WMI Plus At Home - Yonatan Gat and WNYC's John Schaefer

WMI PLUS At Home Experiences are free of charge, but you must register to reserve your space. You will receive an order confirmation once your registration is complete that includes the link to the event. Only registered participants will receive email instructions on how to join the event via Zoom online. Bring your questions! The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session with attendees posting their questions electronically for live answers.

New York Guitar Festival is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and WMI is thrilled to be co-presenting an exciting lineup of eclectic artists over the two nights of June 14 and 15. Among the performers on Night Two is Israeli-born and NY-based producer, guitarist, and composer Yonatan Gat, who will be playing with the Medicine Singers – an Eastern Algonquin powwow group from Rhode Island. Yonatan joins us for our next WMI Plus At Home on Tue, May 21, in conversation with John Schaefer, the host and producer of WNYC’s long-running new music show New Sounds, who will host both nights of the festival.

Link to Night One of NY Guitar Festival

Link to Night Two of NY Guitar Festival

Yonatan Gat first gained notoriety as one of the world’s top performers as co-founding guitarist of the band Monotonix, hailed by SPIN as “the most exciting live band in rock’n’roll,” their concerts shattered the border between performer and audience and were controversial enough to get them banned from playing venues in their country. Finding himself unable to perform in his home country, Gat, who refused to take part in its mandatory military service as a conscientious objector, left to New York. He does not readily conform to descriptions as Israeli or American, developing a sound rooted in both these influences while collaborating and adding perspectives from musicians of different spectrums of 21st-century folk music as a part of the Stone Tapes imprint he helped launch in 2022. Stone Tapes also acts as an artist studio and musicians’ collective, focused on post-genre collaborations across traditions.

John Schaefer is the host and producer of WNYC’s long-running new music show New Sounds (“The #1 radio show for the Global Village” – Billboard), founded in 1982, and its innovative Soundcheck podcast, which has featured live performances and interviews with a variety of guests since 2002. He created the New Sounds Live concert series in 1986, which features new works, commissioned pieces, and a special series devoted to live music for silent film.