Interview: Anthony Nunziata On His March 17th LIVING ROOM CONCERT

I saw the message on The Facebook Machine:

Mark Your Calendar
Tuesday, March 17th @ 7 pm EST
Anthony Nunziata w/ Eugene Gwozdz
Facebook Live @Home Concert -
Direct from NYC

Go to Facebook and "Follow" the page:
https://www.facebook.com/anthony.nunziata/

While my spring concert tour has been postponed due to the current situation our country and world is facing, my musical director and I have decided to bring a concert directly to YOU!

Feel free to share with your friends, colleagues and loved ones.

We hope you will join us.

See you in the audience!

All my best and love,
Anthony

So I picked up the phone and dialed Mr. Nunziata, with whom I've had the opportunity to chat in the past, to get more intel on the event and on his wishes while creating his intimate-yet-world-reaching event. After all, thanks to the internet all of these shows people are creating can be seen by anyone anywhere, and that's a pretty cool thing - especially during a time of widespread isolation.

Hello, this is Anthony.

Hi, it's Stephen.

Hello Stephen, how are you?

I'm well, how are you doing?

Are you feeling ok?

Yeah, I feel great. How are you?

Great. All's good. I'm grateful to be healthy right now.

How are you faring with the lockdown?

You know, as someone who works for himself, believe it or not, if I'm not traveling or on a busy concert schedule, I usually find myself quite hunkered down already, you know? I go out and I exercise or I have meetings, but I usually find myself working or writing songs from the confines of my apartment. So it's been okay. I've been just trying to stay connected with loved ones and people who may be taking it a little bit harder - trying my best to be there for other people.

This experience will be a different journey for each of us.

Amen. And it does go back to, we all are going through our quiet battles in life and perhaps this brings up a little bit more anxiety for some people more than others. I'm mindful of that for someone who does have anxiety. I try to do my daily routine of meditation and practice gratitude and to be extra kind and considerate. So when this idea of doing a little at-home concert came up, I just wanted to make sure that Eugene was healthy, and how he was doing, and what his wife thought about him coming over to my place and doing a show. I've kept my place right, with Lysol and Clorox, and everything is clean - we have a little system for when he comes to my place - we want to still remain socially distant, as much as you can within an L-shaped studio apartment. We both are coming from the place of "The Why" - and this is what I always try to go back to in life. Why are we doing this? And it's just that there are so many people just stuck at home. A lot of us lost our spring concert dates. So we just figured we've got to do something.

Tell me about your living room concert that you're doing Tuesday night.

It's going to be from my living room and it just so happens that people are really going to be blessed because my living room is also part of my bedroom and it's also part of the TV room and a little bit part of the foyer. So I feel blessed that it's going to be a multi-room concert! I'm so looking forward to it and we're thinking about what we want to do - we want to keep it casual. We have talked about some song ideas, songs that we want to do, including a bunch of originals, during this mini-concert. We want to really interact with the audience, to really take advantage of the ability to ask people what they're going through, what they're doing to stay afloat. It's just another way to connect with people. Live performing is all about connecting with people, and with this technology, we're able to connect. Engaging and communication and conversation are so important right now. This is a bit of uncharted territory. All we are going to be asking people to do is to come on this journey with us - our hope is to make people feel something, feel connected, make them laugh - I think we're going to do a sing-along at one point. So it's going to be fun.

We can all use a little fun right now.

Oh my gosh, I mean, look it's a serious situation and we want to be mindful of what people are going through possibly... they're afraid, people are on edge, and we are just wanting to take the edge off. Hopefully, this concert will be like a cocktail to take the edge off.

I've had a chance to see a few living room concerts recently and some of them are half an hour, some of them are 15 minutes. Sometimes it's just a song from Linda Purl or a song from Carolee Carmello. I think anything we can all do to stay connected is a good thing.

Amen. Amen.

I also think that social media can be a very slippery slope - sometimes it can be filled with negatives, but it's times like this when we realize what the positives are of being on social media

I'm so with you. Let's use this platform to -- what's one thing that we can spread? Joy. For connectivity and music and the amazing things people can share -- hit the share button to share it with people from all around the world! That's the proactivity that we all can take part of. What I do is very extroverted, what I do as a singer, as an entertainer, so people can enjoy the concert and also be proactive in saying, "Hey, I love what you're doing right now. We're in our separate homes and maybe, typically, we would be out and about, but let's share the experience together." So that's the main thing - let's share doing something positive together. That's the hope for this concert -- a feeling and a theme of connectivity, of hope, of love and hopefully just making people feel like that I'm in their living room, offering something that's intimate and real and fun.

So Anthony, tell me, how do people find your living room concert? What are the specific details?

They can go to either my personal Facebook page - I believe I reached that 5,000 limits, so you can follow that page or go to my official Anthony Nunziata fan site and the concert will be shared there. If you like the page you can see it there. It'll be Tuesday, March 17th at 7:00 PM Eastern standard time.

And it will be you and Eugene Gwozdz

Yes. And Eugene is in the St Patrick spirit. I am a wee bit Irish, so there is a great possibility that we will be offering a tip of the hat to St Patrick's day.

You boys better be dressed in green, I'm telling you that.

Someone or something will be indeed fulfilling that warmth of the season.

I happen to be free tomorrow night at seven.

I'm excited. I can't wait for you to be there. So, are you going to dress up for the event? Are you going to be in your PJs and have a cocktail?

Well, I am in voluntary quarantine right now and since I have to ration out the clothing that I have, I am basically wearing a robe for the entire lockdown.

Fabulous. It's your quarantine robe.

Yes, I have my quarantine robe and I have my R2D2 teapot filled with tea at all times. So that will be the picture at my house during your 7:00 PM concert Tuesday night.

I can't wait. I can't wait. In fact, I may ask people, as long as it's appropriate, to send concert selfies! I would love to share concert selfies! We want it to be very interactive. I'm so happy you'll be able to join.

Anthony, thanks for the Intel on your concert. I can't wait to see it.

Oh of course. Absolutely! Be well my friend and I'll talk to you soon.

Enjoy the day, kiddo.

Cath Anthony Nunziata and Eugene Gwozdz in their Living Room Concert tonight, March 17 and 7 pm by going to the Anthony Nunziata Facebook page HERE and the Anthony Nunziata FAN PAGE - You can also find Anthony online at his website

Update as of 12:39 pm March 17, per message from Anthony Nunziata: "To follow national guidelines, and abundance of caution, Eugene will not be joining me in person. He will lay down the songs ahead of time. The show WILL go on tonight at 7 pm!"