Creative PR

Neil Harvey has been an independent radio producer for 20 years.

He is Senior Producer and Host of the award winning radio series Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature which is heard in over 300 communities in the U.S., Canada and abroad. He was editor for the California Indian Radio Project and is now the audio archivist for the California Indian Storytelling Association. He Co-produced the CISA radio special When the Ancestors Whisper . . . Stories From Native California. As Senior Producer for New Dimensions Radio he produced several award winning special series including The Synthesis Dialogues with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Monticello Dialogues which feature anticipatory design architect William McDonough, and the 13-hour Deep Ecology For The 21st Century.

Early in his career he produced a number of radio features for NPR’s Morning Edition, was Associate Producer for the nationally distributed series Music From the Hearts of Space, and served as Host and Producer for The Love of Wisdom with Alan Watts. As a sound engineer he has worked in Sweden, Austria, India, Nepal, Mexico and Israel. He works from his home at the feet of the Trinity Alps in a small mountain community in far Northern California. A self described celebrant, his passions include gardening, wine making, painting, poetics and petanques.

Bill Rudman, who lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio, is an educator, a broadcaster, a producer and the founder of The Musical Theater Project. His weekly radio program Footlight Parade has aired locally for 25 years and in national syndication for 10 years. Since 2005, XM Satellite Radio has carried TMTP’s program On the Aisle on its Broadway channel.

Bill’s interviews for broadcast have included such leading figures in musical theater and cabaret as performers Mandy Patinkin, Barbara Cook, Bobby Short and Nanette Fabray; songwriters Stephen Sondheim, Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Sheldon Harnick, Hugh Martin, Burton Lane, Gretchen Cryer and Tom Jones; director-choreographer Tommy Tune; and director George Abbott (one month before his 100th birthday).

Bill has created and hosted numerous musical theater revues and concerts celebrating the song legacy of Broadway and Hollywood, and has taught musical theater history at the college level. In 1983, he and New York author Ken Bloom co-founded Harbinger Records, a label that has won critical praise for albums devoted to the American musical and the Great American Songbook. In 2000, Bill became the first recipient of the Robert P. Bergman Prize honoring his work in arts education.

Mark Sommer is an author, independent journalist, award-winning radio host, and internationally syndicated columnist who has written several books and hundreds of articles on national and international issues for major U.S. and foreign newspapers. His monthly columns on world affairs are syndicated in 12 languages to 100 countries by the Inter Press Service in Rome. In the United States, his articles have appeared on the editorial pages of The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Newsday. He hosts the syndicated radio program, “A World of Possibilities,” which highlights innovative solutions to longstanding societal challenges and is produced from the studios of the Mainstream Media Project. A 1967 graduate of Cornell University, Mark served from 1991-1998 as a program consultant on peace and world order issues for the Compton Foundation.

Art of the Song is Hosted and Produced by John Dillon & Vivian Nesbitt. In addition to their work in radio, John & Viv are a performing songwriting duo and members of the blues/rock band, El Rito Rhythm Kings. Viv has an active creativity coaching practice, and John is featured as a keynote speaker delivering inspiring talks about creativity laced with entertaining and relevant live music.

Vivian Nesbitt, whose acting credits include Broadway and national television, got her first guitar for her 15th birthday. It came from a pawn shop in Toledo, Ohio. She has been producing music and theater events for 25 years.

Vivian was co-producer, writer and narrator for a 26 part television series about Buddhism for Mongolian National Television. These shows had the blessing of His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, and were hosted by Richard Gere and Keanu Reeves.

She is active in the New Mexico film and television industry with recent roles in the ABC Family Network show, “Wildfire,” and the AMC new series, “Breaking Bad.”

Viv met John in their hometown of Taos, New Mexico, when she poured him a cup of coffee at a local diner. Their love of sharing music has won fans from all walks of life.

John Dillon has had a fascination with Creativity all his life. He grew up in a Pennsylvania town that was settled by his Irish immigrant great-great-grandfather, whose son–John’s namesake–started a flower growing business that flourishes to this day.

Like all of us, John was very creative as a child, and as happens to some of us, his creativity faded during his pre-adolescent years. Fortunately however, he was given a guitar at age 13 and he learned to express himself by improvising the blues with his teenage band-mates. A major turning point came in his late teens when he discovered first-hand the power of music (creative process) to build community and transcend physical limitations (this experience will be revealed in the presentation).

Pack on back and guitar in hand, John spent a year cris-crossing the US absorbing the landscape and culture of our great country. Eventually he settled in Northern New Mexico.

John was so passionate about guitars that–in his mid-twenties–he learned how to build them. Over the course of three decades, he built over 80 acoustic guitars, including custom instruments for Steve Earle, Michael Murphey, Tish Hinojosa, Trisha Yearwood and the Mavericks. Through guitar making John learned that the true creative process combines both right and left brain thinking–a blending of art and craft.

A twelve year stint in the family floral business gave John the opportunity to apply his creativity to marketing and business. He started a division of the company that sold plants to mass market outlets, and a program for importing directly from the flower auction in Aalsmeer, Holland. While in the floral business, he was an active leader in state and national trade associations where he made presentations as an individual and participated in numerous panel discussions.

Throughout John’s varied occupational endeavors, songwriting and music performance continued to be vital forms of creative expression. He recorded his first solo CD, Piece of Paradise, in 1998. His second release, Callin’ Me Home, which chronicled his return to the West, received 7 New Mexico Music Award nominations and one win.

In 2004, John and his wife Vivian created Art of the Song Creativity Radio which is now heard by over 180,000 listeners every week on 200 public and community stations across the country.

Creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit are indeed alive and well in John Dillon’s life.

Mike Cuthbert, Host of Prime Time Radio, a one-hour weekly interview program that focuses on the wide-ranging interests and concerns of Americans 40 and older, is a skilled interviewer and acute listener whose thorough preparation surprises and delights his guests. Mike converses intelligently, provocatively, and easily with celebrities, politicians, academics, and bureaucrats, drawing out their personalities and weaving their insights and expertise into stimulating discussions.

A native of Wisconsin, Mike holds a master’s degree in music and education. His nearly 40 years in radio began in Beloit, Wisconsin. Mike then moved to Washington, D.C., where he led the development of WGMS into one of the nation’s leading classical music radio stations. His talk-radio career began at WRC in Washington and has included top-rated WRKO in Boston, WCKY in Cincinnati, where he was designated “Best Talk Show Host,” and public radio’s WAMU in Washington, where he was recognized with a number of broadcasting awards. Married with four grown children and one grandchild, Mike also conducts a local concert band.

Click HERE to listen to Mike’s recent interview with Stacy Keach.

Mike Cuthbert hosted the hour-long Town Hall from AARP with President Obama on July 28, 2009.  Watch HERE.