NOTE: This contribution is for the livestream only and does NOT include the in person event (CLICK HERE for the in person page).

BENEFIT CONCERT FOR PEOPLE'S MUSIC NETWORK
Joanie Calem, Pat Lamanna and Steve Suffet

Activist musicians Joanie Calem, Pat Lamanna, and Steve Suffet have agreed to donate their respective shares of the admission and live streaming receipts to People's Music Network for Songs of Freedom and Struggle. Also known as PMN, it is a diverse community of performing artists, activists, and allies who use music, poetry, and other art forms as catalysts for a just and peaceful world. Joanie, Pat, and Steve are all longtime members.
PMN


JOANIE CALEM

Joanie began her performing career in Israel in 1983, singing Jewish and Arab folksongs in Hebrew, Ladino, Yiddish, Arabic and English, and telling the folk stories of the Middle East for audiences of all ages and backgrounds. She worked simultaneously for local NGOs supporting Jewish-Arab rapprochement, and often used her music in her community building work. When she moved to Columbus OH in 1998, she continued writing and performing for all ages, but switched her community building focus (and a lot of her songwriting) to disability awareness and inclusion. A fellow Columbus artist once said about Joanie's music, "Most songwriters open a bottle of wine and sit down to write a song about broken love; Joanie opens a newspaper and writes a song about the broken world. She writes about the ups and downs of life (reality) from all its different angles." Joanie's next CD, One Size Never Fits All will be out this summer, and features songs for healing the divides that seem to be cracking our relationships on all sides. We will sing our way back to a healed earth and humanity.
Website


PAT LAMANNA

Singer-songwriter Pat Lamanna's songs have a strong folk influence, and cover social justice issues as well as philosophical, spiritual and personal topics. She is a 2019 winner of the South Florida Folk Festival songwriting contest, and was named "Interfaith Music Maker of 2025" by the Dutchess County Interfaith Council. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her partner, Richard Mattocks.
Website


STEVE SUFFET

Better known in the United Kingdom than back home in the USA, Steve Suffet is best described as an old fashioned folksinger in the People's Music tradition. His repertoire is a mixture of railroad songs, trucker songs, coal miner songs, cowboy songs, union songs, old time ballads, blues, ragtime, Gospel, bluegrass, topical-political songs, Woody Guthrie songs, Irish songs, and whatever else tickles his fancy, including several songs he has written himself in traditional style. What all his songs have in common is that they are about working people, their lives, their loves, their hopes, and their struggles.
Website

(Looking for in-person event? STOP! This page is for livestream! See above for the in-person link.)

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