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Creators of Angelina Ballerina

Katharine Holabird Interview Photo Front PageAuthor Katharine Holabird and illustrator Helen Craig started collaborating decades ago on Angelina Ballerina children’s books that now are on maybe their second or third generation of young readers, certainly their second generation of parents (sorry ladies we could not think of another way to convey the timeline). The books have been adapted to a musical stage presentation and also two television animated series, years apart. At the urging of their publisher Simon & Schuster they have begun creating chapter books based on the same characters. In recent days, Katharine Holabird has also embarked on a new adventure (we thought she would like that word!) as she collaborates with illustrator Sarah Warburton for the books based on the character of Twinkle, a fairy. Katharine Holabird sat down with Riveting Riffs Magazine over Zoom for a conversation recently about her books and how she got started as a writer.

I started writing when I was a child, because I always liked to make up stories and right them down. I was the family storyteller. I grew up with three sisters and we were always acting out stories, making things up and dancing around the house. I just loved writing. I was writing about horses and princesses at that time. I was reading anything about animals. I think my favorite book as a child was Charlotte’s Web, because she could understand what the animals were saying to each other.

In those days there wasn’t TV so I was reading all of the Oz books (editor’s note: initially by L. Frank Baum and following his death later the mantle was taken up by authors Ruth Plumly Thompson, John R. Neill, Jack Snow, Rachel R.C. Payes, Eloise Jarvis McGraw and Lauren Lynn McGraw and for a total of forty books.) My father would read aloud to us all of the tales of King Arthur.

 It (writing) was something I continued in school and then when I was in college in Vermont, I was a literature major. There was a lot of creative writing. I wanted to become a writer, but honestly, I had no idea of how to become a writer.

It wasn’t until I had children, two daughters and later on a  Read More

 

 

Dar Williams - Prolific Songwriter

Dar Williams Interview Photo Front PageIn collaboration with producer Ken Rich (who also was the sound engineer and mixer), Dar Williams and her accompanying musicians have created an exquisite collection of songs for her album Hummingbird Highway with a release date of September 12 (2025). It does not take long to realize, while speaking with Dar Williams that you are engaging with a thoughtful, deep thinking, beautifully creative and highly intelligent individual, who cares passionately about the world in which she lives. At the midpoint of the record, there is a brief tonal shift that caught this writer by surprise. David Chalfant co-produced “Put the Coins,” and “What Bird Did You See?” at Grand Street Recording and Norfolk Studios at Northampton, Massachusetts. 

We open our conversation with Dar Williams inviting her to talk about one of the prettiest songs you will hear in 2025, “Tu Sais Le Printemps.”

“The best way to go about writing a song and if you feel something coming on, is to do your best to feel curious about it. This seemed light, breezy, spring like and romantic. I thought well let’s just keep on going. I pulled out (she laughs lightly) all the pictures of France, pictures of spring, of gardens and bridges and then I looked at them to see where the story (was going). My favorite part is the dog standing outside of the restaurant (she chuckles – referring to the music video). It is a French bulldog and then the aerial views of France and the cherry blossoms. The song is left open and evocative for people. You can’t help to find your way back to love or to love in that kind of setting.

I had this interesting melody that kept on being the best setting for a return to romance, as aided by the spring. When I wrote the line, “And of maddening times, we will laugh and say that’s how it goes…,”  I actually had a really emotional understanding of how much of my heartaches I had let go and they had transformed into humor and friendships in my own life. There is kind of a lightness to letting go of all of that,” she explains.

We would be remiss if we did not mention the musicians who are the music accompaniment to the cinematic Read More

 

Electronic Firefly

Electronic Firefly cello 

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Tawny Ellis - Edge Of The World

Tawny Ellis Interview Front Page PhotoTawny Ellis is a lot of things and that is the most understated statement you will ever hear anyone make. She is an accomplished actress, she is an excellent singer, songwriter and musician, she has fashioned jewelry, she is a critically acclaimed sculptor with her art appearing in galleries in numerous countries, she is a painter and that is her art on the front cover of her current album Edge Of The World.  She also works with her husband Gio Loria as the vice-president of his company Black Volt Amplification, which acts both as a luthier and builds amplifiers.  a We will stop there, because if we continue listing her other talents and accomplishments you may be in for an even longer read than you anticipated in this the first part of a two-part interview.

It has been five years since Tawny Ellis released her last album and there can be many reasons why, especially with someone this busy.

She opens up, “Honestly, I think I got really gun shy. Something shut down on me, because I had worked on that album for quite some time. I released it in 2020 and I had signed up to go on tour in Europe and open for a really great artist over there. They shut down the whole world (due to the COVID pandemic). The day that I was supposed to get on the plane to go to the U.K.  to hook up and go on the tour and to play all of these shows they shut everything down and nobody could go anywhere. I felt like I had just flown a plane into the mountainside. It was horrible. We had packed everything and promoted and all the gigs were laid out. I am a really sensitive person and it was so hard.

You can’t really re-release an album and I got really disenchanted with the world at large. When I went to write I felt like I had so much to say, but I couldn’t figure out how to say anything. I couldn’t really relate to humanity. I felt like they were at each other’s throats in so many ways. Everybody was turning on each other. I (became) really disillusioned and so I started writing some things three years  Read More

Award Winning Actress Luz Nicolas

Luz Nicolas Interview Photo Front PageIt is not every day that you get to have a conversation with a star of the theater world on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, but recently Riveting Riffs Magazine sat down over a Zoom call with Luz Nicolas, originally from Madrid, Spain and having lived in Washington D.C. for more than a decade and performing and acting as assistant director for numerous plays over the years at the GALA Hispanic Theater. She was in the midst of rehearsals for the stage production of Kiss of the Spider Woman for which she is the assistant director.  

For those not familiar with the play adapted by Manuel Puig from his 1976 novel and later made into both a film and a musical, she explains, “It is about two men in jail, but they develop a character of a woman. It is a fascinating (story). Manuel is an Argentinian playwright. There is also a film with William Hurt and Raul Julia. I think that was in the ‘80s (1985) [Editor’s note: The film also starred Sonia Braga in three roles as Leni Lamaison, Marta and the Spider Woman]

The story is about two men who are in the same cell. One of them is there, because he is a revolutionary who goes against the government and the other one is there, because he is gay and he is also accused of being a pedophile.

It begins with one of them talking about a movie. He is telling a story about a woman. They get to know how different they are, and yet at the same time, they are starting to understand each other very well. They love and care for each other very much.  What he is sharing with the other (person) is not about an actress. It is about a movie.

One guy who is struggling and is sick and his body is breaking down. The other man is helping him by telling a story.”

As for how she became involved in the play she says, “I have worked many times with the director José Luis Arellano. Read More

 

 
Emily Zuzik - Age + Alchemy

Emily Zuzik Interview Front Page PhotoSinger, songwriter and musician Emily Zuzik or as she likes to say, rhymes with music, is a lot of things and has accomplished many things during her life, some of which we talked about during a wide-ranging conversation recently. Her current EP, Age + Alchemy, consists of three co-writes with Ted Russell Kamp, two songs written solo and a cover of John Lennon’s “I’m Losing You.” Referring to herself as a seeker is an apt description and another might be a modern-day philosopher who expresses her thoughts and experiences through music. Her musical influences are just as eclectic as her other interests, with David Bowie, John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Elvis being among them. A palette that spans eight decades, and no if you are wondering her life has not spanned anywhere close to that many decades!

In talking about what she means in describing herself as a seeker she says, “That could mean many different things. To seek out adventures, to seek out experiences, to seek out love, to seek out a way that doesn’t hurt people, to seek out spiritual. To just be sensitive to where you are in any given environment and your interactions with other people. I think as you get older you understand or you seek out different ways to make sense of things that happened in the past or people you have had past relationships with, good, bad or whatever. Seeking is the process of growth,” then she adds smiling, “I am a Pisces.

When I was younger, I always felt out of sync you could (say) I was not cut from the same cloth as where I grew up. That is a very simple way of looking at it. Even my peer group, I never really locked in with people I connected with until much later. A lot of times they were older people who had stories to tell or had some sort of experience that informed what I was about to do (that she connected with). I have had certain older relatives whom I connected with more than other ones. I had older friends when I was younger. I think also where you are is a continuum of things that will happen in the future and things from the past. I have always been interested in that sort of thing too. If Read More

 

 

Maia Sharp - Tomboy

Maia Sharp Interview 2025 Front Page PhotoAfter getting to know our friend, singer, songwriter and musician Maia Sharp for several years, we are not surprised that her new album coming out September 12 (2025) is called Tomboy. It describes her perfectly when she was growing up and nods to whom she is today. We suppose she could have called it “Cheeks,” as one of her friends has aptly nicknamed her for her smile to use an old cliché lights up a room or in this case a Zoom call and conversation.

This collection of songs is beautiful and the album overall is elegant, both lyrically and musically.

“As most albums unfold for me, I am not necessarily sure that I am writing for my own album until I am one or two songs in. I am writing all of the time. Sometimes I am writing for other people and sometimes I am writing for me to pitch to other people. About every year I look back at what I have written and if I do that about one year after a record, I can have the next album out about two (more) years after that album. It takes me about a year to do the finishing out, choosing the songs, recording, mixing, mastering, marketing and all of that stuff. On all the odd years when I don’t have a record that is when I start looking at when the next one is going to be.

At that point after my last album Reckless Thoughts, I had Tomboy already. I had that song already written and I had a little bit of production fleshed out on it, before the Reckless Thoughts album. There was just something about it that just didn’t quite fit in with the rest of those songs. I had always loved it, but I just set it aside,” she explains.

Knowing Maia Sharp, not only as a regular guest at Riveting Riffs Magazine, but also as a friend, we were curious if the song “Tomboy,” is somewhat autobiographical. Read More 

 

Las Tres Sisters  Interview Part One

Valerie Maldonado Interview PT 1 Photo Front PageOur conversation this time focused almost entirely on the nine-year journey to get this film made with her co-writers and co-stars, Marta Méndez Cross and Virginia Novello, who were joined brilliantly in supporting roles by Cristo Fernández and Adam Mayfield.

The opening scenes of Las Tres Sisters seem to set the film up perfectly for the three distinct personalities of Sofia (Novello), Maria (Cross) and Lucia (Maldonado).  

Actress, producer and screenwriter Valeria Maldonado, sat down with Riveting Riffs Magazine over a Zoom call recently, from her home in Los Angeles and we talked about her current film, a dramedy, Las Tres Sisters now streaming on numerous platforms in North America and it was preceded by a limited cinematic release. If there was an award in the film and television industry for being the most congenial person, we are quite sure that Ms. Maldonado would be one of the top people considered. She is thoughtful, a smile seldom leaves her face and she has this attitude of gratitude about her.

Our conversation this time focused almost entirely on the nine-year journey to get this film made with her co-writers and co-stars, Marta Méndez Cross and Virginia Novello, who were joined brilliantly in supporting roles by Cristo Fernández and Adam Mayfield. Read More

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Macartney Reinhardt - New Song

Macartney Reinhardt June 2025 thumbnailThe new single “Two Ships,” from Country singer Macartney Reinhardt is a song about a relationship that has ended and it was written with Kylie Sackley and Stone Aielli,  a duo who have had their songs recorded by Keith Urban, Sam Hunt, Alan Jackson, Priscilla Block and many more.

Macartney Reinhardt describes this experience as, “I have co-written before, but this is one of my favorite ones that I have ever done. I was on Instagram one day and Stone messaged me saying I would love to write with you and then he brought in Kylie. The first song the trio wrote together was “Cowboy Without a Conscience,” released earlier this year (2025). We really meshed from the beginning.”

Although the song has a summery feel to it, don’t let that fool you, because with a big smile on her face and her dimples showing Macartney Reinhardt says “Two  Ships,” was written on one of the few days of the year when it was snowing in Nashville.

“I wanted to write a song about when you go from being so close in a relationship and then after the relationship it (feels) like you never knew that person. That has always been a strange thing to me, how you can go from every day being with somebody and being so close to him and then a breakup. It is like you don’t know him. Then Kylie came in and she said I have this idea called Two Ships. She asked do you think we could combine those. I said yeah, definitely. She had taken it from Two Ships passing in the night that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem. We just started working off Read More  

 

Paul Rappaport - Behind the Curtain

Paul Rappaport Interview Photo Front Page by Mark SeligerFor thirty-three years Paul Rappaport promoted music icons and in the process he became an icon on the business side of music.  He started working for Columbia Records,  when he was in university and worked his way up through the ranks to eventually become Senior Vice-President of Rock Promotion. In April he will release his autobiography, Gliders Over Hollywood Airships, Airplay and the Art of Rock Promotion. Paul Rapport left Columbia Records in the early 2000s, but what is astounding about that is not how much time has passed in between then and his April release of the book (pre-order links at the bottom of this interview), but the clarity of his memory in terms of his personal memories and the events, circumstances and relationships that he experienced in the music business. The chapters of this book are not merely vague and scattered memories but rather play out like a streaming or television series where we are introduced to the colorful, creative and interesting artists and colleagues of Paul Rappaport.  

“That is what I was trying to do. This was a very magical time, and I wanted to share these stories and for the readers to have fun, like I had fun. I wanted them to have the experience that I had. Somehow, I was (blessed) with a photographic memory, because as you know from reading this book, I am talking to Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Read More

 Alexandra Dean and the Judds

Alexandra Dean 2025 Interview Front Page PhotoThe Judd Family: Truth Be Told is a documentary series, directed by award winning film director Alexandra Dean, born in Hampstead England and who fashioned her career in the United States. She has gained a reputation for at times taking on hard stories to tell and sometimes of people who were misunderstood or their accomplishments were understated. She has however been at the forefront of often telling the stories of women who helped shape our world, who far too often became the fodder for a bloodthirsty media whose appetite for sensationalism far outweighed their desire for fairness and reasonableness. Do you know that Hedy Lamarr, a beautiful actress was instrumental in pioneering the technology that launched the widespread use of cellphones and just about anything else that relied on what became Wi-Fi technology as well as redesigned the shape of the wings of planes. She took us behind the scenes with the women who once lived at the Playboy mansion and their difficult and heartbreaking stories. Alexandra Dean spent almost a year as the travel companion of Paris Hilton, while filming that documentary and now she takes us inside the Judd Family, the late Naomi, actress Ashely and singer / songwriter Wynonna. We would like to tell you this is a fairytale with an appropriate ending, but that couldn’t be further from the truth, because this is a very tragic story, but hopefully one that begins the long road Read More

 Actor Ruben Yuste

Ruben Yuste May 2024

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 Anna Carvalho Loves Monsters

Anna Carvalho Front Page PhotoAnna Carvalho loves vampires and monsters, she was cast as a demon, but instead became an angel, she has been a prostitute more than once, on film! She was in a monster tale.  Those things are not nearly as intimidating as when we briefly summarize her career CV for you. Anna Carvalho is an accomplished screenwriter, a good actress, director, producer and model. Born in Portugal, now making her home in Austin, Texas, she is one of those rare jewels you find in any walk of life, incredibly talented, always with a smile on her face and laughter punctuating her conversation, she has this knack of making one feel like she is someone you have known for years, rather than someone you are beginning your first conversation with.

Seeming to have several projects on the go all at once, we decided to ask her about two of them.  

“One of them is a series that we started in 2023 and it is a horror series. It is (comprised of) Portuguese tales that were in a book that was launched in 2023. At that time, we realized in Portugal there were not a lot of women working in horror. In Portugal horror is stigmatized a little bit. One of the women (working in horror) was me. I was the producer and director. My collaborators are Isabel Pina and Sandra Henriques.

We thought let’s adapt some of these tales and create the monster, kind of based on Frankenstein. It was working all of these tales and finding out what they have in common,” she says and nodding yes when we ask, “You were in the play about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, correct.”

Continuing Anna Carvalho says, “Frankenstein is something I always wanted to do. I love monsters, vampires and all of these types of things (You are scaring us!). I thought it was really interesting, because I love that kind of story. Being a part of the play, I got the part, so it was fascinating for me. It was like candy for me, like a kid (she has a big smile) woo hoo! It was like MacBeth (which she was also in) I didn’t care who the company was, I just cared that it was MacBeth. It was incredible. Again, with Frankenstein we had so much fun. Now creating Fragments of a Body (Fragmentos de Um Corpo), which is the name of the project. We called him a kind of Frankenstein, because they are different tales and if you read the tales, they all have parts of the body and even if it is parts of your mind, it doesn’t matter. That is why we called it that, because we felt this was a big monster we were creating. If we wanted a feature film, we would have to find out how to build this monster. That is when we thought maybe this should be a series. We already have a bunch of the tales shot. We have a huge team that we put together quickly and now we are in post-production trying to find some financial (investors). We are talking to people and we are trying to finish the project.”

She directed three of the tales, produced, acted and adapted three of the tales into screenplays. Of course she did that all of that. Was there ever any doubt? One gets the impression that the busier Anna Carvalho is the happier she is and the faster she goes.

So, before we talk about one of your other projects in post-production, what is it like for Anna the director Read More

Jesse and Noah Leave Love Alone

Jesse and Noah Photo 2024 front pageJesse and Noah Bellamy who perform and record simply and Jesse and Noah, visited with Riveting Riffs Magazine recently to talk about their new EP Leave Love Alone, which derives its name from the titular song and to ring in the holiday season with two Christmas songs, one a cover tune and the other an original.  

We jokingly asked them about the song “Leave Love Alone,” and if it was a reference to a relationship that went sideways.

Jesse replied, “That is an older song, so I don’t even remember. I started that song with Simon Bruce, an Australian singer and songwriter who lived here in Nashville for a while. We halfway finished it and he and Daniel Tashian finished it and then it came back to me. Daniel was going to put it out and then I didn’t hear anything for a while and so I thought I would just throw it into this mix of songs that we were doing for our next session. We thought we could do a pretty good job on it. We recorded it, got it ready to go and he ended up putting his out around the same time or maybe a couple of weeks before or something like that.

He released it mostly in Australia. I guess it is worldwide, because of streaming.

The songs ended up being so different and with different audiences, so they didn’t really clash.”

Produced by Pino Squillace, engineered by Brandon Henegar and recorded at the House Of David Studios in Nashville the song is a Country song, with Rock influences and excellent musicianship. Those who have followed Jesse and Noah over the years, should not be surprised that Noah serves up some incredible electric guitar licks, while being joined by Lorenzo Piccone and Steve Cirvencik (also on guitars).

Jesse and Noah are talented producers and sound engineers in their own right, so we wondered why they chose to have other people produce and engineer the album Leave Love Alone.

They laugh simultaneously, and Noah finally says, “We just got bogged down,” while Jesse adds, “Some of these songs we were producing and had versions of them, and we just couldn’t finish them being at home. It took a long time to get everything out. We started working on some of them in 2020 and we did some sessions at the ranch down in Florida. It seemed like it would be easier to go in (to the studio) and recut them from the ground up rather than Read More

 

 

 
Ágota Dunai - Actor Interview

Agota Dunai Interview Front Page PhotoWhile she has moved around a bit, actress Ágota Dunai now calls Budapest home, in her native country Hungary. You may have seen her in the high altitude action thriller Fight and Flight starring Josh Hartnett, the second time she has worked with him and Katee Sackhoff or perhaps in the film Dr Jason II Lights and Shades, streaming on Amazon (in some countries) and soon you will be able to see her in a Tom Cruise movie (at press time still to be titled). With three films either released or in production during 2025 and two more from 2024, Ágota Dunai’s career is gathering momentum and so it should for this talented young actor.   

In the film Fight and Flight, Ágota Dunai says, “I played a flight attendant. I had flight attendant experience before in another film, and they chose me,” Although she had a minor role in the film she says, “I really hope it made it to the film. I haven’t seen the film yet. There was one scene when the plane starts to crash and there is a lot of shaking and someone falls down. Then I go to the (person) and help him up. I ask if he is okay and ask if he needs medical help. That was my speaking scene, but in many other scenes I was packing, sorting and helping with seatbelts. Also, when there were fight scenes, I was trying to protect the other passengers. There is one scene when somebody gets cut with a chainsaw and there is fake blood scattered on me. There are a lot of action scenes.

I (also) worked with Josh Hartnett in The Fear Index. It was nice to work with him again.”

With impeccable English, proficient in German and of course her native language Hungarian, it would seem that the opportunities will soon be pouring in for a genre she confesses to like, action films.

In the film Dr. Jason II Lights and Shadows, Ágota Dunai worked with the award-winning Greek director George Tounas (Rush 4 – 2025, Reloaded and Reloaded 2) and she was in the lead role in this psychological thriller. (Tounas now makes his home in Stuttgart, Germany)

“My character is a female lead called Jenna Knightley. I know these days there are a lot of feminist heroes, but this film was not like this at all. This woman was kidnapped and she is rescued by her love Dr. Jason. In this film I was the victim who was waiting and hoping to be rescued. (editor’s note: spoiler alert – you will have to watch the film).

Then I got rescued at the end (This is a spoiler). It was exciting and it was an independent film in Germany. It is streaming, so people can watch it on Amazon and other platforms. It is a psychological thriller.”  

As for her character, “I always (develop) a back story for the Read More

 

 

 

 

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Peter Holsapple - Face of 68

Peter Holsapple Interview 2025 Photo Front PagePeter Holsapple’s new album The Face of 68 serves as an unintentional mentorship for songwriter / musicians closer to the beginning of their careers.  

Peter Holsapple says, “I am extremely proud of the new record. The songs that make up The Face of 68 are largely songs that were written after the release of Game Day, my last solo record in 2018. What happened was my friend Carlo Nuccio from Continental Drifters passed away from cancer in 2022 and I don’t grieve very cleanly, so I wrote a song. Actually, I wrote a couple of songs, but the song “Larger Than Life,” that I wrote and cut, felt good. I thought it had been a few years, maybe the statue of limitations had been lifted and it would be okay for me to do another record.  

I had a folder with about fifteen or sixteen songs and I thought maybe there is something in here. Then I got Don Dixon (producer) on the case and I wanted to do it different than Game Day. Game Day was all me and that was fine and I don’t have to do that again. I wanted to do it with this rhythm section and I got a crack team, Rob Ladd (drums) and Robert Sledge (bass) and made it a very tangible record. We could feel it coming out of the speakers, at least if you play it loud enough, which I do.

I suddenly had a bunch of songs and I had a studio (Overdub Lane) six minutes from my house. I had a producer in Don Dixon whom I dearly love and have loved for a million years. I had a great engineer whom I had worked with Jason Richmond. He had done the engineering for The Paranoid Style stuff, the band that I play guitar with these days. It all came together and pardon the pun, but we did it in record time. That really felt good too, I didn’t have a lot of time to second guess myself. I had Dixon taking that role. All I had to do was show up and sing my stupid songs into a microphone and then we had a record. The studio is in Durham, North Carolina.

I love working with Elizabeth Nelson and Tim (Bracy both of The Paranoid Style). Elizabeth is a very singular songwriter. I never got to work with anybody who is this interesting of a songwriter. If you give a listen to a few of the songs on the Interrogator you will immediately understand why I am saying that. I played on Interrogator by The Paranoid Style and I have a guitar solo that I am very proud of on that.”  

From our perspective the song “Larger Than Life,” is the centerpiece of the album The Face of 68, with thundering bass riffs, a great melody, and drummer Rob Ladd laying down a strong foundation. We particularly liked Peter Holsapple’s vocals on this song.  In many ways the song is reminiscent of 1970s Cream and Jeff Beck or Deep Purple’s Smoke On the Water (from the Machine Head album), with less gritty vocals. In fact, have we said how much we like Peter Holsapple’s vocals on this song? The song ends on a spectacular guitar solo by Holsapple.

“(The song) “Larger Than Life,” is about my friend Carlo Nuccio, Read More 

 
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