INFEMNITY™ Entertainment News

Elizabeth Gilbert and Oprah Winfrey This morning I happened to turn on the television to find Oprah Winfrey talking with Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert, whom I had met in 2019 at a reading by author  Azure Antoinette Varos. At the time, I had no idea that Elizabeth had recently buried her partner Rayya Elias, who was also an author and musician. After doing some research I learned that Gilbert had divorced her husband of nine years to enter into an intimate relationship with Elias, who had been her best friend for fifteen years. At that time, Elias had been diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer. She died within two years at age 57. Gilbert and Rayya Elias A Syrian-born writer, musician, and filmmaker, Elias’s own book (titled Harley Loco: A Memoir of Hard Living, Hair, and Post-Punk, From the Middle East to the Lower East Side ) was published in 2013 with an introduction by Gilbert. In it, Elias detailed four decades of her life as a gay Middle Eastern woman in the ...

  The second book of the Practicing for Love series, Practice What You Preach , begins with my return to the United States after having lived for six months on the Belizean island of Ambergris Caye. My then-partner "Helga" is an Austrian citizen, and we had lived in Vienna for several years. When we came to the United States, she could only stay for three months at a time with a tourist visa, so we found ourselves needing to cross the border every three months so that she could receive a new stamp in her passport. As we get settled in New York, I watch in amazement as she is able to find work and income in ways that I have never experienced. Even though she was a foreigner, the most important thing to her employers was that she is white. It is during this relaxed time that I receive word of my mother's passing. Helga accompanies me to the city of my birth, Nashville, for the funeral. It is the first time she meets my father, and the first time she witnesses the full exte...

Passing by Nella Larsen, recently released as a film by celebrated actress/director Rebecca Hall, has made me think deeply about my racial identity. Though I was born in a segregated Colored hospital, raised in a black neighborhood, attended segregated public schools, sat in a black church Sunday mornings, the fact remains that I never felt loved by anyone black. I suppose, when they looked at me, my parents were reminded of the pain of their own childhoods. I felt ostracized by the kids at school, and was bullied mercilessly because of my light skin and "correct" speech. My mother would straighten my hair to make me look whiter, but I never thought that she intended to enable me to "pass." My father was visibly blacker than she was, and everyone knew that he was my father. But I never got the impression that she intended for me to marry a white man. In fact, I never got the impression that she intended for me to marry a man at all. She wanted to remain the center ...

For all of you who have sent complaints asking why my interview was cut from a recent program on "All Things Considered," THANK YOU!! I gave an extensive interview to NPR on the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the first fundraising tour of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and was told that clips of my interview would be used in addition to current director Paul Kwami's interview with Audie Cornish. We listened with rapt attention as Cornish chatted with Kwami, and were shocked when the segment ended and none of my interview was used. I had gone into much more history and detail on the group than Kwami did, and was deeply disappointed that this history was not included in the program. Here again, a man's voice is given credence over a woman's. To add insult to injury, now if you Google me you'll find that it is all over the Internet that I was supposed to be on this program. My name is inextricably linked with NPR online. For those of you who haven't contact...

Nina Kennedy (photo by Kathy Ray) In anticipation of the Jubilee Day celebrations scheduled for next month, a producer for Nashville Public Radio reached out to Nina Kennedy to ask about a possible interview to be used as part of a project in recognition of "Jubilee Day," Fisk University's Founders' Day, on October 6th. Classical music journalist  Colleen Phelps  is  on a team at WPLN-FM producing a special for the upcoming 150th Jubilee Day, and is currently working on online content that will be released related to the special .  During a short text dialogue, Colleen revealed that she had been watching the documentary film Nina had produced on her father titled  Matthew Kennedy: One Man's Journey . Matthew Kennedy had directed the Fisk Jubilee Singers - who are considered to be the founders of Fisk University  - from 1957 to 1986.  Though the Free Fisk Colored School (named for Union Army General Clinton B. Fisk) was founded by the American Missionar...

  Nina Kennedy and Bill Egan Bill Egan, author of the new book  African American Entertainers in Australia and New Zealand: A History, 1788-1941 , is our special guest on this month's episode of  The Noshing with Nina Show . Filmed while he was in New York on his way to the Duke Ellington International Study Group Conference in Washington, D.C. - which was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic - Bill sat down with us in the lobby of the Empire Hotel near Lincoln Center to discuss his book. Bill shared with us his enthusiasm for Broadway star Florence Mills, and how his research on her life eventually led to further research on other African American performers who came to Australia and New Zealand in the 19th century and beyond. We first came in contact with Egan when he responded to host Nina Kennedy 's  blog on pianist Leota Henson , who traveled to Australia as piano accompanist for Frederick Loudin's Fisk Jubilee Singers. He even requested permission to publ...

"Congratulations to you for the excellent exhibit you produced in honor and memory of your dear mother ANNE GAMBLE KENNEDY in celebration of her 100th Birthday. What a superbly well-documented work of art it is, indeed! Thank you for your invitation to attend this memorable event."  - Richard M. Turner III, Chair of the Music Department, Fisk University, 1968-1971 "It was a pleasure to participate in this Celebration!...I really enjoyed the presentation, and also purchased it...Congratulations, Nina, on an outstanding job!...I'm sure your parents would be proud of you."  - Leah Travillion Rollins, singer/songwriter, former student of Anne Gamble Kennedy "Just watched my copy of the video on the life of your mom, Anne Gamble! Bravo Nina, what a fascinating woman. You did some great storytelling. I hope many people will see and enjoy a jewel that was kept in the box for so long. Anne Gamble Kennedy! xoxoxo"  - George Cooper, pianist, founder, Ella Sheppa...

2019 has been a banner year for INFEMNITY Productions and  The Noshing with Nina Show (TNWNS) . The year began with the broadcast of our recap of “The People’s State of the Union” in January. For Black History Month we broadcast the first of a two-part series on the award-winning documentary film  Matthew Kennedy: One Man’s Journey , produced and directed by host Nina Kennedy. In March, the Rock Ballerina Kimberly Nichole was our special guest on  TNWNS . Kimberly is most recognized for her amazing performance of “House of the Rising Sun” on NBC’s  The Voice . Nina Kennedy directing the Fisk Jubilee Singers Also in March, the Fisk Jubilee Singers performed at Carnegie Hall under sponsorship of the H.T. Burleigh Society, and Nina was asked to participate in a panel discussion with the descendants of Ella Sheppard, Harry Burleigh, J. Rosamond Johnson, W.C. Handy and Bob Cole  on the legacies of famous African American musici...

I couldn't care less about Donald Trump, Roger Stone, Michael Cohen, John Bolton, et al. Trump's niece, Mary, writes a book on her uncle, and hundreds of thousands of books are ordered before its release. John Bolton has a best-seller out, and he chose to make money instead of testifying before Congress. Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen wants to write a book, but Trump sent him back to prison for refusing to sign a statement saying that he would not write a book. Convicted felon Roger Stone is talking about writing a book, and is free to do so since Trump commuted his sentence. All of it is disgusting to me. Trump has murdered well over a hundred thousand Americans via his incompetence, denial, and self-absorption. Yet nothing seems to happen to the bad guys. Meanwhile, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, Elijah McClain, et al are still dead - killed by police for being black. The Fisk Jubilee Singers, Ella Sheppard seated at the keyboard ...

Matthew Kennedy: One Man's Journey From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia DVD cover Matthew Kennedy: One Man's Journey  is an American  documentary film  directed and written by  Nina Kennedy . The film chronicles the life of concert pianist, professor, and choral director  Matthew Kennedy . [1] [2] [3] [4] Synopsis Born in the segregated South in 1921, Matthew Kennedy was known throughout his home state of Georgia as a child-prodigy. At age 12, he attended a concert given by the famous Russian pianist  Sergei Rachmaninoff  in Macon, Georgia in 1932. When this film was produced, he was one of few surviving witnesses of Rachmaninoff's live performance. In his filmed interviews, Dr. Kennedy describes what he remembers of the concert from his perspective in the  segregated  balcony for “Colored.” He was also the star of his own radio show broadcast from Macon in the early 1930s. At that time, Kennedy's stage name on radio and in t...