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Misley - Designed and Made in Spain

While on her way from Munich, Germany to play a gig in Frankfurt, uber-talented saxophonist Beatrix Löw-Beer, whose performances have taken her to England, the United States, the Netherlands, Spain, Ibiza, Mallorca, Italy, Luxemburg, France, Austria, Switzerland, numerous other European countries, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Dubai and some parts of Asia, took time to talk to Riveting Riffs Magazine about her career and her life. The very congenial Beatrix Löw-Beer, while setting a high standard for herself, is as nice a musician as you will meet. She has been compared to her contemporaries, celebrity violinists such as Vanessa-Mae from England via Singapore and American violinist Lindsey Stirling. Beatrix Löw-Beer has performed with such stars as Rod Stewart, Dutch singer Caro Emerald, award winning Pop singer Sarah Connor, the first German performer to ever have four consecutive #1 hits on the German charts. Beatrix Löw-Beer’s music ranges from Classical to Rock to House, Pop, Jazz and everything in between.

Artists such as Beatrix Löw-Beer are the reason why people are discovering the saxophone for the first time. When you watch her concert performances or videos to promotional videos everything from her movement to her attitude and her costumes exhibits an exuberance for performing music. One is never left with the impression that you are watching someone playing an instrument, because her saxophone becomes an extension of her persona.

Take us back to where this all began.

I grew up in Augsburg, which is one hour from Munich, which is the capital of Bavaria. It is in the south of Germany, very close to Austria. Augsburg is the third largest city in Bavaria and I think it has 300,000 residents. There are two rivers in my city, the Lech and Wertach, (which flow into the Singold River) and there are also small lakes.

I have one sister and one brother, and I am the youngest child. Our family came from the Czech Republic and most of them left for other continents. My mother was an Opera singer and everyone was into music and played an instrument,” she says.

We had read that Beatrix Löw-Beer began to play the violin when she was three years of age and we tried to get our heads wrapped around the image of a little child playing an instrument of that size.

Laughing good naturedly, she says, “No they were very small violins, it was 1 / 16th of the dimension of the large one.

My sister is a violinist and she is one year older. The only thing I really remember is since she wanted to start (playing) and I also wanted to start. It was a competition. I just always wanted to be better.”

 Well Beatrix Löw-Beer did get better.

“In Germany I attended a music high school and it is only for people who play their instruments well. You can do your (academic) degrees there, but you can also start early on your Bachelor’s music degree. The focus is on music, but I also had other major subjects. I had a professor from the music conservatory. It was really cool, because I could Read More

Laura Benitez and the Heartache

In conversation singer and songwriter Laura Benitez uses superlatives, lyrically she utilizes metaphors and vocally she is emotive, all of which are effective in communicating her message, often autobiographical, either from personal experience or things she has observed. In many ways she is a throwback to the 1960s and early 1970s when protest songs and social commentary through music were in vogue and yet one should not mistake her music as an attempt to mirror or clone artists such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Sam Cooke, Pete Seeger, and a little later Patti Smith, as she clearly blazes her own trail.

Laura Benitez sat down with Riveting Riffs Magazine recently to talk about her new album California Centuries by Laura Benitez and the Heartache. Depending on where you are on the ideology spectrum you may find yourself cheering this album on or in various degrees of disagreement with the lyrics and tone, but the one thing you should all agree on is these are well crafted songs, played and sung superbly. Full disclosure by this writer that he is firmly encamped in the section cheering this album on.

The opening song “Bad Things,” sets the tone for the album, each verse its own story drawn from real life.

“The first verse was inspired by my partner Brian’s family, his mom, sister and stepdad all lived in Paradise California and they lost everything in the wildfire. His sister was driving to escape the flames and she got caught in a traffic jam and she had to just run. The first verse is a true story about his sister running for her life. You don’t think that is something that will happen in your family.

The second verse I wrote a week before lockdown (because of COVID) when it just seemed like people were hoarding toilet paper and things were getting crazy. I was thinking about that fear and what it is like to be in a pandemic.

The third verse is about refugees. I didn’t think I would know people who would lose everything in a wildfire. I didn’t think I would live in a pandemic. I also didn’t think I would live under a regime when I would consider leaving my country. We were living in that. The people in Syria didn’t think they would have to leave their country and the people in Guatemala didn’t think they would have to leave Guatemala.

Nobody thinks it is going to happen to them, but sometimes it does. The last two verses are me saying what would it be like and what would it take for that to happen to me? When I imagined it, it was almost predictive of January 6. The last verse is about refugees, but it is about me as a refugee imagined,” explains Laura Benitez.

Bob Spector serves up a delicious guitar solo on “Bad Things,” and Dave Zirbel is equally splendid on steel guitar. Read More

Ariana Donovan Making A Difference

There is an early twenties something young woman living in a small prairie city in Canada who is already making her mark on the world of modeling, but not quite the way you might expect. Ariana Donovan from Regina, Saskatchewan has been an advocate for providing a safe environment in which models (and other independently employed people) can work and she has coupled that with building a career as a creative director. What is even more remarkable is she is forging her career, while attending university with a major in Human Justice and a minor in film. Oh, did we happen to mention that pre-pandemic she was the first model to grace the runway in her very first fashion show? Well, we do not want to tell Arian Donovan’s story for her, so we will let her tell you.

“Modeling was never actually an interest of mine. It was just something that popped up for me. I grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan and there is not a whole lot to do here. Modeling and fashion is one of the ways I kept myself entertained for six years now.

Originally, when I got into modeling I had been falsely scouted online by a predator, who used to be an agent for a really big agency in New York. My mom called their office and they let us know about it (that he was a predator), so I applied to a local agency and I was accepted. I think I was a little naïve about (the stalker), but after my mom called the office, it made more sense. I was gullible and I didn’t pay attention,” she says.

Remember this experience, because it starts to inform the decisions she makes later.

Continuing Arian Donovan says, “I started to develop self-confidence, but then I received this offer and even though it wasn’t true I still wanted to pursue modeling, because now the interest was there. Also, when I was a kid, I was really into dressing up. I would wear my dresses and plastic heels that you can wear around the house. Whenever my grandmother would pull out one of those disposable cameras that could be purchased at Shopper’s Drug Mart, I would stop crying and pose. It was an interest, but not one that I was conscious of until I received the fake offer. I was sixteen when that happened.”

“I can’t name them, but the first agency scammed me. I was forced to pay seven hundred dollars for a photoshoot, just to see if they would sign me. Everything I did with them afterwards I had to pay a lot of money to do work for them and to be promoted. I found out later on that is sort of a normal thing, not the test shoot part, but the agency signing fee and it is never as expensive as (I paid). You have to do that every time. They were investigated and found to be scamming (others) and by that time I had already moved to Vancouver and I had signed with a different agency there. Most of the work that I did with the first agency was trade for print with photographers here.

Modeling was never actually an interest of mine. It was just something Read More

                                                   Carrera Couture

Un Asunto Privado (A Private Affair)

Un Asunto Privado (A Private Affair) a series produced in Spain by Bambú Producciones, starring Aura Garrido and Jean Reno and directed by the trio of David Pinillos, Maria Ripoll and Daniel Aranyó, is a classic whodunit, with a comedic flair. While all the supporting cast are superb, there is no confusing who the stars are for this show, with Aura Garrido in the role of Marina Quiroga, a wannabe police detective, taught by her late father who had been the commissioner of police, and Jean Reno who instead of being in the role of the butler who did it, plays instead Héctor the butler who helps to solve it. The series is created by Teresa Fernández-Valdés (produced Gran Hotel and Now and Then), Gema R. Neira (Alta Mar, Las Chicas del Cable) and Ramon Campos (Gran Hotel, Alta Mar, Las Chicas del Cable). Do you notice the pattern here, of successful collaborations?

Un Asunto Privado, which if you live in an English first speaking country you will find on Amazon Prime, as A Private Affair, can best be described as a Mystery Dramedy. Set in the late 1940s or early 1950s in Spain, firmly entrenched in both the Franco dictatorship and a time when women had few rights in Spain and for that matter elsewhere in the world, the storyline is built around Marina Quiroga and her sidekick Héctor, as they seek to find out who the serial killer is. There is some limited violence in this series due to the nature of the crime and although it is not gratuitous, it is probably not best for children. Jean Reno who has for decades blessed us with his magnificent performances, at the age of 74 demonstrates that he has not lost a step in terms of his brilliant acting. Aura Garrido who has starred in El Ministerio del Tiempo, Blue & Malone: Casos Imposibles and El inocente (The Innocent), blossoms in both a comedic and dramatic role as Marina Quiroga. We are wishing for a sequel to this series if for no other reason than to enjoy another spectacular performance from her.

Will Pablo Zarco (played by Gorka Otxoa) win Marina’s heart or will it be Andrés Castaño (actor Álex Garcia) or will one of them be discovered as the killer?  Marina flirts with both, batting her eyelashes and looking deep into their eyes, before handcuffing one to a chair and knocking the other one out cold. Otxoa is funny and quite handsome, while Garcia’s character, Castaño, rumor has it may be a womanizer.

Why is it that Marina’s brother Arturo (Pablo Molinero), the current commissioner of police does not want Marina poking around, unofficially in this crime, trying to solve it? Does he merely reflect the male chauvinism of the times, is it jealousy alluded to in flashbacks to when they were children or is it something else altogether?

Let us talk about actress Ángela Molina who as Marina’s mother Doña Asunción is simply superb. At times she is hilarious. We should also mention Irene Montalà and give a nod to her performance as Margó.

The writers do subtly ask on several occasions through the characters, why is a woman not allowed to do Read More