>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour is made with the deadline coming up April 15th.

The federal income tax deadline.

Admit it, you're a procrastinator.

Have you filed your taxes yet?

And if not, do you have anything that's tripping you up or making you concerned?

We're going to talk to a CPA to close the hour, who will offer some ideas, especially for the last minute filing class.

But first, a special musical performance is coming to Parcel 5, and you can have a front row seat of sorts.

And acclaimed composer is working with the Eastman School of Music and local musical groups on what's being called a spatial symphony, and our classical 91 five colleague, Mona Seghatoleslami will tell us all about it, but we're starting with a look back at June 2023, when smoke from record breaking wildfires in Canada blanketed New York and the rest of the northeast, a group of Cornell researchers were doing field work on grassland birds at the time, and their recording devices captured something remarkable birds across the state stopped singing.

One species in particular, the bobolink, had the sharpest drop in vocalizations.

My colleague Jeremy Mull recently reported on why the bird stopped singing, and he is with us in the studio now.

Welcome.

I was saying before the hour.

It's a fascinating story.

If it would be a cool story, if it wasn't so dark.

>> I know it's just it's one of these things that's a little bleak, but there is a little bit of hope with it too.

>> Yeah.

So how does this one hit your radar?

What did this what brought this one to your attention?

>> Sure.

Um, this is something that it was some research that came out of Cornell and they were publicizing it.

Um, knowing the, that people are interested in both birds and were very interested in that wildfire smoke event.

I just jumped on it saying, oh, here's two things that probably are going to interest our audience.

It really was that simple.

>> You know, when you said it was 2023, there were a couple years in a row where there was wildfire smoke pretty regularly.

Um, although that might have been the worst of it.

I don't know that we've had a fully clean spring and summer from wildfire smoke.

It's almost like we're getting used to it in a way.

>> Yeah, that's the projections.

You know, with climate change, they expect more forest fires.

They expect them to be more intense.

And New York is probably just going to keep getting hit with smoke from them.

>> So you talked to a Cornell PhD candidate and one of the researchers involved here about why it matters how often a bird is singing or chirping.

Tell me about that.

>> Yeah, it it was something I didn't know the answer to.

And she explained that these, um, these chirps, these songs, these vocalizations as the, the term I think they used, um, play some really key roles in the breeding season.

Uh, they, you know, they use them for attracting a mate.

They use them to defend the nest, they use them to communicate with the fledgling birds.

Um, and if they can't do any of that, uh, they, they say this very directly in the study that could lead to population declines.

>> So you talked to Tryphosa Simamora about this and let's listen to a little bit more detail on why this matters here.

>> During breeding season, they really need to sing.

So imagine we are as a human are being required or being told advised to stay inside, but they can't really go anywhere because that's their home.

Like the grassland area and they have to sing for defending their nests, for attracting female to do the mating season, and also to train their offspring.

Basically.

>> So it's not just about pleasing sounds for us.

I mean, there's a purpose to all of it here.

>> Yeah.

It's like so many things in nature.

You just don't that we don't think about.

But everything serves a purpose.

>> And the paper on the study that you're talking about is pretty direct about potential consequences here.

So tell us why it matters.

>> Well, I mean, grassland birds are part of our ecosystem.

And if we, you know, if they decline and their, their declining, who knows what will happen?

Who knows what else will go out of balance with that.

>> Yeah.

And I mentioned the bobolink off the top, because you're reporting finds that the bobolink in particular, I didn't even know what a bobolink is.

Here we go.

If you're on YouTube, you can see a picture of the bobolink.

It's a little guy.

>> It's a cute little one.

>> It is a cute little one.

>> It's got a nice little cap.

>> My stepfather growing up, worked at a golf course called Bobolink.

I always thought Bobolink meant Bob's links.

Like a golf course.

Like some guy named Bob.

It's the name of a bird.

>> We had a Facebook commenter who left the classic names Bob, Bob.

Oh.

>> Bob o link.

There you go.

Um, and so the bobolink you report has faced habitat loss and the effects of climate change that's cut its population by more than half.

>> More than half in over 50 years.

Yeah.

>> Amazing.

>> Yeah.

Habitat loss is a big reason for it.

Change in agricultural practices, uh, has contributed to that as well as development.

>> And so obviously wildfire smoke, you can look at the picture of that bird and think, I mean, just logically, you're going to be concerned about the effect on a creature like this.

And they're already been hammered by these other factors.

So they could be even more threatened here.

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And there's other, you know, there's always other emerging threats too that they have to deal with.

>> So what are the researchers anticipate for the future of these, of these bird species with obviously, we don't know what smoke events in the future.

But to your point, we kind of assume now that we're living with some level of wildfire smoke, climate change, et cetera.. Tell me about the future for them.

>> Sure.

So well, the future for them, as you said, with climate change, it might drive more habitat loss.

You know, there may be more smoke events, there may be additional stressors, or some of these stressors are worsening.

Um, this research actually grew out of a broader project that Tryphosa and the others were involved with.

Um, they're working with the state DC and they're studying the grassland birds and looking at conservation practices.

And the idea is to figure out which conservation practices work best so that they can more or less support these birds.

So they're a little more resilient against the other challenges.

>> And you had a chance to talk to Olivia Sandfort, who's a research scientist with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Um, kind of under the umbrella about what's coming next or what can people do?

And I want to listen to some of what Olivia told Jeremy.

>> Birds are really facing death by a thousand cuts.

So wildfire smoke might be one risk and it might be one risk that is harder for us to individually manage.

But there are other things we can do.

Bird glass collisions are a major risk to birds, and we can all do something in our own homes today to prevent that from occurring.

We can keep our cats indoors.

We can plant native gardens.

These are all things that will help birds now and make bird populations more resilient, so that when they are faced with something like wildfire smoke, they are better poised to thrive through that.

>> I mean, there's a lot of good stuff there.

The one question I had listening to that was the bird glass collisions.

My first thought was a windshield.

I think she's talking about windows in the house.

>> She is talking about windows in buildings.

Yeah.

This is a well-documented problem.

Um, for everything from, you know, your house to skyscrapers.

Um, you know, the birds colliding with the glass in large numbers.

Uh, Cornell, the Lab of Ornithology has a web, a web page devoted to that, and it has some tips on what you can do if you want to keep the birds from smashing into your windows.

>> Including not having screens, I guess.

>> Yeah, one of them's just having a screen on the outside of the window.

Um, putting stickers in the window.

Um.

>> So they, they don't view this as just something they can fly through.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> Interesting.

>> Yeah.

The solutions are pretty simple.

I think.

>> Interesting.

Um, so as you say, what's next is this effort to sort of stabilize these populations?

Did you get the sense that this is crisis level or that it's moving in that direction?

>> I think it depends.

It depends on the species as a whole.

Grassland birds are, uh, the term imperiled gets used a lot.

They're not necessarily endangered yet, but you take one that is like the bobolink where we talked about that population loss.

And it is considered at a tipping point right now.

Um, so if the if we can't shore up the, the habitat or whatever these birds need for their population, we may see further declines.

>> I will just say this, as we close this section with Jeremy, we spent last hour talking about the big parts of climate law and climate change issues.

And there's obviously big ones.

These are the stories that remind us that there are countless other little ripple effects throughout society.

Some we might not even sort of be cognizant of.

>> Absolutely.

And this issue also goes along with, um, I want to choose my words carefully here.

This also goes along with renewable renewables development in the siting aspect of it.

One of the things that researchers are looking at is how to best, um, basically harmonize the renewables development with the needs of the birds.

>> Interesting.

Okay, so, uh, but you're not sitting here saying that windmills destroy all birds.

>> No.

>> Okay.

As we've heard the president say, look, there's, there's gray area everywhere.

And I'm sure that there are some very smart people like Olivia Sander foot and Tryphosa Kimura and others who Jeremy talked to, who are concerned about these bird populations.

Really good stuff for all of us to know about.

Thank you for coming in.

>> And these are very smart people.

So yes, they are.

>> Smarter than me.

Jeremy, uh, thank you for being here as always.

>> Yeah, thanks for having me.

>> Jeremy Moule.

Our colleague at WXXI, deputy editor for WXXI News short break.

We're coming back with our colleague Mona Seghatoleslami from classical 91 five.

I'm Evan Dawson Monday on the next Connections.

My colleague Gino Fanelli hosts a conversation about the state of the cannabis industry five years after the rollout of the marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act.

In our second hour.

It's live, it's energetic, it is slam poetry, WXXI classical Mona Seghatoleslami talks about the art of spoken word performance as we celebrate the 30th National Poetry Month.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

We have a Rochester Broadcast or a spatial symphony or call it whatever you want, but I'm sure my colleague Mona Seghatoleslami will tell us that you won't want to miss it.

Hey, it's nice to see you in my studio.

In our studio, in the talk studio.

>> I've headed down the hall and been glad to grace your studio with my presence.

>> I'm not allowed in your studio, so it's nice to have you here.

Mona is music director, host and producer for classical 91 five, and we're going to play your interview in a moment with composer.

>> Lisa Bielawa.

She.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

>> Well, well, what what's the elevator pitch on who Lisa is and what you want people to understand.

Before we listen to this interview here?

>> Sure.

So she is sort of like an embedded reporter.

She's an embedded composer in our community.

Over these last few months, she's been working with students from Eastman school of the Arts, community groups, and the piece she's working on is a piece she's staged all different places, including by the Berlin Wall in airfields in, I think, Knoxville, Tennessee.

It's called broadcast and not like what you and I do broadcast.

But the idea is it starts at a central place and it builds outward with all the musicians working together.

So it's a piece that sort of gets at the idea of space and community.

And that's what I was really excited to talk to her because she's written traditional concert hall pieces, winner of all sorts of great international prizes, Guggenheim Fellowships.

So she's a very respected international composer, but she also really thinks a lot, not just about the notes she writes, but what music means as a relationship between us and our community.

>> It's a lot of beautiful ideas here.

Let's listen to that conversation.

>> I'm so excited about this performance on April 18th that we'll all get to hear, and many will get to participate in, right?

Yeah.

Will you actually talk to me about these broadcasts, pieces that you've created for spaces all over the world?

>> Yeah.

Well, this is going to be Rochester Broadcast.

And each time each iteration of this project is kind of a new composition, it draws from the same toolbox, but it's, it's sort of, you know, shaped to, to kind of fit each community that I, that I, that I make it in.

And this will be the fifth large city broadcast.

Um, and what that means is, you know, usually at least a couple hundred musicians coming together in public space.

And these can be musicians of all different stripes, you know, it can be professionals, amateurs, students, community orchestras, you know, middle school bands.

I've had, uh, Chinese instrument ensembles in San Francisco.

I had a West African drumming group in Knoxville.

So I made the piece first in Berlin back in 2013.

And then since then it's been done in San Francisco and Louisville.

And, and Knoxville.

So this will be the fifth sort of full iteration of the broadcast.

And this one, Rochester Broadcast, is being built right now.

>> So can you give us some hint as to what the musicians are working on or what sort of things we'll hear, even though it probably changes in the space?

>> It absolutely does.

Yeah.

Um, one of the things that I like to have as my starting place is that I want the project to have no barriers to access to participation.

So what that means is that there are always ways for people who don't read music to be part of it.

There are always ways for groups at any level to be part of it, um, and also, uh, it's got to be made so that it's as easy as possible for people to prepare.

So what that means is I actually create a piece that's if you want to imagine it's for, let's say, 12 players, right?

But each player is an entire group, right?

So it gets rehearsed in the group's own rehearsal periods at their own times.

Right.

And then what happens is the only time it actually ever happens altogether is in the performance.

So it's possible for the for the piece to be prepared entirely in advance during, you know, first period orchestra class or, or whatever it is.

Now, in order for that to work, um, I have an individual one, one player.

And in this case, it's going to be an Eastman Eastman musician, right?

That gets embedded in each group, you know, like an embedded journalist and, you know, in an army or something.

So each orchestra or band or music group choir has one embedded Eastman musician in it.

And those musicians can actually rehearse with me in a skeletal way, right?

With just one person representing each group to sort of determine how the, you know, to practice how the piece will actually happen.

The reason I'm going like this is that I'm broadcasting my fingers away from each other because the piece is called broadcast, not because it has anything to do with radio.

I'm sorry to say, but because it broadcasts from the center of the space.

So all of the groups will start performing at the center of Parcel 5.

And then over the course of a half hour, they will move away.

They will broadcast away from the center.

>> That's amazing.

So often many of us are involved in music, whether it's listening or singing in the church choir or playing in a community group, but sometimes it feels like there are bubbles.

There's the Eastman bubble, and this really is one of the few projects I've seen that really breaks that apart and puts us together.

>> Well, you know, I mean, Dean Sheeran, Dean Kate Sheeran at at at Eastman, she and I worked on projects like this before together when she was in New York and, and even in San Francisco.

And one of the things that, that she said initially to me in our first phone call about it was that, you know, Rochester has a very high sort of musician per capita, you know, number.

So I think there are a lot of, you know, the cities that are are right for this project are the ones where there's a lot of music making happening all over the city.

But yes, perhaps, maybe it's happening in bubbles, you know?

So this project actually has a kind of a sustainable impact on hopefully that's one of the goals, right, is it can have a sustainable impact on a community because groups that are making music in their own worlds can become aware of each other and they can often be sort of new relationship sparked that way.

And just a new appreciation for all the different kinds of music making that are happening in the in the city.. >> For you.

Why music?

I know you grew up in a musical family and you sort of went away from music a bit by majoring in English, but you've made this your whole life now.

>> Yeah, I mean, you know, when you grow up in a musical family, there's this sort of expectation that you are either going to go into music or you're not, and that expectation gets, you know, gets, gets sort of watched from the time you're very young.

Like I started playing violin at three and, you know, so I did in fact go to, I went to Yale for, for undergrad.

And while I was there, I didn't necessarily think I wouldn't major in music.

Right.

But I did want to go to Yale because it had an amazing academic, you know, department.

And I was also kind of a nerd.

I mean, I wasn't, you know, I was a book, I was a book booky bookish, you know, person I loved to read.

And I always loved narrative and storytelling.

Um, and so when I was at Yale, what I discovered was that I could get into the advanced music classes if I just tested into the advanced music classes, but I couldn't get into the advanced literature classes unless I was a major.

It was just too competitive.

So the only way for me to take advanced classes in both was to major in literature.

>> So it's a bit practical.

>> It was a bit practical.

However, I will say it ended up being particularly, um, a powerful choice for me, I think in the long run, because I do think that a lot of the skills I learned and the sort of the sensibilities that I, that I, that I, that I got through sort of osmosis in the literature department made their way into my compositional practice.

So this idea of a story being told, you know, it's always about community.

For me, it's not I'm not one of those kinds of composers and they're wonderful, you know, who are all about sort of the sonic properties of instruments or I love those things too.

Timbral things.

Those are exciting.

But for me, really, the heart and soul of what music making is for me as a, as a creative person is the story and also the characters, the community, who are the, you know, who is the klezmer band who, you know, what is their, what role do they play in the story of this piece?

You know, what about the Rochester Medical Orchestra?

What is their deal?

How are they going to what is their what's their vibe?

What, you know, when they enter the scene, what kind of how do they change the story.?

>> And did you find your way into creating your own music, composing this way with stories?

Was there a one specific impetus or how did you find that, you know, singing in the chorus and the rest was not just where you would be?

>> I think, you know, this is this is a really good question.

Um, and I think this is maybe an unusual circumstance for me.

It's not just that I grew up in a musical household.

My father was a composer, right?

So my brother and I, you know, little kids want to, they mimic their parents, you know, so I was writing music by the time I was around seven or something like that.

And, and we didn't really know it was because we saw him do it.

I mean, my father would write music in the living room because that's where the piano was.

So we'd come home from school or we'd, you know, we'd see him banging out and scribbling.

And before we even really knew what we were doing, we would go bang, bang, bang, bang, scribble, scribble, because we thought that was what you know, that's what big people do.

>> Yeah.

Like picking up a phone and being on a conference call or something, which I guess is probably dated now.

>> Yeah.

Right.

So I think that was something that was always there and that I always, always was doing.

Um, and for a long time it was sort of under the radar, you know, it wasn't as if I considered myself a composer.

Um, but I was writing music the whole time.

I never stopped writing music ever since I was really, really little.

But it's not that I necessarily considered myself a composer.

>>, sort of more of a creator or, you.

>> Know, it just was something I did, you know, I was also singing jazz.

I mean, I was a singing cocktail waitress on Martha's Vineyard in my late teens, you know, I mean, I was just doing all kinds of stuff.

I was, I was, I was a musician.

I was trying, I was trying to find ways to participate in music making if they needed a pianist.

I play the piano.

If they, you know, I played the violin until I was in my teenage years too.

But, um, I'll still pick up a, you know, I'll still pick up a fiddle if it helps get the group that I want.

The old time players in Appalachia to be part of Knoxville broadcast.

I'll pick up a fiddle, you know?

So whatever it was that was needed or that was going to make it possible for me to spark the most vitality in a musical community, I would do.

And if that meant writing the music, which increasingly it did, right, it started to become clear that that as a composer and a singer, I'm still a professional singer, that it started to be the case that those two things really kind of pulled out front.

And those are the things that I've kind of done now over decades at a higher level.

>> Um, well, certainly, yes.

Guggenheim and Rome Prize.

Definitely.

So I do want to say these pieces are often in urban spaces, sometimes have been at airports, one at a very historic location, the Mauer, the Berlin Wall.

>> That's right.

>> Is this, as you've mentioned, just about your relationship with community and people, or do you also have a certain relationship with nature and outdoor spaces?

>> I think I have a relationship with urban outdoor spaces.

So I would say it's probably in some ways not really nature, but human nature that I'm mostly interested in.

I, I have a real fascination with Jane Jacobs and like urban planning and like, I love urban studies, you know, um, I've lived in New York City my whole adult life.

And I just, I really am a very urban person.

And one of the reasons I love urban life is that it is this sort of it's a place where people from such different kinds of experiences and backgrounds are thrown together in one place, and they function ideally, you know, in this kind of very, um, sort of symbiotic way, you know, um, and so I like to celebrate that.

I like to sort of celebrate urban space by considering it, you know, in the case of the Tempelhof airfield, which is where the first one was that that was a military airfield, of course, a historic one that was sort of given back to the city and given back to people.

So I love the idea of people coming and reclaiming a space, right in, in, um, in Knoxville, the it was an old train yard that became the World's Fair park.

And then that's where we, that's where we did it.

So here Parcel 5, you know, it's right in the middle of the city, right?

It's just you drop these groups right in the middle of the city and it says the, you know, the I heart r o c there, you know, it just has this like, incredible, um, it has this incredible, like really nesting feeling.

You're right in the heart of the city.

>> It's a space that in a way almost didn't exist.

Yeah.

We've been told this.

Yeah, yeah.

That it was a mall before I lived here.

When I moved here 14 years ago, it was a construction site.

And then there were all these proposals.

Should it be like Washington Square Park, or should it be a Broadway theater?

Should it be this?

And it kept being open and people started playing volleyball on it and putting concerts on it.

>> And so it really was reclaimed by the people.

Yeah.

You know, which is great.

And I love the fact that it's just there, you know, and now there's a tradition, of course, of doing performances there, but this one is going to be different because it doesn't have any electricity.

There's no electricity at all.

There's no music stands.

It just happens and it's gone.

You know, it's this sort of ephemeral thing that just, you know, it's a little flash mob like that way, you know, it just happens and then it's over.

And I love that, you know, because it's about sort of something kind of sort of converging, you know, in the middle of a city and then and then going away.

>> The one other thing I think I've experienced like that here is in the High Falls neighborhood where our station is located, the percussion ensemble years ago performed John Luther Adams piece, I think, that called for them to be all over the space.

And it was exciting.

>> Yeah, John and I were working on our our pieces at the right around the same time, you know, so I think it was in the air, for him.

I think a lot of times, of course, it has been about nature, you know.

And so I mean, I know, I know John.

And you know, we've sort of we've actually served together on the board of the American Music Center years and years ago.

But I think our fascination, there's some overlaps in our fascinations.

Um, and then also some, you know, also some interesting kind of, uh, contrasts to.. >> So what else have you been finding out about Rochester as you've been here both working and singing with?

I think you sang with an Eastman ensemble back in the fall semester.

>> That was really fun.

I sang a piece with Musica Nova and Brad Lubman.

Yeah, that was great.

I sort of thought that would be a fun way to kind of, again, drop myself right in the middle of a community, you know, why not get up on stage with the students and see, you know, what a great way that that's, that's a way to sort of narrow the distance between me and the students to just work alongside them and build something together like that.

So that was, that was great fun.

Yeah.

Gave me a chance to kind of see, you know, what the, what the kids are like together, how they, what the musical culture is there.

There was a lot of fun.

It was a lot of fun.

And I think what I'm learning about Rochester musical life is, you know, musicians here, people especially avocational musicians, people who play in, you know, in orchestras like yourself.

Mhm.

Um, the impression I get is that there is this really keen interest in high level music making here.

And people position themselves not just as RPO, you know, audience members, but they actually continue their practice into into adulthood in a way that is a pretty high level for just people who don't do that for a living uniformly.

>> Yeah.

We have, um, also we have just a whole range.

This is where New Horizons started, which is for people who've retired to pick up instruments and be in bands.

And so someone could say, sure, I remember a bit of violin from my childhood.

Do I want to learn more violin or do I want to become a tuba player now?

>> Right.

I've seen a lot of that too.

People just picking up whatever the community orchestra needs them to pick up, and there's a real readiness here.

I mean, there are a lot of things that I write for these groups that are kind of outside the box.

And and that's been a real readiness to just, you know, a wonderful kind of, um, a desire to just be part of it and a Rochester, Rochester, Ians seem really kind of game to me.

>> I am, of course, a big champion for all of that here.

But yeah, my colleague Brenda, who's a singer and a church organist, also started some handbell choirs in Brockport.

And I'm hoping that it seems that one of my orchestras is going to be part of this piece.

So I'll be out in out in Parcel 5.

>> Yeah, it'd be great.

>> So is there anything else people should know for coming to attend it or what they might be experiencing or how to experience it?

Or is it just kind of come out to the park?

>> I mean, I think one of the things that you can probably intuit, of course, is if all the groups are starting at the center of Parcel 5, and then by the end of the performance, they've, they've broadcast out from the center.

The question is, where is the audience?

Right?

There won't be any chairs there.

Right.

So you'll just be milling around the way you would.

The park will just look, the Parcel 5 will look like Parcel 5 always does.

Right?

But if you think about it for the beginning of the performance, people listening are going to have to be around the larger group, right?

But then as the piece starts to spread out, where are you going to listen from?

And I haven't solved that for you.

So it's sort of a way to kind of invite people to be their own mixing engineer, right?

They get to decide where they want to stand, to listen to it at a certain point in the piece, there will be groups that are so far away from each other that they won't be able to hear each other, but it's possible that if you position yourself halfway in between them, you might be able to hear them both.

And that's part of what I'm writing for.

I'm writing for foreground and background and, and sort of for possibilities like that, you know, to create a kind of a tapestry.

And there is an arc to the piece.

It's not a sound sculpture.

>> Um.

>> It does have a story.

It does have a narrative arc.

And so, uh, then we're going to do it twice.

Um, so we'll do it at noon and at 2:00 on, on, on April 18th.

So that gives people an opportunity.

I'd recommend coming twice, you know, go across the street, have some lunch, come back.

Um, because that'll give you a chance to, to take a different path, maybe follow a different, you know, hear it from a different vantage point.

Plus it's going to be different, you know, it'll be different.

>> There are so many things that have happened that for me have started to change how I think about what music making means and what community means.

And it seems so much, you know, whether it's the pandemic, whether it's this sense of social isolation and seeing younger kids need to connect in a different way that, you know, I used to often say for me, when I was younger, it was about the music.

I love Mendelssohn and I love Mozart, and I got older.

It's about what music does in our lives and with each other.

So I don't know if you have any other thoughts on something that's sort of shifted for you, or you find as you do this.

>> I would say that that's always what it's been about for me, but that what I'm learning now is that that is I mean, sometimes you, you're not really in in sync with the times, you know, uh, but what I'll say is that this piece I started, I started making these big broadcast works in 2013, but it feels really more intense doing it now.

The work itself, it's the same work, my values and my priorities are the same.

But I do think that I've lately felt like my my work is coming closer to something that, especially that generation seems also to need.

So there's a resonance there that's new.

The work isn't new.

I haven't changed, I'm the same, but the resonance seems to be new.

>> Lisa Bielawa, thank you very much.

>> Thank you.

Mona.

Yeah.

>> And thank you to my colleague Mona Seghatoleslami for bringing us that story.

Mona is the music director, host and producer for WXXI classical 91 five.

We're closing the week.

It is tax season.

Some of the biggest mistakes.

The IRS says that Americans are making this tax season will have those and some maybe last minute filing ideas next.

I'm Evan Dawson Monday on the next Connections.

My colleague Gino Fanelli hosts a conversation about the state of the cannabis industry five years after the rollout of the marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act.

In our second hour.

It's live, it's energetic, it is slam poetry, WXXI classical Mona Seghatoleslami talks about the art of spoken word performance as we celebrate the 30th National Poetry Month.

>> As public radio stations across the country navigate an uncertain funding future, it's time for you to become a sustaining member or increase your monthly contribution to your public radio station.

Your support ensures the future of independent media in this community and beyond.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson maybe you're a procrastinator.

I've said that there are different classes of procrastinators.

There were the kids when I was growing up who would write their term paper the day before it was due.

That wasn't me.

I'd wake up at five in the morning, the day it was due and do it then, and we had a dot matrix printer.

Do you know how slow those printers were?

Kids these days have no idea what procrastination really is about.

But if you've waited to do your taxes, or if you're just curious about maybe what you ought to be knowing about taxes, or if you feel like, am I really getting the most out of my returns, it's a good way to end the week.

We're bringing in Mark Kovaleski, who is a CPA and managing partner and chair of the executive Committee at Member Co.

How did I do there?

>> Mark Minab and co.

>> MLB, MLB, MLB and co, and you've got a great team.

We've we've talked to your team before, so we appreciate Minab and co sharing you because I know this is how busy are you right now.

>> Well we're a little bit busy.

We have things going on for sure.

>> Don't you tell your clients start sooner than this.

>> We tell people we need their stuff by March 6th to get their return out in time.

>> March 6th.

>> Do we adhere to that?

No.

>> See, here's.

>> The thing.

There's still some coming in now as we speak.

>> April 15th is April 15th every year.

Why do I wait so long?

I know it's coming.

>> Great question.

I think if we extended the tax deadline to May 15th, we would get everybody's information on May 12th.

>> Yeah, I was going to say extending it would only make us procrastinate more.

Okay.

So are you seeing anything interesting or standout or different this year compared to most?

>> I would say the big things this year are people being able to itemize their deductions instead of taking the standard deduction.

Some of the changes with the DBA increase the salt cap deduction.

I know that's been spoken about before.

So people are able to take advantage of itemizing their deductions.

So things like your property taxes, your mortgage interest, charitable contributions are coming back into play now more than they have than we've seen in the past.

>> It's itemized versus the standard deduction.

>> Itemized versus standard.

Whatever is higher.

We could optimize that.

>> Typically, which is higher.. >> In the past it was the standard deduction because there was a cap on the amount you could claim for income taxes or property taxes.

So in a high state, high tax state like New York, both from a property tax perspective and an income tax perspective that was previously capped at $10,000.

So if you put your real estate taxes together, your income taxes, and it was 30,000, you only could take 10,000.

So then you had to include your mortgage interest and charitable contributions for the most part, and see if the total of those was higher than the standard deduction, which is set by the government every year.

And most people in the past were able to take the standard, would be more advantageous for them to take the standard deduction.

But now with that $10,000 cap being raised to 40,000 for most taxpayers, now they're able to itemize.

So they're getting a little bit more bang for their buck.

And it also allows the charitable contributions to come back into play as being deductible.

>> For you.

Okay.

So is it more work?

>> It is more work because it's more information.

>> But more return.

>> But more advantageous for us.

>> Okay, so there are some people who will take the standard deduction, not realizing that they could have itemized and done better.

>> Correct.

>> Okay.

But not your clients.

>> Absolutely not.

>> No.

>> We're looking to maximize everybody's potential refund.

>> Okay.

So the difference in that cap from 10,000 going to 40 K talk to me a little bit about what people might misunderstand about charitable contributions and how it affects their taxes.

>> Sure.

So a couple of things on the charitable contribution side, like I said, in the past, people would provide their charitable contributions.

But because the standard deduction was higher, they didn't really factor into it.

So hopefully it didn't take away people's philanthropic abilities to contribute to charities, but they most likely didn't get a direct tax write off for that.

And then I think the other thing you have to be careful on the charitable side that we see is, you know, things like a GoFundMe page, for example, are not eligible for charitable contribution.

It has to be to a prescribed 500 and 1C3 organization.

>> That's interesting.

Do you get questions about GoFundMe contributions?

>> We do.

Yeah.

Everybody wants to try to write off whatever they can, so they're going to send anything that they might deem to be a donation or a charitable contribution, but has to meet prescribed rules in order to be deductible.

>> You're not the policy maker here.

I'm not going.

>> To shoot.

>> The messenger.

I'm not going to make you be the policy maker.

I want to ask you if you think it makes sense that for the moment, GoFundMe isn't included in the category of being allowed to write off.

>> Um, it's just a slippery slope, you know?

What is the GoFundMe?

>> Because.

Because you can set up a GoFundMe for almost anything.

>> Exactly.

Where if you're a 500 and 1C3 organization, you're the Humane Society or your Ronald McDonald House.

You've gone through a prescribed set of procedures with the state and the government to be listed as a qualified charity.

>> Okay, I think I see the phone ringing.

We can't he can't do your return in ten minutes here.

He can try to help you in general ways.

Mark Kovaleski from me and co, we appreciate him being here.

Um, the one other thing on charitable contributions that I hear sometimes is, well, okay, I gave $1,000 to a charity.

Well, that's you can write that off.

That's a $1,000 off your taxes.

Not correct.

Take me through the math there.

>> Sure.

Big difference between a credit and a deduction.

So that $1,000 contribution will be a deduction from your total income.

So say your wages are just using rough math here $100,000.

You make that $1,000 charitable contribution.

You could itemize.

You're going to pay tax on $99,000.

Whereas opposed to some people think that's a direct write off.

So you on your $100,000, you have a $15,000 tax bill.

They think they're going to pay 14,000.

That's a credit, not a deduction.

>> Okay.

So on the deduction side, in your math, $1,000 charitable contribution that you can write off probably saves you a couple hundred in taxes.

Something like that.

>> It depends about what your effective tax rate is.

So the higher individual is going to have more of a percentage.

Uh, tax rate that they have applied to that $1,000 contribution than somebody in the lower bracket.

>> Okay.

A credit is the full amount.

>> That's correct.

>> Okay.

But don't get those twisted.

They're correct.

Okay.

I went to, um, I asked the IRS what the biggest mistakes people are making this year, and I want to walk through some of them with you.

If you, if you don't mind here, but I'm curious to know what do you think the IRS said the biggest mistake people are making.

>> Not hiring a professional tax preparer.

>> That's on the list, although, listen, listen, Mark, I'm sure that mm and co does great work.

Um, you know, for the turbotax's of the world.

Um, is that a useful tool you think.

>> I do.

I think for certain people that um, have a very easy tax return to do that might be a good tool for them.

But I like to tell people if you were going to remodel your basement and you had to rewire your electricity, you could probably go to Home Depot and do a YouTube video or ChatGPT, how to rewire your basement.

But is that really something you want to do?

So it's more expensive than a TurboTax, but to have the peace of mind and have the knowledge that you're not leaving any potential deductions off your return, I think it's worth hiring a professional.

>> All right, here's the here's their report.

Number one, failing to report all income and especially things like, according to the IRS, crypto sales and side hustles.

So the full picture of someone's income, they might think, well, here's my main salary.

Here's the job.

But if they're not reporting side income, they're not given the full picture.

Right?

>> Correct.

So I think what gets lost in that is some other things, like for example, your W-2 gets reported to you, it gets reported to the state, it gets reported to the IRS that your, your side hustle that you mentioned, you have a landscaping business or something along those lines.

That income is not reported to the IRS, right?

So there's no mechanism that comes to you to say, I need to report this, but anything that's income derived from your trade or business needs to show up on your tax return, okay?

>> Even if it's a small amount.

>> Correct.

>> What's the smallest amount that they could tax you for?

>> Well, it really depends.

Like if you, if you do business with somebody, I think one thing that's commonly overlooked is, um, say you do have this side hustle.

You're a sole proprietor doing something.

If somebody, a company is reporting more than $600 of wages to you, that that would be required to go on a 1099 neck.

Some people feel like, well, it was only 500, so I don't have to report it.

That's not the case.

So any of the income that comes in needs to show up on your return.

If you were to get audited, they could go to the level of looking at your bank statements and see cash that's coming in to your bank statement and prove that.

And if you can't prove it's a loan or it's personal repayment of debt or something like that, that should be shown as income on your tax return.

>> Okay.

Now, how often are you running into crypto sales?

>> Um, less than 10% of our client base, but it is becoming more.

>> I mean, ten years ago, more relevant.

None.

>> Right?

>> Correct.

Yeah.

So now it's more relevant.

Yeah.

What do you tell people about crypto?

>> Um, same thing.

Just like if you had a brokerage statement and you were, you were selling shares of stock, um, shares of Kodak or Xerox or whatever that any type of transaction that would occur like that is similar to an investment that you would need to record on your tax return as well.

>> If I, if I come to you as a client and I say, all right, look, I sold half a Bitcoin, but the IRS is not going to know that.

So why do I have to report that I don't have a W2 for it?

I don't have, you know, a paper trail.

What's the answer?

>> Ethics or morality that that's the right thing to do that's prescribed to you.

So if you have, if you have the knowledge that it should be reported on your tax return and you have that information, it should be whether or not the IRS has also received notification of that income as well.

>> Can the IRS track crypto sales in any way?

>> Uh, not not that I know of.

>> If they do like a full audit of you, will they find something?

>> Yeah.

I mean, the most, uh, invasive audit, if you will.

They could look at every one of your records that you have for the year, and you have to prove to them what that amount is.

And if you can't prove it, it's recorded as income, reported as income on your tax return.

>> Okay.

So the number one, it's the law.

So report your crypto sales.

Okay.

Number two, um, don't assume that they won't figure it out eventually.

Although most people don't get audited.

But that's not a reason not to report.

I mean, I'm sure you don't advise people.

You probably won't get audited, so don't report it.

Correct.

Okay.

Um, and number three, do you think most crypto sales do get reported to the IRS?

>> I would say no, probably at this time, you know, it's different different market out there.

But again, I think the most important thing to do is that if you know that sale, regardless of whether it's reported, you have the obligation on your return.

And we have the obligation as tax preparers to make sure that we're signing a return that we feel is accurate.

>> I feel like five years ago, people could have really claimed more ignorance on what to do about crypto sales these days.

Probably less so.

Agreed.

Do you agree with that?

Yeah.

Um, okay.

So that's that was number one on what the IRS says is a very common mistake.

Then they've got neglecting to update withholding.

Okay, so tell me about that.

>> Sure.

So, um, a good example is, um, my daughter just got married, uh, New Year's Eve, which by the way, is perfect tax planning for.

Did she get married.

>> On New Year's Eve?

But your advice.

>> No, no.

>> But you thought it was great.

>> It was great.

Right?

So she's so she's able to file a married filing joint return, which has, uh, benefits to her from a, from a taxability standpoint.

So now going into the, the year her next year, you want to update your withholdings on your W-2 because you're, you had a life event, uh, similar to maybe a benefits package or something like that, but you have a life event, whether maybe you get married, you have another child, you have other income from other sources, things like that to help smooth out the withholdings during the year.

So you don't have a big surprise at the end of the year either in the way of a a large refund or a large payment that's due when you file your tax return.

>> What was that conversation like with your daughter?

Did you tell her how proud you were of her?

>> Exactly, exactly.

>> In so many different ways.

In so many different ways.

Um, okay.

So, uh, not updating, withholding, how often are people making that mistake, by the way?

>> Um, usually when there's a life event.

>> When there's a life event.

>> Exactly.

>> Okay.

And that's why you try to get to know your clients and you understand everything that would come into play for that.

>> Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing that we could do for our clients.

And the recommendation I would have for people that have paid tax preparer is to have that communication throughout the year with them.

Um, so we're aware of these situations and could provide the proactive advice if we're getting the information now to file their 2025 return.

It's too late.

>> Uh, next on the list is choosing the wrong filing status.

Okay, tell me about that.

>> So same thing, you know, your filing statuses could be single, married, filing joint, um, head of household.

Um, so, and they all have different tax ramifications to it.

So you want to make sure you're in the appropriate, uh, classification for, for that.

That's not something that we see a lot of.

>> Okay.

How often are you working with a client who may be divorced, shares custody?

There's a rotation of who's claiming a child.

You know, the IRS says that that is also on the list of occasional missteps or confusion for filers.

So how often are you seeing that correct?

>> We do see that in our client base that, you know, the custody of the child and who would be able to claim them would rotate every year.

It's one thing now, when we electronically file tax returns that you have to indicate who's claiming the client.

So, um, if there's a situation where both, um, parents claim the child that one of those returns will get rejected in the file system, which is again a little different than it was ten years ago when everything was just mailed in, in paper.

You had to wait for the IRS to sort it out.

Now, they'll immediately know that one of those returns is incorrect, because both parents would be claiming the same child, and that's done by Social Security number.

>> Okay.

And probably the IRS does not want to adjudicate squabbles between exes.

>> Who does?

>> That's fair.

Um, okay.

But but valuable to know, by the way, what you are entitled to.

And I'm sure you work with your clients on that too.

Correct.

What does head of household status technically mean by law?

By the way, you mentioned that as a status.

>> So.

Right.

Yeah, you would be it could be after a, uh, it's it could be after a divorce.

It could be after a death in the family where you have a child that you're responsible for in your household.

That would be the difference between the head of household and the single filing status.

>> Gotcha.

Okay.

IRS also says on their list of mistakes people are making, not signing returns is still on the list.

People don't sign returns.

They don't sign their returns.

>> That one surprises me a little.

>> I thought you'd be surprised at that.

I can't even believe that's a thing anymore.

>> The vast majority of returns now are sent in electronically, so they don't really even need a manual signature.

The way it works in our world is we would send the return to you as our client, right?

We would get a signature page back from you that allows us to press the button to electronically transmit the return to the IRS or whatever applicable state.

>> Strange.

Okay.

And finally missing new 2026 deductions.

The IRS says people are not always aware of.

Does this go back to the charitable contributions or anything else we should know about it?

>> I would think so.

I think that's related to your your itemized deductions that are out there.

And, um.

Largely that would relate to the charitable contributions your, your mortgage interest, your, your real estate taxes.

>> So reading a little news, looking ahead to 2027 because we're all going to get ahead.

By the way, after this conversation where no one's going to procrastinate anymore, uh, for the 2026 tax year filing in 2027, The child tax credit will increase to a maximum of $2,200 per qualifying child under the age of 17.

I'm reading up from $2,000.

That change was part of, uh, the the federal the so-called one big beautiful bill act that passed last year.

And it also indexes the credit to inflation and makes the $700 refundable portion permanent.

Um, how common is that going to come into play next year, you think?

>> Oh for sure.

And we're seeing that a lot in our client base this year where, uh, people are eligible to take that child tax credit.

So I think it'll be, um, continued and it's nice to see it that it's in indexed for inflation moving forward as well.

>> Okay.

And then last month, the Bipartisan Policy Center conducted a tax filing season survey with the polling and analytics firm signal.

And they asked several dozen questions of Americans who filed their taxes for 2026.

Here are some of the things that they found that I wanted to also ask you about tips and overtime earners filed earlier and showed higher awareness of 2025 tax law changes than other filers, tips and overtime earners like Bravo to that category.

Does that surprise you?

>> Well, no, because you know, with some of the changes that that came into place in terms of how the, uh, tax on overtime would be computed, I think there's people and they also have, um, uh, potentially more simple tax returns that what we see a lot is the W-2 information that comes out comes out pretty well.

And, you know, needs to be out by the end of January, where some of the other reports that you need to get maybe an brokerage statement from, uh, your investments or, um, AK1 from something that you own another partnership from where those are still trickling in right now.

So that information that would be captured on your W-2 tips and overtime comes out a little bit earlier.

So that doesn't surprise me that they might be filing a little bit earlier as well.

>> The survey also found that most filers found the new deductions and credits easy to claim, though uptake lagged behind eligibility.

Does that surprise you?

Uptake lagged so people were not always aware of what they're eligible for.

So they're a little behind on that.

But once they knew they were aware, they thought, okay, the system is set up pretty easily.

Claiming is not difficult if you know what you're eligible for.

Is that a good description?

>> That's correct.

Right.

So and I think everything that comes out historically is always so late in the season as well.

So, you know, a lot of the communication and things being finally set by by Washington is just so late.

By the time it's communicated and you realize that it's for real, it might take you a little bit to, to be able to claim those deductions.

We see it on the tax software as well, where some of the forms think about all the forms that need to be put together to capture some of these new deductions or credits.

It takes them a little bit to do as well.

>> Last 30s here, the last thing on the survey, more filers are asking or searching, trying to find out if there are AI programs that can do their taxes.

I would like I'm beating the drum for always working with human beings when possible, and I think human relationships matter here.

Do you think AI is going to move into your space anytime soon?

>> Um, AI is in our space right now, and the best thing I could talk about is, um, I don't think AI is going to, is going to overcome what we do or take over our profession, but the firms that don't embrace it in their model are going to be left behind.

>> Okay.

So you can use AI to work with your clients returns, but you think the human relationship will also continue to benefit.

>> Them 100%.

>> Good.

Good description of it.

>> Absolutely.

>> Mark Kovaleski is a CPA and managing partner and chair of the executive Committee at RM and co.

Very generous with his time because we are days away from the deadline, and I'm sure you're all very busy.

MM.

And co is online.

Where where can people find more about you.

>> MM.

Accounting.com.

>> MM.

Accounting.com.

Cheers to the next few days and earn a little bit of a rest for you and anybody out there who is working on our taxes.

Thank you for thank you for what you.

>> Do.

Appreciate it.

>> Thank you.

Have a great weekend.

And from all of us at Connections, thanks for being with us.

We will talk to you next week on member supported public media.

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