Ciesla
5) "Seamless Stories Delicious Memories" by Laura Nova and Kristine Diekman

Top 5 Songs of Encouragement
1) The Opera "Tosca" by Puccini; "Vissi d/Arte" sung by Maria Callas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk5KrlxePzI
2) "Pharaoh's Dance" by Miles Davis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtORTuLJw7o
3) "Jokerman" by Bob Dylan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foVjD4xPT1I
4) "In Lamho Ke Daaman Mein" by Sonu Nigam and Madhushree
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIxH4zcUJVE
5) "Equinoxe, Pt. 5" by Jean-Michel Jarre
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXBuEcue9tE