My wife and I attended a writers workshop in 2018 on the island of Hydra in Greece. We were sitting with our group outside at Tasso’s Taberna on the harbor. A friend of the leader, named Robert Snyder, was visiting, and told me that he had been a monk at a Benedictine monastery in the 1970’s in Pecos, New Mexico.READ MORE
The memoir “Music to My Years, Life and Love Between the Notes” spans Artie Kane’s fifty years working in the entertainment industry. Kane conducted scores for over 60 motion pictures, wrote music for over 250 television shows (“Wonder Woman,” “Vegas,” “The Love Boat,” “Hotel,” “Dynasty,” “Matlock,” “Question of Guilt,” “Man Against the Mob”) READ MORE
The memoir, ‘Music to My Years, Life and Love Between the Notes’ by Artie Kane wins gold medal in the Music/Entertainment category at the Reader’s Favorite awards
VENICE, Calif., Nov. 25, 2019 — “Music to My Years, Life and Love Between the Notes” (ISBN: 978-0983655039) by film and TV composer and conductor Artie Kane won the 2019 Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal in the Non-Fiction and Music/Entertainment category at the annual Reader’s Favorite awards held on November 23, 2019 at the Regency Hotel Miami.
READ MORE
Music to My Years, Life and Love Between the Notes is a nonfiction memoir as told by Artie Kane to Marian Blue and JoAnn Kane. Artie Kane was a musical prodigy who began taking piano lessons when he was three and a half years old. He was born Aaron Cohen to Nathan and Sarah, both emigrants. Sarah and her family hailed from Belarus, and retelling the story of how Aaron’s great uncle Leib Zager spearheaded the family’s drive to move to the United States was a family tradition and part of their family lore. Artie’s dad died when he was only three,READ MORE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Film and TV Composer Artie Kane Releases Hollywood Memoir
Artie Kane, who composed the music for over 250 television shows, conducted scores for 60 motion pictures, with eight marriages and a career spanning over eight decades, recounts his life in Hollywood and New York as a child prodigy, composer and conductor working with such stars as Frank Sinatra, Henry Mancini, John Williams, and Quincy Jones.
From 1919 to 1923 Kenneth Balcomb worked as an engineer for the United States Bureau of Public Roads in New Mexico. He was assigned a WWI Army surplus Model T to travel over 63,000 miles to survey, inspect, and construct highways. Told in the form of his actual letters to his wife Katharine and brother John, an engineer, these tales chronicle an era in the United States when the country was experiencing the birth and growth of its National Highway System.
I was introduced to the work of former-Bongart-student Rulon Hacking when NW artist Virginia Phillips gifted me the painting above. It means a lot to me because I know this very street in Venice CA, so close to where I live. The painting, measuring about 3-feet wide, is larger than most that I’ve seen online.
Author Mary N. Balcomb (Sergei Bongart, Nicholai Fechin, William F. Reese, Robin-Robin: A Journal) was born April 29, 1928, in Mass, Michigan. After high school, from 1946-1948 she attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago, where she met her husband-to-be, Robert Balcomb.
The class she valued the most, and which had an effect on her for the rest of her life, was Quick Sketching—how to get the essence of the subject on paper very quickly. Below are ink/pastel drawings done in that manner. One can tell that by this young age, she was already a prodigious talent.
As an artist, I am totally grateful for the knowledge that I received from studying with Sergei Bongart, along with my studies with Ron Lukas, Sunny Apinchapong, and Del Gish. Also, I feel very fortunate that Mary Balcomb wrote an intensive and comprehensive book, Sergei Bongart, on the life and teachings of Sergei.
Born in South Dakota and raised in Central Washington, William F. Reese painted for over 50 years. He created an astonishing body of work that includes oils, pastels, watercolors, sculptures, etchings, and instructional books. Though prolific and proficient in several media, Reese was likely best known as one of America’s premier plein air artists, reveling in the majesty of the Northwest and setting up his easel outdoors in all kinds of weather and in every kind of location.