City of Asylum
Giving Voice.
The collaborative trio of Jason Stein, Damon Smith, and Adam Shead feature a fluid music making process of spontaneous composition that is as rhythmically driving as it is melodically complex.
This is a must-see evening for contemporary jazz fans and anyone curious in the improvisation process.
This session of Global Choral Traditions is postponed. New date to be announced soon.
Kawa is a gorgeously cinematic drama from New Zealand that tells a transcendent tale of bravery, love, family and pride. Based on the semi-autobiographical novel Nights in the Gardens of Spain by Witi Ihimaera.
August Wilson House celebrates America’s greatest playwright with substantial insider interviews, with leading August Wilson actors, directors and artists, national and regional. Hosted and moderated by Chris Rawson, veteran Pittsburgh Post-Gazette theater critic who chronicled Wilson’s career and became a friend. The goal is to capture the memories, anecdotes and insights of those who know Wilson’s epic American Century Cycle from the inside.
Please note: this program has been postponed. New date will be announced soon.
Kinship celebrates tribal and familial connections between different cultures and individuals, and shares messages of global unity. The music combines folkloric traditions from all four artists’ homes, while simultaneously feeling out the spaces between various traditions. All with a jazzy and improvised twist.
Featuring collaborations with poets Vasyl Makhno (Ukraine), Gazmend Kapllani (Albania), Madhu Raghavendra (India), and Pamela Sánchez (Venezuela)
The #notwhite collective in-Dialogue series features conversations with BIPOC, AALANA, indigenous and immigrant artists and arts administrators.
The series reimagines the past and present history of the arts sector by engaging and presenting the wealth of experience, strategies, and tactics of the global majority, notwhite descendants, inheritors of colonialism, indigenous and immigrants who navigate a predominantly white arts sector.
May’s program features artists Raul Moarquech and Toi Derricotte
Join City of Asylum and Story Club Pgh for a new monthly nonfiction storytelling series, mixing the spontaneity of an open mic with the experience of live theater. Organized and hosted by the former producers of The Moth Pittsburgh.
Every show has both spontaneous tellers and featured performers, all taking the stage to share stories based on a theme.
The world at large has been inundated with news from the recent Russian incursion into the country of Ukraine. While the storms of war gather, pianist and composer Vadim Neselovskyi chooses to remind people of the country’s important cultural legacy. Neselovskyi has created a full-length solo piano piece inspired by his hometown on the Black Sea—and a Unesco World Heritage City of Literature—Odesa.
We are thrilled Claudio returns to Pittsburgh live for JPM 2022 for two stellar performances.
The first evening features the US premiere of Claudio’s 2021 album “Orphans.” The album is inspired by the tragedies and triumphs of global migration. It is infused with world music sounds, influenced by the Balkan folk music of Claudio’s Serbian grandfather, as well as Claudio’s mastery of the blues. The album is lyrical and concise with delicate melodies, and is sure to be an excellent evening of music.
As we celebrate the return of a fully in person Jazz Poetry, we welcome Oliver back to Pittsburgh and honor his friendship and his contributions to City of Asylum’s history.
Oliver will play alongside pianist Claudio Cojaniz, together performing Oliver’s original compositions from his renowned Trio 3. Claudio, long an admirer of Oliver’s, will share the stage with him for the first time. This is a very special evening of true international and cross-cultural exchange.
Portuguese vocalist-composer Sara Serpa presents her new work "Encounters and Collisions," a commission from Chamber Music America. The project draws inspiration from Somali-Italian writer Igiaba Scego's book "My Home is Where I Am."
"Encounters & Collisions" combines music, text, images and media to reflect on ideas of identity and migration influenced by Scego’s writings on the post-colonial relationships between African and Europe.
Lucian Ban is a pre-eminent improvising jazz pianist originally from Transylvania, Romania. He joins Jazz Poetry 2022 to perform his newly released album of solo piano music, Ways of Disappearing, his first unaccompanied solo album.
Ban has become known for his amalgamations of Transylvanian folk with improvisation, for his combining of 20th Century European classical music with jazz, and for his pursuit of a modern chamber jazz ideal.
Featuring collaborations with poets Yuriy Tarnawsky (Ukraine), Dmitry Bykov (Russia), Jorge Olivera Castillo (Cuba), Marcelo Hernandez Castillo (Mexico)
Pianist, composer, & bandleader Mara Rosenbloom has been called “a whole-hearted poet of the piano,” – she is a builder & a synthesist; a fiercely lyrical composer & improviser (All About Jazz). Mara Rosenbloom travels back to City of Asylum for her newest project of original work.
Featuring collaborations with poets Patricia Jabbeh-Wesley (Liberia), and Airea D. Matthews (US)
James Brandon Lewis returns to City of Asylum following 2-crowd favorite evenings in Jazz Poetry 2021, including the performance of his album Jesop’s Wagon, named a NYTimes 2021 Best Album of the Year. The James Brandon Lewis trio was established with one goal in mind: to chase energy! Their music is gritty, funky, and explosive and seeks to combine jazz with other genres from hip-hop to punk rock.
Featuring collaborations with poet Tuhin Das (Bangladesh) and Aurielle Marie (US).
