Tamir Kalifa

The latest on the freeze heading towards Austin

The forecast continues to evolve as an arctic cold front heads towards the Austin area this weekend. Temperatures are forecast to remain below freezing starting Saturday night in Central Texas and could stay that way through Monday. We’ll have the latest forecasts and updates from city officials.

Austin Community College’s free tuition pilot program ballooned to nearly 10,000 students this academic year. We’ll look at the students who are being impacted and the things they’re learning about.

Huston-Tillotson University’s Jazz Orchestra is among the top bands in the country. We’ll hear about their competition last weekend in New York.

Plus, photojournalism collides with original songwriting in the new project “Witness.” We share a special sneak listen.

‘Witness’ blends music and photography to beckon reflection

A year ago, President Trump began his second term in office with a promise to carry out mass deportations. We’ll have a view from the border on today’s Texas Standard.
Is the state funding private schools that discriminate?
An update on a lawsuit challenging the heartbeat abortion law in Texas.
Plus, award-winning photojournalist and musician Tamir Kalifa combines his talents to document the Uvalde school shooting and other events in a new project titled “Witness.”

Tamir Kalifa: “Jackie’s Rock”

Even if the name Tamir Kalifa is new to you, his projects certainly are not. A member of both the orchestral-indie collective Mother Falcon and its alter ego rowdy party band Sip Sip, Kalifa’s part of two of Austin’s biggest “moment bands” of the 2010’s.

A photojournalist who splits his time between Austin and Berlin, Kalifa marries his storytelling talents on Witness, a nine-song album with each track visually represented by a set of photographs. On “Jackie’s Rock,” Kalifa gingerly pays tribute to nine-year-old Jackie Cazares, one of the victims of the Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde in May of 2022 whose family Kalifa has grown to know in particular. The song is a beautiful demonstration of combining delicate and powerful, and here’s where Kalifa pulls out some of the Mother Falcon magic, using strings to be sun-soaked and lovely without being outwardly cheerful or disingenuous.

Witness comes out this fall.