Worldview Pictures
news
Kate McGarrigle, star of Caffe Lena
MONTREAL - Kate McGarrigle, who performed with her sister Anna in one of music’s most enduring duos, died at her home in Montreal on January 18th.
During the 1970s and 1980s Kate & Anna McGarrigle were frequent performers at Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY. The acoustic music venue - the oldest, continuously operating coffee house in America - was started by theater and music patron Lena Spencer. Lena was a true American eccentric, and Kate had a deep appreciation of Lena’s devotion to music, and to the welfare of the musicians who played there.
Spalding Gray, who had performed at Caffe Lena early in his career, was playing in Albany in November 1989 and invited Lena to come see him. As she was leaving the cafe to see him, she fell down the stairs and died.
Two days after her death Worldview Pictures president Stephen Trombley, who had been a constant patron of Caffe Lena in his youth, asked Kate McGarrigle if she would work with him to put on a memorial concert for Lena. There would be a funeral service in a local church, followed by a more intimate concert in her tiny cafe that night.
In addition to Kate & Anna, the cast included Arlo Guthrie, Spaulding Gray, David Amram, David Bromberg, Rosalie Sorrels, Utah Philips, Rory Block and David van Ronk. In the weeks following the concert, Trombley and McGarrigle worked on her on-camera narration of the film. The two remained friends, meeting over the years in Montreal, Berlin and London. Says Trombley: “One of the few regrets I have as a filmmaker is that a planned Valentine’s Day concert featuring the Everly Brothers and the McGarrigle sisters didn’t come to fruition.”
The film, “Caffe Lena”, was Trombley’s first international documentary. It was a pledge special for PBS, and aired on BBC’s “Rhythms of the World” series.
Kate & Anna’s eponymous debut album for Warner Brothers was a critical success as was its follow-up, Dancer With Bruised Knees. They were to make ten albums over the decades, and their family Christmas shows at Carnegie Hall came to be staples of the New York holiday season. Kate had two children by her ex-husband Loudon Wainwright III - Rufus and Martha. Both have gained worldwide acclaim as musicians who carry on the McGarrigle tradition, forged at the family’s parlor piano.
Sigrid Close, Asteroid Hunter, moves from Los Alamos to Stanford
NEW YORK - Sigrid Close, star of Worldview’s forthcoming series Asteroid Hunter, has been named assistant professor in the department of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University. She had previously been a project leader at the Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico, working on three projects focused on satellite systems and space situational awareness.
In Asteroid Hunter, Professor Close will explore the dangers posed by near earth objects as small as a piece of dust to ones large enough to wipe out life on earth.
Before joining Los Alamos Professor Close taught at the Universities of New Mexico and Penn State. She took a B.S. in physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, an M.A. in Physics at the University of Texas, Austin, and her 
Ph.D. in Astronomy (Space Physics) at Boston University.
In addition to her work in astronomy, Sigrid is a talented singer and songwriter, whose album Mirrored Self self features, according to her, “all the angst of Tori Amos with only half the calories”.
