Vienna Live with Simeon Morrow – Weekly Interactive Show

Around Montreal, as you walk by the entrances to cafés, you will find stands with free tabloid papers of the kind found in any other city in the world.  But Montreal has a secret for those passersby who care to look closely: they will notice that, next to the tabloid papers, lies a monthly periodical exclusively published for classical music lovers.  La Scena Musicale is not just a calendar of and guide to the concerts happening around Montreal and Quebec: it is a phenomenal force for cultural unity.  In a city and province sadly divided by unseen and unspoken animosities between its French and English communities, the magazine creates a safe space for dialogue between elites from both communities.  Wah Keung Chan, the magazine’s founder and editor-in-chief, probably never intended the magazine to do anything other than promote the music he adores – BTW he’s an engineer and mathematician by training – but Montreal had other designs and La Scena Musicale has just published its 27^th volume.  Come welcome Wah Keung to our show and let’s get to know La Scena Musicale!  

WHEN: Wednesday, July 6th, 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 Facebook Live

Most communication professionals will tell you that communication means getting what’s in your head into the head of somebody else. David Murray, author and executive director of the Professional Speechwriters Association, says, not so. Communication means listening to your audience’s version of the story—with great care, and with imagination. Only after taking the other’s point of view to heart—and after honestly examining one’s own heart—does communication even begin to take place. David’s book title, An Effort to Understand, is taken from a speech by Robert Kennedy in which he broke news to Black residents of Indianapolis that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. Come, welcome David Murray, who will talk about communication—in words and in actions—and the fundamental difference in can make: between violence, and peace.

WHEN: Wednesday, June 29th, 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 Facebook Live

“They slap themselves in the face or ram a fist into their chest then climb into a coffin-shaped steel bucking chute, mounting a muscular quivering beast ten times their size, as if strapping onto an unpredictable carnival ride, part rollercoaster, part roadside bomb. Professional bull riders approach their seemingly insane job with an icy-calm self-assurance that produces shivers in the rest of us – mere mortals who can only marvel at David trying to tame Goliath in the most audacious and dangerous game of chicken imaginable. But these cowboys aren’t crazy. They are alive.”

So writes Andrew Giangola in his new critically acclaimed book, Love & Try: Stories of Gratitude and Grit in Professional Bull Riding, which introduces the rugged cast and crew behind sporting events that wrap 8-second bursts of man-versus-beast mayhem into an all-American celebration of faith, freedom, and family.  Giangola, a New Yorker and total outsider to the Western culture, was warmly welcomed into the bull riding family and he began writing about this mysterious sport mixing a hard-rock music soundtrack with the evangelical Christian faith, those who are saved and others raising hell. He’s coming on Vienna Live to give us the whole story.  Come welcome Andrew to our show for a fascinating insider’s look at just what makes these people and the growing sport of bull riding so alive.

WHEN: Wednesday, June 22nd, 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 Facebook Live

Professor Indre Viskontas, a neuroscientist and stage director, is making the final preparations for her newest production, the world première of the opera The Queen, My Lord, Is Dead, an opera based on Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth.  As Creative Director of the Pasadena Opera, Indre has staged many well-known operas; what makes her productions special is the unique neuroscience perspective she brings to them.  Take, for example, her comments on her recent production of Janáček’s Katjy Kabanova: “Modern neuroscience has begun to shift away from strict borders between a brain that’s disordered and one that is not. Instead, we think about a spectrum of behavior, of experience, of wiring. My hope is that we all see aspects of ourselves in every one of the characters, recognizing how different we each are, and how hard it can be to satisfy our deep-seated need for human connection while retaining our individuality and being true to who we are.”  Shakespeare would surely agree.  Come welcome Indre to our show for an exclusive look at her new production of The Queen, My Lord, Is Dead!

When: Wednesday, June 15th, 2022, from 19:00-20:00 Central European Time  (1:00-2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time / 10:00-11:00 a.m. Pacific Time)

Where: on Zoom and Facebook Live

“Sustainable development?”  We hear about it all the time, but what does it mean?  And is promoting “sustainable development” just another way of making us feel good about our not-so-benevolent residency on planet earth?  Sure, apocalyptic pronouncements are also a uniquely human phenomenon, but this one about catastrophic global warming and pandemics – all based on science – has gotten enough attention to concern even the Vatican.  Father Andrea Ciucci, Coordinating Secretary at the Pontifical Academy for Life, is intimately involved in the Vatican’s efforts to promote sustainability and will join us with Professor Claudia Laricchia, Head of Institutional Relations and Global Strategic Partnerships at the Future Food Institute, for a presentation of his new book, Pardon me for asking, but why are you here?  Come welcome Andrea and Claudia to our show for a conversation about no less than the fate of humanity.

When: Wednesday, June 8th, 2022, from 19:00-20:00 Central European Time  (1:00-2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time / 10:00-11:00 a.m. Pacific Time)

Where: on Zoom and Facebook Live