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1 week ago | 
lawschool.cornell.edu | Kenny Berkowitz
Fleeing threats of arrest for apostasy, Artemis Ghasemzadeh escaped Iran in December 2024, hoping to find religious freedom in the United States. Instead, within minutes of crossing the border from Mexico to California, she was placed in detention, where the Department of Homeland Security showed no interest in considering her request for asylum.
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2 weeks ago | 
acousticguitar.com | Kenny Berkowitz |Pat Moran
If, like me, you loved fingerstyle titans Teja Gerken and Doug Young’s wonderfully eclectic 2020 album Duets and Gerken’s recent solo voyage, Test of Time (released on New Year’s Day 2024), you’re almost certain to enjoy the SF Bay Area duo’s latest stellar effort, The Water Is Wide.
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1 month ago | 
acousticguitar.com | E.E. Bradman |Kenny Berkowitz |Pat Moran
At the end of a long day at work, I found out on social media that the husband of a dear friend had died after a sudden stroke. Still in disbelief and struggling to convey my sympathy in a concise Facebook comment, I happened to put on Cameron Knowler’s CRK. There was something deeply comforting about the gentle acoustic bubbling underneath the opening monologue, but the words seemed to be a scattered collage, randomly reassembled.
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1 month ago | 
acousticguitar.com | Mac Randall |E.E. Bradman |Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers |Kenny Berkowitz
Sitting in the spacious living room of his home on California’s central coast, Lloyd Baggs exudes the air of an old-school craftsman. As he peers through thick-rimmed glasses from beneath a gray baseball cap, his handsomely weathered face radiates both hard-earned wisdom and good humor; a trim white goatee only adds to that impression. If you didn’t know what Baggs did for a living, you might guess he made high-end furniture or built schooners by hand.
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Jan 29, 2025 | 
acousticguitar.com | E.E. Bradman |Pat Moran |Kenny Berkowitz
Yasmin Williams’ Acadia takes its name from the concept of an idyllic, fertile place, a metaphor for the creativity and collaboration that permeate her first release on Nonesuch Records. Drawing on instruments ranging from guitars and banjos to fiddle, synth bass, and even tap shoes, Williams crafts a soundscape that is both intimate and expansive, its layered sonic palette enriched by guests like saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, singer Aoife O’Donovan, and fellow guitar virtuoso Kaki King.
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Jan 24, 2025 | 
acousticguitar.com | Derk Richardson |Greg Cahill |Adam Perlmutter |Kenny Berkowitz
Fingerstyle guitarist Dylan Fowler straddles multiple worlds, collaborating closely with musicians from Finland, India, Turkey, and across the Celtic diaspora. On this solo album, his first in more than a decade, he brings it all back home, finding his inspiration in American jazz (Keith Jarrett’s “My Song”), Brazilian pop (“Joy”), Bulgarian folk (“Erghen Diado”), and Indian classical (“Six Thaal”) while remaining close to his folk-trad roots in Wales, where he’s lived most of his life.
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Dec 1, 2024 | 
acousticguitar.com | E.E. Bradman |Martin Keith |Kenny Berkowitz
Niwel Tsumbu’s latest release, Milimo, is several things: a feast of fascinating flavors, a passionate mission statement, a showcase for deftly executed polyrhythms, and a snapshot of ancient and modern approaches to acoustic guitar. At its heart, however, it’s a solo album by a Congolese virtuoso who lives in Ireland and plays like someone who doesn’t think in genres.
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Nov 19, 2024 | 
lawschool.cornell.edu | Kenny Berkowitz
Over the course of his four-decade teaching career at Cornell Law, Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, BA ’77, JD ’81, has become widely known as an authority on U.S. immigration, co-authoring the 22-volume Immigration Law and Procedure, the field’s leading treatise.
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Oct 23, 2024 | 
acousticguitar.com | Kenny Berkowitz
Widely regarded as perhaps the preeminent contemporary interpreter of and advocate for the music and approach of Django Reinhardt (1910–1953), New York area–based French jazz guitarist, composer, and teacher Stephane Wrembel has really outdone himself with his latest project, a three-album release called Triptych Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III.
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Sep 11, 2024 | 
acousticguitar.com | E.E. Bradman |Kenny Berkowitz |David McCarty
When the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra in Central Florida asked Aoife O’Donovan to write five songs commemorating the centennial of the 19th Amendment, she sent sketches to orchestrator Tanner Porter and decided to draw on speeches and letters by activist Carrie Chapman Catt, whose work helped make it possible for women to finally gain the right to vote in 1920.
