Meet new Berkeley Mayor Adina Ishii,
Sophia Bollag on new laws Californians must follow now.
Meet San Francisco’s new poet laureate Genny Lim.
Hosts: Ethan Elkind, Chris Nooney
Producers: Chris Nooney, Wendy Holcombe
A November celebration of the words, music, and spirit of Leonard Cohen in San Francisco. Hosted by San Francisco’s Conspiracy of Beards, a choir of men that sing the songs of Leonard Cohen, the SF Leonard Cohen Festival is a multi-artist, multi-event celebration of the poetry, literature, and music of the late singer, songwriter, author, and poet.
The three-night festival began on November 8th with works inspired by, loved by, and left behind by Cohen and performed by the city’s poets, including 2024 Poet Laureate Genny Lim, Alejandro Murguía, Tess Taylor, and Gregory Pond, and local musicians Middle Harbor Songbirds, Ruby Lee Hill, Josh “Yosh” Warren, and the female choir, Conspiracy of Venus.
“What makes him so special, his songs are like journals of his life. And because they’re so deeply personal and intimate, they become universal, because everyone can identify with his struggles, his conflicts, his love affairs, his heartbreaks, his grappling with his spirituality, and his self-criticism as a human being.”
— GENNY LIM on LEONARD COHEN
Genny was among the artists featured in this piece by PBS News Hour special correspondent Mike Cerre, who went to the annual Leonard Cohen Festival in San Francisco to hear why Leonard Cohen’s music and poetry is celebrated by older and younger generations.
SAN FRANCISCO, October 21, 2021 — Poet, playwright, performer, and educator Genny Lim speaks to Jen Shyu and Sumi Tonooka about the evolution of her career as an artist and writer. This is a part of Asia Society’s In the Green Room: Layering Legacies of Women in Jazz.
FULL INTERVIEW (52 min., 26 min.)
https://asiasociety.org/video/green-room-genny-lim
In the Green Room: Layering Legacies of Asian and Black American Women in Jazz comprises performances, a series of video interviews with women in jazz, and interactive workshops with a cohort of millennial musicians. Harnessing the power of music and storytelling, Jen Shyu and Sumi Tonooka draw upon their own personal stories and those recorded with Toshiko Akyoshi composer/ jazz pianist/big band leader, Genny Lim, poet/playwright/ performer/ educator, Terri Lyne Carrington, drummer/composer and Linda May Han Oh, bassist/composer. The weaving of these extraordinary stories creates an intimate portal into living histories across generations. The project was conceived by composer/vocalist/multi-instrumentalist, Jen Shyu, and composer/pianist, Sumi Tonooka. They were joined in performance by drummer/composer, Terri Lyne Carrington, and bassist/composer, Linda May Han Oh.
Funding for In the Green Room: Layering Legacies of Asian and Black American Women in Jazz is provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional funding has been provided by the Asia Society Performing Arts Fund and Helen and Will Little.