November 5, 2007 -

Odd Monday Series , November 5, 2007, 7 PM
At the Noe Valley Ministry at 1021 Sanchez
Downstairs (Fellowship Hall)
FREE ADMISSION

Julie Dillon, Vocalist, and Silvia Nakkach, Vocalist, Sound Pioneer, and Michael Knapp, Cellist
FREE ADMISSION


Julie Dillon, musician, artist, and activist based in San Francisco, recently completed her first solo album, “It is Late”, a collection of “gritty waltzes, whispered stories, and sassy rock songs “culled from her personal and vicarious life experiences.” In addition to fronting two bands and self-producing her recording projects, Julie is the founder of mamaelephant.org, a website dedicated to music and revolution that provides a cyber meeting place for non-profit music organizations. “It’s post-flower power, pre-punk storytelling in the same vein as Patti Smith with a gritty, melodramatic, almost country tinge a la Victoria Williams.” S. F. Examiner
Info:
Click here for more information about Julie Dillon.

Silvia Nakkach is an award-winning composer, multi-instrumentalist, voice-culturist, author, and psychologist, with advance degrees in Music Therapy, Psychology and in Music Composition. She also is credentialed in Psychoanalytic Psychodrama and Gestalt Therapy. Since 1982 she studied raga singing and North Indian classical music with Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, and is a certified instructor of Tai Chi-QiGong and Psychodrama. Nakkach is a recognized authority on the healing power of music, sound and the voice. She is a pioneer in the use and the integration of sacred sound with the practice of music psychotherapy and in health care.
Info:
Click here for more information about Silvia Nakkach. Michael Knapp, virtuoso cellist, performs and teaches locally as well as recording on his partner Silvia Nakkach’s CDs as well as for other groups.
Click here for more information about Michael Knapp.

November 19, 2007

Authors Mary Ann Whitten
and
Lawrence Goodman
FREE ADMISSION


Benjamin and Mary Ann Whitten first fell under Turkey’s spell in the early 1970s when they were teaching at Hacettepe University in Ankara. They returned to Turkey’s capital in the early 1990s as diplomats and, in the late 1990s, settled in Istanbul, where Mary Ann spent three years as the U.S. Consulate’s Public Affairs Officer and Benjamin returned to academia as a senior lecturer in literature at Koç University. Since 2000 they have divided their time between San Francisco and Istanbul, where they have a 100-year-old house on one of the charming Princes’ Islands in the Sea of Marmara. The islands—just a short ferry ride from central Istanbul—provide an atmosphere of calm in the midst of one of the world’s most exciting cities. The Whittens have used that peaceful setting to explore their writing interests. Mary Ann’s An Island in Istanbul: At Home on Heybeliada describes their adventures finding and restoring their house and becoming a part of the island community. Benjamin, under the pseudonym Lawrence Goodman, writes comic mysteries set on the islands (three have been published and a fourth is scheduled for publication in spring 2008). From 2001 to 2006 they were also consultants to the State University of New York system, helping to create a unique dual diploma program with several Turkish universities. At their Odd Monday presentation on November 19, Benjamin and Mary Ann will talk about their books, their life on the Princes’ Islands, and what makes Turkey such a fascinating place to live.