Saturday July 27th @ 4 p.m.
In Concert Lou Truskoff, Peter Costantini, and Mark Aalfs
Come one, come all to this live and in-person musical event. We're honored to welcome Lou Truskoff, Peter Costantini, and Mark Aalfs. The concert will be held at a location in downtown Seattle. Tickets are limited. Contact Angela Bartels for information and tickets, email Angela at bartels.angela@gmail.com
Performers
Lou Truskoff
Mark Aalfs
Lou Truskoff started to sing at the age of three, and pretty much never stopped singing. I don't want to set the world on fire by the Ink Spots was his first "hit." After 81 years, getting together with friends to sing is still his greatest pleasure; so he is looking forward to our concert on the 27th!
Mark Aalfs grew up with music - his mother's classical piano and father's Harry Belafonte records and strong singing voice at church. Inspired by the explosion of pop and folk music in the 60s, Mark started playing guitar and hit the folk scene. Upon arriving in Seattle in the late 70s, Mark joined with Lou, Peter, and others to play music supporting political causes, including the United Farm Workers. For an excellent cause like PSARA, or the joy of singing with friends, Mark loves sharing music with others. Back in the late 70s, I was involved in local volunteer support work for the UFW. My most focused effort was volunteering for a month in the fall of 1976 with the California Yes-on-14 campaign down in San Ysidro, south of San Diego, From my four decades of work in the energy industry, managing solar, green power, and green building programs, my greatest satisfaction has been working with the large community of energy efficiency and renewable energy workers and citizens of the Pacific Northwest to achieve historic levels of energy efficiency and renewable energy acquisition. For me, although music hasn't been directly related to my green energy work, it's always an inspiration, and so energizing for all the hard work everyone's shouldering in strengthening our social fabric and democracy.
Peter Costantini
Peter Costantini crawled out of the mid-century Bronx and grew up a Jersey boy. He escaped a stint of anti-Vietnam War activism at Antioch College in Ohio - sound track by Otis Redding - with the law on his tail (stuck left-turn signal) and slid safely into Seattle in 1973. Joining with Mark, Lou, Janet, Susan, Nadine and other bright lights of the Seattle pre-grunge protest music scene, he slipstreamed to stardom behind the meteoric rise of Solidarity Singers, More Than a Paycheck, and whatever else they were calling themselves that week. At their apex, they sold out the Kingdome, and Nirvana opened for them. But like so many others, he couldn't handle the heady brew of adoring high fives all over Capitol Hill, cheap weed, Rainier Beer and cold pizza. Hey, you got a problem with this? What? I thought the Supreme Court said the First Amendment now protects all kinds of lies. Guess I was wrong - guess they only like the really big, dangerous ones. OK, coming clean: twenty years of construction and other blue-collar work, a little activism in two locals of the Laborers International Union. An addiction to community organizing, founding the Seattle Tenants Union and sitting on the executive board of the National Tenants Union. When Central America blew up, Emergency Committee Against Contra Aid, the Seattle Central America Media Project, teaching a short course in microprocessors at the Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria in Managua. Retrained. Twenty years in the software industry, mainly Windows Server, ending as a program manager. On a second shift, forty years of journalism and analysis, a couple of specials on Mexico and Nicaragua for MSNBC News in the 1990s, since then mostly on Inter Press Service, a Roma-based non-profit newswire. A lifetime of involvement with immigrants - my dad came over from Italy as a 12-year-old in 1928 - ending up with a couple of decades now embedded in the immigrant justice movement. No lie.