Help us transform lives with the power of singing.

Do you think music is important enough to deserve your support? Do you want the joy of music to transport your family, friends and neighbors, the way it does you?

If so, I invite you to experience and support Long Island Masterworks, Long Island’s premier chorus.

But we can’t do it without you. We can’t do it unless you help us continue to bring the passion, the joy, the power of music to your family, your friends, your neighbors.

What sets Long Island Masterworks apart? First, our professional orchestra and singers—we use a professional union orchestra—put on a performance that rivals the finest choruses in the New York metropolitan area. And there’s more:

 Because we’re not tied to a specific venue or town, we perform throughout Long Island, giving everyone the opportunity to experience the magic of a professional chorus.
 We’re the only choral organization in the area that performs familiar, new and commissioned works every season.
 We give back to the young people of the community with the Long Island Choral Festival and Institute, a summer celebration of music where young talents have opportunities to grow and learn alongside some of the best performers in the area.

Here’s why your support is critically important: because we’re dedicated to keeping our events accessible to the community, ticket sales only cover about 10-15% of the cost to present a concert. We rely on corporate and individual sponsors—audience members and music lovers like you—to make Long Island Masterworks possible.

Please help us transform lives with the power of singing. Please help us continue to bring the joy of music, and of making music, to Long Island and the New York metropolitan area.

Thank you in advance for your support.

Fear of Sleep

Some free press…

Ira Glass, host of This American Life said of Birbiglia in a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune: “I feel he’s a big rising star. He’s somebody I feel, like, whenever we have him on the show I just feel, like, wow, he’s gonna be so much more famous than all the rest of us.”

UCB Theatre Looking For Residents of the East Village, NYC

The Upright Citizens Brigade is exploring an opportunity to open an additional venue in the East Village and we can use your help. If you currently reside in the East Village and would be willing to support the effort please sign the petition linked below.

The Theatre is hoping to move into the Pioneer Theatre at Avenue A and 3rd Street, next to Two Boots Pizza. While we’re still a long way from making this happen the first step is to see if we can get enough support from within the community. To continue offering the same brand of comedy at the same affordable prices we’ll need to get a Beer/Wine license.

If you or anyone you know live within Community Board 3 (the area of NYC from the East River westward to 4th Avenue, and from 14th Street down to the Brooklyn Bridge) and support this effort please take a moment and sign the online petition, or stop by Two Boots this weekend and sign a live petition. If you do not live in the neighborhood, we appreciate your support but it will not be helpful to us for you to sign the petition.

The Barber of Kigali

Integrity Films debuts at Toronto this month with THE BARBER OF KIGALI. The short will screen at Toronto’s National Film Board Cinema on December 20th. The Barber of Kigali is about a Rwandan barber who must decide whether to kill or not to kill his next client, the dreaded Colonel who murdered his father fourteen years ago in the Genocide. CLICK HERE and listen to an interview with Director, James Cohen.

November is American Diabetes Month

You might have noticed more diabetes stories than usual in your local newspaper this month. That’s no surprise: each year, several diabetes organizations promote November as “Diabetes Month” and encourage the media to publicize diabetes.

Among them: the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at what they call National Diabetes Awareness Month, and the American Diabetes Association (ADA), at American Diabetes Month.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International (JDRF) also promotws National Diabetes Awareness Month and has an Online Diabetes Support Team (ODST) made up of JDRF volunteers who are available to offer immediate, one-on-one support.

How to get involved:

Walk to Cure Diabetes

Ride to Cure Diabetes

Pedal for Prevention, stationary bike-a-thon ~ no really!

GERALD McBOING BOING

WHAM host, Joe Lomonaco writes on his radio blog, “In 1950, Dr. Seuss wrote a book called GERALD McBOING BOING. It was based on an Academy Award winning short subject animated film. It’s the story of a boy who becomes a star on radio because of his unique “talent”. Check out the film for a visual demonstration of what we in the business call Theatre of the Mind.”

My favorite line- “From Public School 7 to Mrs. McCloy, Your little son Gerald is a most hopeless boy. We cannot accept him for we have a little rule – that pupils must not go *BEE* *BAP* in our school!”.

American-Italian Music Hall On-Demand

If you’re looking for good classic Italian Music I recommend you tune into Joe Farda’s radio show the “American-Italian Music Hall.” All shows are presented here as they originally aired on 93.5 FM WVIP and each has a running time of 60-minutes. The broadcast is in English, but the music is always Italian. Italian entertainers such as: Jimmy Roselli, Carlo Buti, Connie Francis, Gigli, Toni Arden, Joe Masielo, Ria Rosa, Pavarotti, Sinatra, Dean Martin, and many more, performing Italian, Neopolitan, or American songs with an Italian flavor. It was the classic recordings of Gigli that got me hooked.

Free Movie Wednesday

I posted this video to highlight the pre movie short film, “The Crimson Permanent Assurance”. Props to hulu.com for posting this up for FREE.

From Wikipedia: The Crimson Permanent Assurance, a lengthy introductory film directed by Terry Gilliam. In a satire on globalization, elderly office clerks rebel against their cold, efficient corporate masters at ‘The Permanent Assurance Company’, commandeer their building and turn it into a pirate ship, raiding financial districts in numerous big cities before falling off the edge of the world. Originally conceived by Gilliam as a 6-minute animated sequence in the middle of the film (at the end of Part V), it was later expanded to a 16-minute live-action piece, to the point where it no longer fit into the framework of the film and became a pre-movie short film in its own right.

Monty Python’s Meaning of Life
The British troupe’s sketches include gluttony, birth control and total insignificance.
Release Date: March 31, 1983

Graham Chapman
John Cleese
Carol Cleveland
Patricia Quinn
Michael Palin
Mark Holmes
Eric Idle
Andrew MacLachlan
Simon Jones
Judy Loe
Valerie Whittington
Terry Jones
Terry Gilliam

Director
John Goldstone

SNL: The Office

Ricky Gervais presents the inspiration for The Office.

a second life

Dwight: I signed up for Second Life about a year ago. Back then, my life was so great I literally wanted a second one. Absolutely everything was the same… except I could fly.