INFEMNITY™ Arts and Culture News

Daresha Kyi Congratulations to our own Daresha Kyi for winning the 2019 Emmy Award in the Outstanding Documentary Short category for her film  Trans in America: Texas Strong . We're so proud of you, Daresha! Watch the trailer and read the Houston Chronicle article announcing the award  here .

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: April Gibson, 646-853-3217 As part of the Jubilee Day celebrations at Fisk University next month, pianist Nina Kennedy will be performing in the Jubilee Heritage Award Concert at Fisk Memorial Chapel on Saturday October 5th at 7:00 pm. Rock and roll icon Little Richard is one of the honorees, as well as gospel personality Dr. Bobby Jones and hit maker Eddie "ET" Thomas. Kennedy's father Matthew Kennedy was on the piano faculty at Fisk, and also served as director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers from 1957 to 1986 (intermittently). Her mother Anne Gamble was also a member of the piano faculty and served as piano accompanist for the group. Nina Kennedy was presented in her first complete solo piano recital in Nashville at age nine. She made her debut as piano soloist with the Nashville Symphony at age thirteen in a performance of Gershwin's  Rhapsody in Blue  before an audience of over 4,000. After graduating fro...

Myra Hess photographed by Carl Van Vechten A continuation of our tales from Vienna...   One of the works performed and recorded by Nina Kennedy at the  Bösendorfer  Salon was the arrangement for solo piano of the Chorale from Cantata number 147 called "Jesu bleibt meine Freude," (loosely translated "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring") by Johann Sebastian Bach. That published arrangement was made by Dame Myra Hess, a world-renowned concert pianist and hero to the people of London because of the free afternoon concerts she organized and in which she performed at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square during the Second World War. Since there was an official black-out declared at the onset of the bombings by the Nazis, this meant that there were no evening concerts or gatherings because no lights could be turned on at night.  Nearly 2,000 of these lunchtime concerts took place during the war, for six-and-a-half years .   For this contribution to maintaining th...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: April Gibson, +1.646.853.3217                info@infemnity.com Nina Kennedy In 1900, Nina Hortense Clinton traveled from Ohio to the U.K. as a nineteen-year-old soprano with a group of "Fisk Jubilee Singers" under director Frederick Loudin. Their travels included tours of Ireland, Scotland, and Great Britain. She and the group were still in London in 1902 where they witnessed the coronation of King Edward VII. Nina Hortense Clinton Clinton's grandfather, James Beverly Lett, was a founder of the Lett Settlement near Zanesville, Ohio. His daughter, Celia Lett married Martin H. Clinton, an ice cream salesman. Nina was their only daughter. After her return from Europe, she eventually married Dr. Henry Floyd Gamble of Charleston, West Virginia. Their daughter, Anne Lucille Gamble, was also a pianist and served on the piano faculty at Fisk University, where she met and married Matthew Washington Kennedy, ...

As you may recall, in our last newsletter we announced that The Noshing with Nina Show would be spending the bulk of the month of August in Austria and Great Britain. Nina Kennedy in her role as concert pianist was invited to film a music video at the  Bösendorfer  Salon, which happens to be inside of the Musikverein building in the heart of Vienna. Vladimir Bulzan and Nina Kennedy Our gracious host, Vladimir Bulzan, was kind enough to sit down with us for a short interview on the history of Bösendorfer in Vienna, and to share some details on the beautiful Imperial Grand piano on which Nina performed. That instrument was the model owned and preferred by jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, and Vladimir discovered later that afternoon that the day we were filming happened to be Oscar Peterson's birthday. Happy belated birthday, Oscar! You are our favorite jazz pianist. Vladimir also pointed out the Bösendorfer model owned by Michael Jackson. Franz Schubert Nina and...