A quarterly preview of City of Asylum programs scheduled for January through April
Dear friends,
This quarterly preview of City of Asylum programs scheduled for January through April is just a taste of all that it is to come in 2023. As you know, City of Asylum hosts over 150 programs a year. I encourage you to continue to check our online calendar for the latest programs.
READINGS & TALKS
South Asian queer activist Bushra Rehman, author of the highly anticipated novel Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion, will visit us on January 9. On January 30, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond will discuss her experiences editing the upcoming anthology Relations: An Anthology of African and Diaspora Voices. Selby Wynn Schwartz will join us virtually on February 9 to discuss her book After Sappho, which was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. Lincoln Center’s inaugural poet-in-residence Mahogany L. Browne returns to City of Asylum on February 20 in celebration of her new adult poetry collection, Chrome Valley, which offers an intricate portrait of Black womanhood in America. Jessica Johns, a member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta, will visit City of Asylum on March 7 to celebrate the release of her debut novel Bad Cree, a genre-bending exploration of the legacy of violence on a young woman’s family, community, and the land they call home. Joseph Earl Thomas will celebrate the highly-anticipated debut of his memoir Sink, which explores the difficulty of growing up in a hazardous home and the glory of finding salvation in geek culture.
We will also be visited by several acclaimed and award-winning international authors in 2023 in conversation with City of Asylum Advisory Board Member Andy Tepper. Aleksandar Hemon will celebrate the release of The World and All That It Holds on January 24. Emmanuel Iduma, author of I Am Still With You: A Reckoning with Silence, Inheritance, and History, will visit City of Asylum on February 24.
The City of Asylum Bookstore is launching a new subscription series that will include books from the authors who will visit us throughout 2023. Subscribe now.
MUSIC
Jazz lovers will continue to find much to enjoy at City of Asylum in 2023. On January 15, we will honor three generations of Pittsburgh jazz with a concert from Lighthouse Arts, Inc. celebrating the release of their album, The Past is The Present. A second jazz concert curated by Thomas Wendt in a series exploring connections between music, visual art, and mental health will occur on January 22 in partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics & Health Law. Pittsburgh-based saxophonist Jason Kush will perform with his quartet on February 12. Vocalist Aimee Allen will celebrate the recent release of her album Love and the Catalyst, exploring change and agents of transformation, on April 10. The Stephen Philip Harvey Octet will also celebrate the release of a new album called Elemental with a concert on April 30.
City of Asylum will also continue to highlight music from around the world in 2023. The Worldwide Tuning Society visits City of Asylum on March 1. Ghanian artist Samuel Boateng and the ADEPA Ensemble will honor the day of Ghana independence with a performance at City of Asylum on March 6. Violinist Solomiya Ivakhiv will continue our Ukrainian Artist Series with a concert on March 13.
2023 will also include concerts from The Clarion Quartet, AJ Johnson, Hugo Cruz, and Yoko Suzuki thanks to generous funding from the Heinz Small Arts Initiative.
FILM
On March 11, City of Asylum will show the film Calls from Home followed by a conversation with film director Sylvia Ryerson moderated by the Pittsburgh Institute of Nonprofit Journalism. Calls from Home is an intimate portrait of rural prison expansion in Central Appalachia.
YOUTH PROGRAMS
We are thrilled to share that youth programming for both children and teens will return to City of Asylum in 2023 thanks to a generous grant from the Buncher Foundation. On January 30, we will have our first of four Alphabet City Kids events with a visit from Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, author of the picture book Blue: A History of the Color as Deep as the Sea and as Wide as the Sky. The book was named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2022, and children ages 4+ and their families will love exploring the history and significance of the color blue with Nana at City of Asylum.
Rho Bloom-Wang, Allegheny County’s Youth Poet Laureate, and the four Allegheny County Youth Poet Ambassadors – Emily Tea, Jade Davis, Audrey Alling, and Aja Lynn – will host a special event exploring youth, poetry, and activism on January 16 as we observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The event will feature poetry readings from the teens followed by a panel discussion on youth and arts activism with the teens moderated by the 2021-2022 Youth Poet Laureate Danielle Obisie Orlu.
It is my honor to be part of your community and to contribute to City of Asylum’s mission by curating our broad range of free literary, arts, and humanities programs. I look forward to seeing all of you at Alphabet City throughout the rest of the year and early next year.
Many thanks,
Kelsey Ford
Director of Programs
