moon is a multi-disciplinary artist and creator living in the Niagara Region with roots in the Caribbean. In this episode, we dive into spirituality and the sacred as sources of healing and inspiration, the notion of divinity, the power words wield, good old magic, identity, binaries, and barriers.

There’s so much synergy and enthusiasm in this conversation, I’m excited for you to hear how it all unfolds.

Find moon's creations here:

https://www.earthandmoon.net/

Season one of Soft Opening is made possible with the support of the Niagara Falls Cultural Development Fund.

Co-Produced and Engineered By: Peter Haverkamp

Co-Produced and Hosted By: Catherine Skinner

Soft Opening Website

In the following episode, I have the pleasure of a deep dive with Maja Bannerman, a published writer, poet, songwriter and performance artist who lives here in the Niagara Region. Maja shares her passion for stepping into the lives of characters she creates to raise awareness, explore and process emotion, advocate, and tell story. We also talk about ancestors, the healing beauty of gratitude and simplicity, and the random surprises and serendipity of the universe.

You can find Maja's work here:

https://www.majabannerman.ca/

https://majabannerman.bandcamp.com/

Season one of Soft Opening is made possible with the support of the Niagara Falls Cultural Development Fund.

Co-Produced and Engineered By: Peter Haverkamp

Co-Produced and Hosted By: Catherine Skinner

Soft Opening Website

Steve Goldberger is a Genie award winning bandleader, producer, songwriter, and musician whose career has spanned over 50 years. In this episode, Steve shares his Musical origins within his Jewish Culture, learning by watching his legendary bass playing uncle.

We also talk about his 2025 Autobiography In a Life, a wonderful collection of stories from the span of his musical career, full of personal photographs and rock and roll ephemera. There’s an album of original music with the same name.

Steve’s openness and curiosity guide his creative life where he’s formed countless Friendships, some of them decades long, and community built around music and collaboration.

Steve also talks about Humility and gratitude as tools for balance and values upon which to create a lifelong artistic career, and how writing has been a tool that to create meaning and perspective through life, especially during some close brushes with mortality.

Find Steve, his books, his music, and tickets to upcoming shows here:

https://www.stevegoldberger.com/

https://stevegoldberger.bandcamp.com/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5ts4rYMKFVCAEoVbSvCyty

https://music.apple.com/us/artist/steve-goldberger/348745520

https://www.youtube.com/user/SteveGoldberger

Season one of Soft Opening is made possible with the support of the Niagara Falls Cultural Development Fund.

Co-Produced and Engineered By: Peter Haverkamp

Co-Produced and Hosted By: Catherine Skinner

Soft Opening Website

Carl David Onofrio, or C.D. as he is more commonly known, is a prolific Niagara Falls, Canada based poet, performer, and songwriter in his creative life and a spiritual care provider in his professional life. I’m a long-time admirer of both his written and musical work and was so excited to sit down with him. I’m equally excited to share the result with you. In this episode we talk about attention and intention, consumption and creation, flow experience as a tool for happiness, and C.D.’s tools for processing painful and difficult emotion.

You can find the music of C.D. Onofrio here:

https://cdonofrio.bandcamp.com/

A Sea of Gold and Burgundy:

https://aseaofgoldandburgundy1.bandcamp.com/

The Peace Projectors:

https://thepeaceprojectors.bandcamp.com/album/heart-to-heart

C.D.'s collections of poetry can be found here:

https://greybordersbooks.jigsy.com/carl-david-onofrio

Season one of Soft Opening is made possible with the support of the Niagara Falls Cultural Development Fund.

Co-Produced and Engineered By: Peter Haverkamp

Co-Produced and Hosted By: Catherine Skinner

Soft Opening Website

Joe Lapinski is a songwriter, producer, performer, and soundscape designer based in St. Catharine’s, Ontario. His fourth full length album ‘New Day’ was released earlier in 2025 and we sit down to talk about music and mental health. This open-hearted conversation covers finding deep, lasting love, building a family, and confronting trauma to show up better for yourself and the people you love the most. Joe is integral to the arts scene here in the Region, and it was a real joy getting to know him and hear about his self care practice and his creative process. He also shares an amazing resource for mental health support for musicians at the end of the episode.

You can find Joe at https://joelapinski.ca/

And on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7znLCQibxksjYZ9rxT9fLE

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/ca/artist/joe-lapinski/722296436

Bandcamp: https://joelapinski.bandcamp.com/

The Musician's Clinic of Canada: https://www.musiciansclinicsofcanada.com/

Season one of Soft Opening is made possible with the support of the Niagara Falls Cultural Development Fund.

Co-Produced and Engineered By: Peter Haverkamp

Co-Produced and Hosted By: Catherine Skinner

Soft Opening Website

Eve Atoms is a Niagara Region poet, songwriter, spoken word, and experiential artist. In this soul-connected conversation, we visit so many topics that resonate deeply; motherhood and the necessity of self-care, balancing a demanding career and creative life, spiritual agency, integrating Jedi wisdom, and the healing power of the forest. Eve asks tough questions about disability, spiritual and healing charlatans, and how to engage community in creativity and uses open-hearted curiosity to explore the answers.

Find Eve on Instagram @eveatoms

Season one of Soft Opening is made possible with the support of the Niagara Falls Cultural Development Fund.

Co-Produced and Engineered By: Peter Haverkamp

Co-Produced and Hosted By: Catherine Skinner

Soft Opening Website

Rick McLean is singer/songwriter who lives in the Niagara Region of Ontario, Canada. He is Anishinaabe, Odawa Wolf Clan, with roots in Wikwemikong Manitoulin Island. Rick is also a professor of Indigenous Studies at Mohawk College, a traditional knowledge keeper, sweat lodge conductor and pipe carrier who graduated from Brock University. His facilitation and counselling work has been ongoing for 35 years and through McLean Consulting Group, Rick leads a team who bring diversity, equality, and cultural safety training to businesses and organizations across Turtle Island. In this episode, Rick and I talk about our theatrical roots, how fatherhood has shaped his healing and creative paths, the responsibility of sharing Indigenous wisdom, and the power of music to educate, unify and heal.

Find Rick at https://mcleanconsultinggroup.com/

Season one of Soft Opening is made possible with the support of the Niagara Falls Cultural Development Fund.

Co-Produced and Engineered By: Peter Haverkamp

Co-Produced and Hosted By: Catherine Skinner

Soft Opening Website

In this episode, I sit down with Niagara Falls poet Courtney Tudman, who I discovered amidst the pandemic and whose work I quickly came to love as a source of incredible grounding and hope. Courtney and I have the most beautiful conversation in what feel to me like a reflection of souls. We chat about big childhood emotions, finding our writerly voice at an early age, the poetry of single motherhood, healing ancestral wounds through writing, and how the pen gives us a direct line to the divine.

You can find Courtney's writing @courtney_tudman_ on Instagram

And find her first collection of poetry, The Sacred Dance: A Poetic Dance Between Holding on And Letting Go here: https://www.amazon.ca/Sacred-Dance-between-Holding-Letting/dp/8195915167

Season one of Soft Opening is made possible with the support of the Niagara Falls Cultural Development Fund.

Co-Produced and Engineered By: Peter Haverkamp

Co-Produced and Hosted By: Catherine Skinner

Soft Opening Website