City of Asylum
Giving Voice.
As many of you know, since 2010, June at City of Asylum means the return of one of the most popular annual poetry events in the city—Cave Canem’s Faculty Reading. This coincides with the week-long Cave Canem Retreat, their long-standing flagship program.
Story Club Pittsburgh (created by the former producers of The Moth Pittsburgh), organizes and hosts a monthly nonfiction storytelling series at City of Asylum. The theme for June 2023 is Moving On or Moving Out.
In this concert, we welcome back Brooklyn’s Kaleta & Super Yamba Band, fronted by Afrobeat and Juju veteran Leon Ligan-Majek (a.k.a. Kaleta).
Reel Stories is a free monthly film series dedicated to showcasing international queer cinema presented in partnership with Reel Q, Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival. August’s screening presents "Instructions for Survival," a 2021 documentary directed by Yana Ugrekhelidze.
This program presents a combination reading and musical performance with author and ethnomusicologist, Shalini R. Ayyagari. In Shalani’s book, Musical Resilience: Performing Patronage in the Indian Thar Desert, she shows how professional low-caste musicians from the Thar Desert borderland of Rajasthan, India have skillfully reinvented their cultural and economic value in postcolonial India
Fan favorite jazz series Off Minor returns this September with an ode to Buddy DeFranco.
Utilizing a unique blend of global folk traditions and contemporary jazz, Kinetic’s performance efforts celebrate multiculturalism, wisdom, and unity.
Mathew Tembo returns this fall as part of his U.S. tour! Themed "Reggae-Afro," this tour is aimed at highlighting the impact that reggae has had on his Afropop style from Zambia.
Featuring quarterly visits from authors writing books for elementary-aged children, the Alphabet City Kids series continues this month with Marika Maijala, sharing her newly translated book "Rosie Runs."
All sharing stories in the theme of Lost & Found in Translation, the program features eight high school students who traveled abroad (Ecuador, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and Spain) this past summer through the World Affairs Council’s global Travel Scholars program.
This unique collaboration is a mixture of avant garde jazz and ethno music from Hungary, like a cultural bridge between the USA and Eastern-Europe.
Story Club PGH returns with their monthly storytelling series! The theme for November 2023 is Family Secrets.
The Free Association Reading Series returns for its first installment of 2024! This series features a collection of intimate readings from local authors, sharing established and forthcoming works of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Each month’s writers are invited by Free Association founders and friends of City of Asylum, Pat Hart and Marc Nieson. The duo’s... more →
Emerging Pittsburgh jazz band SLP (members Mila Shadel, Ava Lintz, and Soojin Park) makes their debut performance at City of Asylum.
After performing at Alphabet City in November 2022 in their trio configuration, Alla Boara returns with their full group in all its glory– six talented musicians bringing recognition and new life to Italy's diverse history of regional folk music.
Yoko Suzuki, Roger Humphries, Dwayne Dolphin, and Max Leake return for a special Valentine's themed concert celebrating the romance of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme.
Presented in partnership with one of the oldest LGBTQ+ film festivals in the world, Reel Stories is a free monthly film series dedicated to showcasing international queer cinema. Our February Reel Q screening presents Out of Uganda.
City of Asylum welcomes Grammy-nominated bassist and composer Stephan Crump to perform pieces from his recent album, "Rocket Love."
Roger Humphries returns for his latest concert at City of Asylum as part of our ongoing Thursday Night Jazz series.
In this panel co-presented with the Anthropology of Motherhood, panelists will share their personal experiences with carceral motherhood.
SLP returns for Thursday Night Jazz at City of Asylum, their final of three concerts this season as part of the series.
Join City of Asylum in celebrating 20 years of Action Books
April's Reel Q Reel Stories screening is "Petit Mal"
This celebration of 20 years of Jazz Poetry kicks off with musician James Brandon Lewis and poets Olena Boryshpolets, Amit Chaudhuri, Toi Derricotte, and Shara McCallum
Jazz Poetry welcomes musician Leslie DeShazor and poets Fatimah Asghar, Rania Mamoun, Andrés Neuman, and Jeremy Lee Stone.
Jazz Poetry 2024 welcomes musician Milena Casado and poets Rae Armantrout, Yahya Ashour, Oleksandr Frazé-Frazénko, and Richard Hamilton.
Jazz Poetry 2024 welcomes musician Andy Milne and poets Noah Arhm Choi, Jonathan Moody, Justin Perez, & Monica Sok.
Jazz Poetry welcomes musicians Lucian Ban and Alex Harding, and poets Quan Barry, Jorge Olivera Castillo, Quincy Scott Jones, and Rajiv Mohabir.
City of Asylum hosts Cave Canem's annual Faculty Reading. This year’s poets are Peter J Harris, Duriel E Harris, and Janice Harrington.
Kente Arts Alliance brings Summer Madness to Thursday Night Jazz at City of Asylum
