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musicians

The Recovering and the Recovered

April 18, 2020 by Amy Kelley

Our author brings us up to date on her own gradual return to good health after falling ill with coronavirus–and shares the harrowing but similarly miraculous journeys to recovery experienced by, as it happens, two well-known, Chappaqua-based musicians.

During this terrible time in American history, we brace ourselves to digest the latest news each day as to how many fellow New Yorkers are suffering and dying; this week, public officials announced well over 10,000 had died in New York City alone. It’s a tragic, frightening statistic, and as Governor Andrew Cuomo regularly reminds us, there are real faces behind the numbers and devastated families who cannot properly care for those hospitalized or later deceased or adequately address their own grief.

But every day, there are also more than twice as many people recovering from COVID-19, the novel coronavirus.

Le Jardin du Roi
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As dire as the situation certainly is, it’s important to remember, too, that many New York residents are also getting better, and many experts predict at least a year of subsequent immunity follows, although inadequate widespread testing remains an ongoing challenge.

A few weeks past my own last symptoms, solidly recovered from COVID-19, Mount Sinai Hospital  scheduled myself and my 18-and-up family members to donate plasma.

I feel very lucky.

I can walk into the pharmacy without fear and get takeout coffee without fearing invisible germs on the cup. And when I line up outside the grocery store. I’m meticulous about social distancing–but that’s because I don’t want to worry anyone else, not because I worry about myself.

There are more and more of us every day–the recovering and the recovered. (Editor’s Note: The jury is still out on the degree of  immunity to coronavirus infection, post recovery too. Please speak with your doctor.)

We’re not all young, either. I’m 50, and the Chappaqua residents I interviewed for this article– by phone, because both were not totally well yet–are a bit older. I also have a minor heart condition and asthma.

People always want to know more about my asthma so here’s a description that, under normal circumstances, would be oversharing and plus would bore you to tears: I’ve had asthma since I was seven.

My asthma is idiopathic, meaning that there’s no known cause. I’m on the highest dose of Symbicort, twice daily, and use my albuterol rescue inhaler more than I’m supposed to. Not a day goes by that I don’t think, several times, about my difficult breathing.

Yes, my heart condition was exacerbated by the virus–that’s why I was hospitalized and tested. But my lungs remained clear while hospitalized, and when I developed more significant shortness of breath a few days later at home, I wasn’t worried.

As a lifelong asthmatic, I know when to worry, and it just didn’t get that bad.

The editor asked me to share my recovery story as a follow up to my ‘being sick’ story https://www.theinsidepress.com/area-journalist-diagnosed-covid-19-positive-and-quarantined-with-family/  but also to speak with two members of the Chappaqua community, both of whom happen to be accomplished musicians who had contracted coronavirus. Each had become seriously ill, but each also appears to have fortunately recovered as well. She asked if I’d check in with them:

Jon Cobert: “My Wife Tried to Revive Me… then she Called 911”

Jon Cobert

I personally never lost my sense of taste and smell, which has become one of the telltale signs of coronavirus, but my husband and two of my sons did.

So did this Chappaqua resident, music legend Jon Cobert. His wife and son caught the virus as well, and they too lost their senses of taste and smell.

Cobert, 65, a five-time Grammy nominated musician who has played with John Lennon, Tom Chapin, Harry Chapin, Laura Branigan and many others, first called his doctor in mid-March. “I had a headache and a fever on March 16 after dinner, and I kind of knew,” he said, adding that he doesn’t usually get headaches or fevers, and his doctor said to keep an eye on things.

When Cobert developed a cough, though, his doctor arranged for him to have his lungs looked at on March 20, and he was tested. He got the call that the test was positive on March 23.

Cobert said he had been hoping he didn’t have it, although he recalled having worked with two musicians who later tested positive as well. His doctor said he should take his temperature and call to come in if he became very short of breath. At first, he was tired with a productive cough; but then he developed gastrointestinal symptoms.

A few days later, he passed out while sitting at the kitchen table.

“I just felt all the energy drain out of my body,” he said. “My wife tried to revive me, and then she called 911.”

Cobert said the Chappaqua Ambulance Corps was there in less than five minutes. He was taken to Northern Westchester Hospital and treated for atrial fibrillation. “They were fantastic,” he said.

Unfortunately, that overnight stay wasn’t the last Cobert saw of the hospital. On March 28, he developed chest pains and shortness of breath, and had to return.

But he was once more cleared to return home, and now his heart rate is, according to his Apple Watch, normal.

While Tylenol was hard to find, Cobert’s family was able to find generic acetaminophen. His sister-in-law gave him an oxygen meter, and he had an inhaler left over from a bout of bronchitis in the fall that he used a few times.

As of early this week, Cobert was feeling back to his normal self. “I went for a walk yesterday and it was quite therapeutic,” he said. “It was nice to get outside for an extended period and get some exercise. I highly recommend it.”

He even did his first Facebook live performance to the delight of his fans. He plans to do it weekly every Thursday.

Michael Shapiro Thought About “the Love I Feel for the People in my Life”

Michael Shapiro conducting the Chappaqua Orchestra.
PHOTO by Randy Matusow

Composer and conductor Michael Shapiro, 69, also spent time at Northern Westchester Hospital, five days, he shared, due to COVID-19-caused pneumonia, which he described as “feeling like having broken-up concrete in the bottom of my lungs.”

“They took wonderful care of me,” he said of the hospital staff. “They could not have been better. My long time doctor, Marvin Chinitz, was particularly insightful and I think saved my life.”

Shapiro, the former music director of the Chappaqua Orchestra, said he had fever as well. “I’d feel better, then it would spike, I’d feel better again, and the same thing happened. It would spike up again,” he said.

“I was constantly thinking about the things I believe in… the love I feel for the people in my life, all my family members, the things I still need to do,” Shapiro said, describing his time battling the virus.

This year’s Passover Seder, Shapiro said, was particularly meaningful as the fight between good and evil and against tyranny became less abstract for him, the Biblical made real as families hunkered down in their homes, the Angel of Death in the form of coronavirus raging across the world.

On a local level, Shapiro said he and his longtime partner Marge Perlin, her two sons and their girlfriends, most of whom tested positive but with relatively mild symptoms, depended on treasured friends and community members, who helped them in many ways.

Shapiro is on the mend now, gathering strength. Public music making is now restricted to commercial and public radio where Shapiro’s works, particularly his new Archangel Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (recorded last May by Steven Beck, pianist, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales) is being broadcast internationally, on BBC3, CBC, and radio stations across America. SiriusXM is featuring Shapiro’s music on its program Living American to be broadcast six times and downloadable the next three months.

Shapiro is starting to get back to work on a new violin concerto for virtuoso Tim Fain which they hope to record when the lights go on again.

He credits his return to good health with the support he received within the community, especially. He mentioned: “Richard Leroy, dynamically leading social action at Temple Shaaray Tefila, who arranged for two weeks of meal delivery during the household’s quarantine; Vinny Milazzo of the Village Market, who energetically provides curbside service; and Erin Teter, manager of the Quaker Hill Tavern, whose loving example is an inspiration.”

“They are special, special people and community members,” Shapiro said of Leroy, Milazzo, and Teter. “We love them, they are curing the world every day, and we hope the community supports and cares for what they do.”

Filed Under: Surviving COVID-19 Tagged With: Composer, COVID-19, Grammy, John Lennon, Jon Cobert, Michael Shapiro, Mount Sinai Hospital, musicians, Northern Westchester Hospital, Recovered, recovery, Surviving COVID-19

It’s Only Rock N’ Roll… and these Parents LOVE it!

August 24, 2019 by Miriam Longobardi

Music is an outlet which provides a release for many people, but these local parents take it to a new level.

They are all over the County, and sometimes travelling beyond, all while working and raising kids. Whether a lifelong musician or just starting now, no matter how busy you think you are, you too could be on stage!

Adult Learners

Red Grenadine

Jenn Filardi and Jason Haberman of local band Red Grenadine just began taking guitar lessons as adults. Filardi, a stay-at-home mom since leaving a busy career in advertising to raise her children, studied at the Mike Risko Music School in Ossining. The upshot? At age 41, Filardi was performing vocals and playing electric rhythm guitar. The band rehearses once a week for about two hours, sometimes longer right before a gig.

The couple also took part in an adult music workshop and were able to stretch their abilities by working with musicians with varied skill sets. Over time their band evolved, some of the players changed, but since 2017, Red Grenadine plays in many local county venues. You can catch them at popular clubs/pubs like Lucy’s in Pleasantville or Garcia’s in Port Chester.

They are not a typical cover band that plays songs to sound exactly as they do on the radio; rather, they play different versions of classic rock songs and R&B, often versions covered by other artists. Sometimes the key is changed, or it has a funkier vibe, so it is very recognizable but not what people may expect.

“People are very pleasantly surprised a lot of the time,” Haberman shared.

They tend to select songs that feature different solo parts for the other members of the band to showcase their talents, such as Larry Yavner (drums), Rob Guglielmo (keyboard), Mike Bisceglia (lead guitar), Danny Golub (bass). Golub is a teacher with Music in Chappaqua. Occasionally they add horns by collaborating with the Horn Dogs.

On September 21st, they will be performing in the Battle of the Bands at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center.  Follow Red Grenadine on Facebook and Instagram for more information.

 

 

Filed Under: Pleasantville Cover Stories Tagged With: Bands, Battle of the Bands, Local Music, music scene, musicians, rock and roll

The Making of the Pleasantville Music Festival

March 8, 2019 by David Propper

Managing ‘a zillion moving parts’ to create an all-day music extravaganza

Save the Date: July 13, 2019

When longtime Pleasantville resident Bruce Figler attended his first ever Pleasantville Music Festival, it was in 2005. That happened to be the inaugural year for the event, and Figler, who has been in the radio business, helped the original founders hook in a music station to be part of the all-day affair.

“I was perfectly happy sitting backstage with a beer hanging out with the radio station people, with the bands, going on stage introducing an act, hanging out with my family in the field for awhile,” Figler said.

“That was my life, it was a pretty easy life.”

Fast-forward more than a decade later, and Figler, who owns Creative Sound Works on Wheeler Avenue, is now the executive director of the yearly music festival that brings about 4,000 people to Parkway Field to hear a jam packed lineup of musical talent perform. His life is a little busier now than back in 2005 with months of planning going into the creation of the festival.

Figler works with an executive staff of about ten people and a volunteer base of more than 100 that live in the region (mostly Pleasantville and Chappaqua). Each year, he and staff members discuss what worked and what didn’t work that year with the desire to be more efficient the following year. A survey is also sent to attendees so Figler can receive feedback.

Once a review of the previous year is over, finding a new set of bands gets underway as early as December. Figler said he and the other staff members try to nail down different musicians that will please a wide range of demographics with Figler compiling a “wish list” of about 30 bands and musicians he’d love to go after.

ALL PHOTOS BY LYNDA SHENKMAN

But because the festival is a municipally run–rather than private–event, there are limitations Figler has to grapple with. Other festivals can offer more money to performers and some festivals have exclusivity rights, which means a band can’t perform within a certain radius within a certain time frame. He estimated that for every ten more prominent bands/musicians he reaches out to, seven reject him.

For the bigger bands, Figler said he tells them if they come to Pleasantville, it would be “an easier festival, it’s very manageable, you can be in and out pretty quickly.”

Additionally, because the festival is involved with a radio station (107.1 The Peak), that station supports the booked musicians which result in airtime for them leading up to the festival. A band could find a new base of fans in the suburbs, Figler said.

While the pursuit of big acts can be an arduous task, the festival also needs to find smaller bands and musicians, which begins two or three months before the festival.

Up and coming bands can submit through the festival’s website with staff members taking trips to hear different contending bands. “We’re becoming very diverse musically so I try to find something for everyone,” Figler said.

Pleasantville resident Jim Zimmerman, who founded the music festival in 2005 with Bernie Gordon and the late Lisa Wenzel, said the first year he helped put it together, it was like a second full-time job. Part of his motivation to start the festival was to give smaller bands and musicians a larger stage to perform. Some bands have gone on to bigger and better things, he pointed out.

“I had to develop all the systems and recruit so it was quite a project nevertheless,” Zimmerman said. “Everything had to be done by scratch.” Figler joked he doesn’t have to create the wheel like Zimmerman did, only keep it spinning.

While the music lineup is the most significant set to put together, Figler has to secure sponsors and vendors, many of which are eateries from Pleasantville and surrounding towns. There is also a push by a recycling group to ensure it is a zero waste event. Law enforcement and the department of public works are conferred with considering this is the largest public gathering in the small village each year.

The day of the event, Figler said weather is always an uncontrolled variable that has to be monitored. The last three years there has either been rain or a threat of a storm so the village recreational offices become a makeshift weather station. Said Figler: “There’s a zillion moving parts to this thing.”

Filed Under: Pleasantville Cover Stories Tagged With: Bands, Bruce Figler, festival, guide, Moving parts, music, musicians, Parkway Field, Pleasantville, pleasantville music festival, Sponsors, Volunteers

Musical Minds

June 1, 2015 by The Inside Press

Sasha Warm performing at our recital at MTK Tavern
Sasha Warm performing at our recital at MTK Tavern

By Kaila Allison

Kids these days are bombarded by activities. After school, the To-Do list seems endless! So how is it possible to prioritize? What activities are most effective for a child’s development?

Music lessons can be an answer. Music has been proven to help promote the growth of a child’s intellectual, emotional, and physical capacities, while also being a great source of expression and fun.

Among the many benefits that music provides, one is social intelligence. It is an aspect of intelligence encompassing emotional and cultural processing, characterized in children by their sensitivity and sympathy. Music is not only an individual pursuit, but is a timeless cultural practice. Music comes from all over the world, and not only requires discipline for personal practice, but respect for the past and the bigger picture of human development.

Music lessons also demand focus. Because kids are constantly inundated with stimuli, it is increasingly challenging to capture their attention. Music is a way to take a break from the virtual world for a while and “recharge.” It gives them a chance to make something organically with their hands or voices.

Music is also a natural de-stressor. For example, listening to and playing music releases the same endorphins in our brains released when we exercise or eat chocolate. It actually produces calming waves in our brains that positively influence our mood.

But how can we compare the minds of musical children with those of non-musical children? One way is in the classroom. Test scores show a positive correlation between students who play music and their performance on assessments. Kids that take music lessons use more of their brains than kids who do not take music lessons. Musical children’s brains are involved in more neuron activity, and as each new motor skill is acquired, both muscle memory and new connections are made that can stay with a child throughout their lives.

Music lessons are really the gift that keeps on giving. The more musicians there are out there now, the more there will likely be in the future. Let’s keep our minds musical! For more information, visit www.musicinchappaqua.com

Filed Under: Gotta Have Arts Tagged With: Inside Press, Music lessons, musicians, performance, theinsidepress.com

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