Dedicated to the memory of Karl

WE DID IT!

KARL HAS BEEN CELEBRATED - APRIL 28TH

And the gratitude and ripples of transformation will continue onwards.

So many people to thank, this initial list is to say THANK YOU TO FORTUNA, MATT, YI-CHEN AND ALEX AT SHAPESHIFTER LABS! Could NOT have done this without your generosity, technical abilities, and that beautiful space! Thank you to STEPHANIE for being virtual host in the Zoom space! Thank you to NOWSHIN at JALSA GRILL for the fabulous Indian food, and NADIA for the incredible baked goods - the cheesecake! the nettle cupcakes! the fruit pie!!! Thank you to ANNELIESE for coordinating all of that! Thank you to EMILY who shepherded the art projects. Thank you of course to the Wake Up Call Band, 2024 edition, for the most important part of all, the gift of Karl's music! Original members JIM WHITNEY, GARY WANG, SCOTT NEUMANN, BENNETT PASTER, and especially ARUN LUTHRA who put it all together including getting Karl's original sheet music and figuring out the notes to do the arranging make it authentic to Karl's vision, plus new members DAVE PIETRO, RYAN KEBERLE, and GREGG FINE, all of you were amazing!!

Thank you also to the anonymous sender of this fabulous presentation of flowers - wow! They were gorgeous!

Thank you so, so, so much to those who donated to the GoFundme - you helped make all of this possible!

And thank you to every single one of you who attended, participated, showed up, connected, and celebrated Karl.

I'm sure I've missed many, I apologize if I have overlooked you...

Pictures and any further thoughts or reflections are absolutely welcome, please continue to post if you wish, this site will stick around for awhile at least!


Want to participate in making Karl's legacy? Consider either donating to any of the organizations below or you are invited to participate directly in supporting the costs of the memorial and expenses from clearing out Karl's apartment at this GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/karl-wenninger-is-cool


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This site is a tribute to Karl, who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on March 27th.  Karl was a musician, a sound engineer, and Rockit's best friend. His passing has left a huge hole in so many hearts.

Karl was involved in an incredibly array of different community circles, projects, initiatives, it's utterly amazing to hear from everyone who knew him. Scroll to the bottom to see some links to Karl's work and please share your experiences with him openly here, let's celebrate this wonderful human and each other.

So far I know about these things that Karl was involved in:

- NYCMesh - running cables up buildings to put in internet for neighborhoods in need

- Nurture BK community compost - unfortunately had to close down recently

- Caton Migration Garden - Karl was instrumental in establishing the garden in 2021 and helping to maintain it, as needed, since then

- Q Gardens - Since January 2024, Karl volunteered weekly to support onsite compost processing through midweek pile turning, a key role

- Sean Casey Animal Rescue - taking dogs for walks to keep them happy and healthy

- Park Slope Food Coop

- The Village House Pantry and Flatbush Friendly Fridge - working as point person for provisions every Thursday with their food distribution at the corner of Parkside and Rogers Aves.

- Jalsa Indian/Pakistani restaurant which does food distribution, Karl was involved in toy drives and other community projects

- Tutoring for elementary schoolkids - such as Gracie a 4th grader who he was helping with reading and math in 2021

- NEW! I just found out he had signed up to do volunteer tax prep help for low income folks through NY Cares this year, which I have learned he had done in prior years too (it sucks to see a "No Show" email come in from this organization, Karl would never have no-showed!!!)

So many things. If I missed the community that you knew Karl through, please do share.

Karl had also recently gotten involved with the Brooklyn Public Library teaching a bunch of classes on sound engineering and GarageBand.

Karl also did audio engineering for a guy named Drew at this cool podcast called Sleep with Me which he enjoyed so much, and what was particularly cool is that Karl got paid to use his talents. After Touro shut down, that wasn't as available to him, though he gave away his time doing sound engineering for free to so many artists along the way.

He was well loved by coworkers in his event production job at Worldstage and other firms, many of his colleagues have reached out and I hope they will be able to attend the gathering that is in the works. Karl was on site at Bloomberg Philanthropy when it happened.

 

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Thank you to all who helped make connections! We have made contact with Beth, Roland, Arun, Joel, Jim, Ramsey,Drew, Erik, Rich, Mike, and Anitza, and also now Elke, Chris, and Chela - thank you to everyone who have helped make that happen. We still need to connect with Mark in Bay Ridge, and Allison.  Please leave a message on this page if you know them or can help, and again thank you to all who are sharing this sad news.

 


*** LINKS TO KARL'S STUFF ***

This site doesn't seem to allow hyperlinks in posts (grrr!) so please let me know about Karl's work through the contact form and I will post it here. Karl was involved in so many projects, we will be assembling them centrally somehow.

- Karl was in Erik Moskowitz's  2005 film A Bit of Dirt

- Karl did sound engineering on the album At Karl's by band Progress - check it out on Bandcamp (yes they basically named the album after him)

- Karl Wenninger SoundCloud page here - looks like all audio engineering projects

- Karl Wenninger YouTube - tutorials on sound engineering

- NEW 5/13/24 (Thanks Beth!) Play Tic Tac Toe against Einstein or the orange guy! Karl taught himself programming and this appears to be one of his projects

We will be posting his music eventually too.

 

We're doing a thing for Karl Wenninger

PLEASE RSVP FOR THE MEMORIAL SERVICE HERE: https://partiful.com/e/Zs7cI7u0O6qA0tLeTTUQ

A celebration to honor Karl is being held at Shapeshifter Labs performance space in Brooklyn on Sunday 28th April 2024. More details on the program will be provided, but please plan to arrive at 7 and stay for awhile. There will be food. A livestream will be available for those who want to join remotely.

If you can only attend for part of the evening, please prioritize the live performance of Karl's music by his Wake Up Call band scheduled to start around 8:30pm, which will feature original members Arun Luthra on tenor and soprano sax (and also taking the lead on organizing everything), Bennett Paster on piano, Gary Wang and Jim Whitney sharing bass duties (they both played in WUC at different times), and Scott Neuman on drums, along with new members for this performance Dave Pietro on alto sax, Ryan Keberle on trombone, and Gregg Fine on guitar. Other original Wake Up Call members who cannot be there are Roland Schneider (drums), Joel Frahm (tenor sax), Stafford Hunter (trombone), Donny McCaslin (tenor sax), Elliot Mason (trombone), and Jon Dryden (piano).

 

Open to Karl's entire community. Did you know Karl, or Rockit? Then you're officially invited.

Suggested attire: Casual to celebratory. Wear black if you wear black to things, but no need for sombre, what did you think, this would be a funeral or something??

Please consider donating through the GoFundMe https://www.gofundme.com/f/karl-wenninger-is-cool

Contribute

Help grow Karl's Tribute by adding messages or memories you'd like to share.

Thoughts

I am deeply saddened to hear of Karl's passing. I met Karl in the late 90s through my good friend, drummer Roland Schneider, and played in several incarnations of Wake Up Call. Karl was an accomplished composer with a deeply personal style and a bandleader whose combination of intelligence and self effacing humor put everybody at ease. We all had so much of fun playing those gigs with him. I subsequently did a recording at Touro College where he was an audio engineering instructor, and it was clear that he brought the same skill, humor and level of dedication to that endeavor as well. I would see him from time to time out and about and it was always great to see and talk to him. Sometimes when he would show up to gigs I was playing on, and he would crack me up because he would always re-introduce himself to me saying "Uh, hey Gary, you don't remember who I am, do you?" And of course, I would reply "Duh. Karl! Of course I remember who you are!". A great person and a wonderful musician. He will be missed by so many of us.
Gary Wang
17th April 2024
Karl, we are so sad and we miss you. So much music, so many conversations, so much fun. We both learned so much from you.
Chris and Lane
12th April 2024
I am so sad. Met Karl the last time for breakfast in his NY neighborhood in 2019 after years of not having seen each other. It was like it always was: easy to talk and humorous and relaxed. One time in late 90‘s or early 2000 we played a jazz Festival at Le Bar Bat NYC with his Wake Up Call. Our backstage room was an un-manned full bar…you can imagine what happened while waiting til the other band finished playing. This band played some great music and assembled some really cool and funny cats. And it was Karl who organized it all. I miss you.
Roland Schneider
6th April 2024
Please consider donating through the GoFundMe https://www.gofundme.com/f/karl-wenninger-is-cool
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