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Susannah Blinkoff
Actress turned songwriter turned filmmaker has applied her many talents to her recent full length feature film, Bellyfruit. Not only did she co-write and co-produce this excellent social commentary movie about inner city kids getting pregnant, she co-wrote the haunting hip-hop title song for the movie along with another Cat Cohen alumnus, Stephen Bray. Suz, as she sometimes calls herself, has workshopped several of her songs with Cat and is currently studying keyboard with him.
 


Born and raised in New York City, Susannah is a second-generation singer-songwriter. Her mother Carol Hall recorded two albums for Elektra Records between 1970-73, was the opening act for Kris Kristofferson, Loggins & Messina and Don McLean (on his "American Pie" tour) and is best known as the composer/lyricist of the long-running Broadway hit THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS.

Susannah began singing professionally off-Broadway and in clubs when she was in eighth grade. First an actress, she appeared in TV movies and sitcoms and in numerous plays in Los Angeles and New York. She made her Broadway debut in THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE GOES PUBLIC and is featured on the show's cast album recording. She then became a published playwright and a screenwriter, co-writing the film BELLYFRUIT which premiered at the 1999 L. A. Independent Film Festival and ran on Showtime. For that film, Susannah also wrote and produced the opening title theme song "Bellyfruit" with record producer Stephen Bray (Madonna, Meredith Brooks).
She currently has a kids' adventure script being developed for television and is in the process of writing a movie musical.

Susannah has performed her music in Galway, Ireland, New York City and in Los Angeles, where she appears regularly as a soloist and with her band. CAMP SUSANNAH's new CD "Happy Today" is the band's first full-length album.

Susannah's sensual, dramatic vocals combined with her fun, ironic and edgy original songs showcase often at Genghis Cohen. Catch her amazing act!


Megan Cavalleri
Megan is an accomplished composer and orchestrater of musical theater in New York (co-writer of the lively La Manchish musical Pepita). She has settled in LA to pursue pop and film music venues. She recently did some superbly sensitive and delicate pop ballad orchestration and vocal arrangements for John Mathis' forthcoming album, On Broadway. She is currently working on several film scoring projects including the Showtime movie, BB Gun. She can be reached at emanja@aol.com. She was a student and instructor's aide at Cat's UCLA Extension classes.
 


Sarra Gallagher
Sarra moved to LA from Chicago to pursue a songwriting career. She enrolled at UCLA Extension and studied with Cat as well as attending workshops at the Songwriters Guild. Although she usually writes pop-rock, she entered a gospel styled song, Talk To Heaven, in the John Lennon showcase and recently found out she won second place in the Gospel Inspirational category. We're very inspired by her as well. She workshopped this song in Cat's Advanced Songwriting class. In fact it was her final exam presentation. He also helped her put on a few finishing touches in private sessions. Recently Sarra has had two of her tunes including Talk To Heaven, picked up by a major publisher.
 


Jaime Green
Jaime is a sultry singer-songwriter with a very expressive haunting voice and uniquely original songs exploring social and romantic ideals and their resulting disappointments. She is offering her debut CD, My Crime, on Red Haired Creeper Records. You can E-mail her at bananagrn@aol.com. Several songs were workshopped in Cat's advanced songwriting class at UCLA Extension. Jaime's very expressive bluesy-rock vocals and exquisitely moody original songs can be heard regularly performing around town at Genghis Cohen, The Gig,The Mint, The Viper Room and several other local LA clubs.
 


 

Marie Michaels
Marie is a talented and determined country singer and writer from Virginia who moved to LA and came to Cat to learn how to write songs. Together they found she had a country heart and after two years of knocking about LA's limited country venues she realized she had to make the move to Nashville to be part of the action there. Since she made that commitment about a year ago Marie has established herself working for a Nashville music attorney and is currently performing at the Broken Spoke, a country writers' showcase. She also has a 4-song CD available featuring four excellent tunes she workshopped with Cat.
 


JoAnne Montana

JoAnne is a very expressive country and folk singer with God's gift of a voice and has released her own CD Beauty Pageant Queen, as well as a cassette recording of her live duo act with Paul Neilson. Joanne mixes a delightful blend of guitar based original contemporary country and pop ballads with traditional folk song stylings. She has just completed a three year gig entertaining the folks at Pasadena's Bechem Place. Now they perform every Saturday night at Barbara's at the Brewery. The food is every bit as good as the entertainment. They also sing regularly (3nights a week) at Topper's in Santa Monica.

 

 


Leonard Moss Jr.
Leonard is a superbly smooth and very masculine sensual romantic R&B vocalist with intriguing original material set in a variety of contemporary grooves. Moss released his first CD, Welcome To Satisfaction last year and it is available at Real Artist Records, PO Box 5417, Glendale, CA 91221. In the past several weeks both the album and two single cuts have placed high on Billboard's Internet-based R&B Charts. Several of the album's songs were workshopped in Cat's UCLA songwriting classes. Recently he peformed in teh Wattstar theatre presentation of Juneteenth Celebration 2000 with KJLH radio personality Mrs. Janine Haydel.
 


Libby Lavella
Libby is a very gifted Australian jazzy R&B singer who has been performing her originals at Luna Park, The Gig, Sonoma Blue, and several other local LA venues. She has strong Warner Brothers interest in a publishing deal and has recently returned from touring her native Australia where she teamed up with several local producers and musicians there. Now she is in the studio working on a new album with producer Evan Biegel. Libby workshopped several of her uniquely styled songs in Cat's UCLA classes.
 


Jay Roewe

Jay started playing piano at the age of 8 years old when his mother sat down and taught him, then learned trombone at the age of 10. He performed in school and church choirs, concert bands, marching bands and rock bands though high school which also included touring the U.S. and Europe. Studying film and television business in college he continued his musical studies at Boston University. After graduating he played in a punk band around Boston during the early 80s.

Upon arriving in LA in 1984 he began studying with Cat Cohen while jamming with garage bands and continuing his film career. This included producing award winning music videos for musicians ranging from Motley Crue to Bon Jovi from 1984 to 1987. Madonna's docu-feature Truth or Dare was produced by Roewe in 1991 and truly took advantage of his love for music and film.

Currently he is a Vice-president of Production at HBO films, a position he has had since 1994. Allowing for more music activities he recently co-wrote a song with Cat that he performed in the HBO Film The Rat Pack. He also co-wrote Hollywood Swing with Steve Mercer which was placed on the television show Highlander. Roewe has also co-produced two records recently. The first, with writer and fellow bandmate Steve Mercer, the album titled Girl will be released this spring on the Mood Food label out of North Carolina. A second record was recorded and produced with his coffee shop band Living Large with bandmates Peder Rudling and Michael & Kerstin O'Mara. It will be available over the internet this coming spring.

Roewe's younger brother, Scott, is a film composer and a member of former Geffen recording artists. the Wild Colonials.

 


Scott Rogness
Rock and R&B styled vocalist with a strong high-pitched voice in the tradition of Lou Gramm and Hall and Oates runs the gamut of contemporary pop styles moved to Nashville after studying and performing in LA and Florida. Here his rock meets oldies style found favor and led him to the company that filmed Tom Hanks movie That Thing You Do. We're not at all surprised that not only was Scott asked co-write but also to sing several of the film's vocals. He also Co-wrote three excellent period songs for this authentic sounding score. He studied keyboard and vocal styling with Cat in the 80s and they collaborated on several songs and recorded many sessions together.
 


Richard Soriano
Richard has studied in and is currently enrolled at Cat's UCLA classes as well as hosting some of his off-campus workshops. He is forging the frontier of the Internet and producing a website of independent videos guerrillafilmmakers.com. His new company is featuring the sexy, cool and creative world of guerrilla filmmakers in this new age of digital video with exciting interviews and jacuzzi reviews. Cat's students are welcome to submit their own videos and if you're a songwriter with no video, he just might make one for you.
 


Joshua Souter
Josh is a very talented young pop-rock singer songwriter with God's gift of a powerful high voice and expressive songs describing the aspirations and disappointments of a young man searching for love and relationships. He recently teamed up with a very solid rock band for an industry showcase at Luna Park where label interest was shown. Originally referred to Cat by veteran rock producer and vocal coach Ron Andersen, Josh successfully reworked several of his songs under Cat's supervision.
 


Bob Wayne
Bob is an award winning recording engineer and producer who works out of his own 24-track studio, Sunburst Recording in Culver City. His most recent credits include film scores for Election starring Matthew Broderick and The General's Daughter starring John Travolta. His work on the Firesign Theatre's comedy album Give Me Immortality or Give Me Death on Rhino Records was nominated for a Grammy in 1998. Rhino is about to release Firesign's new album Boom.bust, also engineered by Bob. He taught a class at West LA College in recording engineering on March 4, 2000 from 10 AM-5 PM. Bob is a frequent guest at Cat's UCLA songwriting classes helping songwriters get the most out of their studio experiences.
 


Just last month one Bob's recording clients, Al McKibbon, was nominated for a Grammy in Best Latin Jazz Instrumental category. Although McKibbon didn't capture the Grammy itself, it's quite an honor for Bob to be associated with yet another nominated artist. Way to go, Bob!

Yet another feather in Bob's ever expanding cap. His satire of the Carpenters' hit Muskrat Love, entitled HAMSTER LOVE has been released on a Dr. Demento Greatest Hits CD on Rhino Records. The vocals were provided by Cat Cohen alumnus Joanne Montana and the keyboards by Cat himself.

Mark Winkler

Mark is a multitalented veteran singer-songwriter with cuts by Lisa Minelli, Stephanie Mills, and many other top pop recording artists. He has several jazz flavored CDs on the market including his latest new wavish City Lights on Cafe Pacific Records, distributed by Chartmaker Records, 1680 N. Vine St. suite 414, Hollywood CA 90028. The score of his latest show, PLAY IT COOL can be found at www.markwinkler.com.

Mark placed songs in the successful original musical revue Naked Boys Singing currently on national tour and Co-wrote another winning revue Too Old For The Chorus with Marie Cain and Shelley Markham which was workshopped with ASCAP and performed at West Hollywood's Celebration Theatre. The show is currently being considered for an off-Broadway run. Mark's most recent show PLAY IT COOL, a jazz-based musical of gay life in Hollywood in the 1950s just finished a succcesful run at the Celebration Theater to packed audiences. We expect a great future for it finding favor with both theater and jazz audiences alike. Collaborators on this show included Phil Swann, Michael Cruz, Jim Andron and the new age jazz musician and composer David Benoit.

Mark studied keyboard with Cat in the 70s, was a featured performer in Cat's musical Lightflow with Venice Free Theater. They've written several rock and pop tunes together.

 


Doug Wood
Doug is a very original self-styled singer-songwriter in the pop meets rock meets jazz meets theater vein of successful artists like Sting. He writes a variety of songs and performs them around town. Like Cat, he is an instructor at Musician's Institute. He has recently begun to consult with Cat for editing, polishing and prioritizing his material.
 


Announcements

Jon and Natsuko Hultman
This very musical couple actually met at one of Cat's off-campus songwriting workshops. They began by collaborating on a song, then forming a duo that performed around town, then wound up getting married. Jon and Natsuko now have added another dimension to their very full lives, a daughter named Sarah Hultman born on September 25, 1999.