Vienna Live with Simeon Morrow – Weekly Interactive Show

We citizens love to connect with each other by lamenting the exorbitant taxes we pay to wasteful governments and the inflated prices of consumer goods and services.  But how often do nuanced arguments about transportation infrastructure figure into those conversations? Probably never; roads, bridges, railways… we just take them for granted, right?  However, the status of its transportation networks has always been key to determining any economy’s potential well-being.  For example, if goods and services are in supply at point a. but in demand at point b., well-designed transportation infrastructure makes for efficient transaction (i.e. doing business costs less and is more likely to happen, making lower taxes a likelihood).  Even the CIA underlines the significance of transportation infrastructure to the relative power of a modern global market economy: in The World Factbook, the CIA compares each country to all others based on its number of airports, kilometers of railways, roadways and waterways.  So, who decides that roads lead to Rome?  Come welcome urban planner and transportation scientist Marco Chitti to our show and he will show us how he and his colleagues are already planning transit well into the future.

WHEN: Wednesday, August 24th, 2022, from 19:00-20:00 Central European Summer Time (1:00-2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time / 10:00-11:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time)

WHERE: Enter the show’s Zoom Meeting (take part in the show, interact with the Featured Guests and participants around the world),  

or watch it all happen on LinkedIn Live

The City of Savonlinna is what many of us picture when we imagine Finland: it is small, hospitable, surrounded by forests and lakes, and filled with cultural activities.  The Olavinlinna Castle is the center of the City and also a fortress island that symbolizes the heart of the Saimaa Lake Region, one of the largest bodies of fresh water in Europe.  So, it’s fitting that Olavinlinna Castle also hosts Finland’s most prestigious opera festival.  Let’s get to know Savonlinna by meeting three of the City’s celebrated singers: sopranos Chieko Okabe and Kaisa Makkonen and tenor Jorma Silvasti!  Come welcome Chieko, Kaisa and Jorma to our show!

WHEN: Wednesday, August 17th, 2022, from 19:00-20:00 Central European Summer Time (1:00-2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time / 10:00-11:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time)

WHERE: Enter the show’s Zoom Meeting (take part in the show, interact with the Featured Guests and participants around the world),  

or watch it all happen on LinkedIn Live

Cellist Tanya Tomkins performs classical music on two different instruments: one “period” the other “modern”.  Both instruments are crafted from the same kind of wood and have four strings; except for the convex shape of her “period” bow, non-connoisseurs would have a hard time telling the two apart.  So, what makes for a “period” or “modern” performance?  Is it Tanya’s instrument choice or her performance style?  And does that dichotomy imply a right and a wrong classical music?  Questions aside, “period instrument” performances are a Western classical music phenomenon and we have an exclusive opportunity to get to know what it’s all about from one of its pioneers.  Come welcome Tanya to our show for a look at her artistry and directorship of the West Coast’s period-instrument Valley of the Moon Music Festival!

WHEN: Wednesday, August 10th, 2022, from 19:00-20:00 Central European Summer Time (1:00-2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time / 10:00-11:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time)

WHERE: Enter the show’s Zoom Meeting (take part in the show, interact with the Featured Guests and participants around the world),  

or watch it all happen on LinkedIn Live

Actress Izzy Shill has starred in series and films known to households everywhere, like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Orange is the New Black.  But it’s her work as film writer and directress that has made for the most colorful dinner-table conversations.  In her Pandemic-era hit, Face to Face Time, the naïve and dedicated Claire prepares a romantic video-call surprise “date” for her new boyfriend, Danny, only to be rewarded with the worst kind of deception: though Danny abhors Claire’s surprise gesture of romance, he does everything in his power to feign gratification.  Funny enough, in the end, rather than bringing the couple closer together, their common sexual prejudices push them farther apart.  Danny deceives Claire by playing the part he thinks she expects of him, yet she initiated the deception in the first place; Claire is completely uncomfortable throughout, but goes through with it because she thinks it’s expected of her.  Shakespeare would surely agree, “all the world’s a stage” and comedies sometimes hit home in ways that “we-need-to-talk” conversations cannot.  Come welcome Izzy Shill to our show for an intimate look at Face to Face Time and her forthcoming feature film Going Nowhere!

WHEN: Wednesday, August 3rd, 2022, from 19:00-20:00 Central European Summer Time (1:00-2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time / 10:00-11:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time)

WHERE: Enter the show’s Zoom Meeting (take part in the show, interact with the Featured Guests and participants around the world),  

or watch it all happen on LinkedIn Live

Trump, Clinton, Biden… curiously, when citizens in Western countries go into “voting season,” the elected positions farthest removed from voters’ daily lives are usually the most fervently contested.  Yet it is the local elected officials who are responsible for making sure the streets are paved, the police force and fire brigades are responsive and well managed, the water is clean and abundant, the garbage is collected and well disposed of, and in the case of New York City, cleaner air would first be guaranteed by the prohibition of smoking in indoor public places.  Lucky for us, The Honorable Christopher C. Rosenquest, Mayor of the City of Plattsburgh, New York, is coming on Vienna Live to tell us what being a city Mayor is all about and how these less-fêted elected officials are improving our lives in ways presidents and prime ministers could only dream of.

WHEN: Wednesday, July 27th, 2022, from 19:00-20:00 Central European Summer Time (1:00-2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time / 10:00-11:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time)

WHERE: Enter the show’s Zoom Meeting (take part in the show, interact with the Featured Guests and participants around the world),  

or watch it all happen on LinkedIn Live