City of Asylum

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 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).

Pittsburgh-born bassist Dwayne Dolphin is a world-class acoustic and electric bassist, but in the late 1990s, Dwayne began playing the electric piccolo bass, an instrument rarely outside the R&B funk setting. This Off Minor concert features Dwayne playing his electric piccolo bass in a straight ahead, acoustic jazz setting, something he's never done before!

Yoko Suzuki has created a brand new series of jazz concerts at City of Asylum that combine her saxophone skills with her expertise in ethnomusicology. This year Yoko explores the history of female jazz harpists / composers and the rarely heard contributions they made to the jazz scene. The first concert in a series of three spotlights the music of Dorothy Ashby. 

Join us for the US debut tour of Illegal Crowns, a collective quartet that brings together the long-time collaborative trio of guitarist Mary Halvorson, drummer Tomas Fujiwara, and cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum with the French pianist Benoît Delbecq. All four artists are critically recognized as leading figures in contemporary music, and have created multiple original compositions written specifically for this group. 

An evening of performance that crosses the musical frontiers of Argentinean folklore, art song and improvisation. 
Folklore refers to a body of popular music created in Argentina and based on indigenous dance rhythms like the zamba, cueca, chacarera, carnavalito and vidala. These songs were passed on through oral tradition and were virtually unknown outside their own region until the early 20th century. 

The Concord Jazz Quartet returns to Alphabet City with a whole new program of music. Often in jazz, it’s the players who get most of the attention, but in this concert, the Concord Quartet  highlights the unique masters who created the songs loved by musicians and fans alike. Join us as the Concord Quartet honors and puts their own spin on everything from BeBop tunes and Third Stream songs to rarely played ‘60s gems and music from today.

In-person tickets for this event are sold out. You can still join us virtually. Pipas, guzhengs, ouds, and more! HarmoniZing, a Pittsburgh-based group founded with the aim of nurturing cross-cultural understanding through the arts, brings together musicians playing a diverse array of instruments for an evening of global voices and soaring music.
The concert features solos of the pipa (Chinese lute), guzheng (Chinese zither), oud (Middle Eastern lute), and tabla (Indian hand drums) and concludes with two ensemble pieces recently composed by Chinese Canadian Yao Wang and Iranian American Ehsan Matoori respectively.

Led by Pittsburgh saxophonist Ben Opie for over twenty years, OPEK is a reduced-sized big band that features some of Pittsburgh’s most vibrant and exciting musicians. OPEK started as an opportunity to showcase the music of visionary bandleader Sun Ra, and they’ve since expanded their repertoire to include Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, monster movie soundtracks, original works, and all points in between. OPEK performances are lively, engaging, and—most of all—fun! 

This event is sold out. You can still join us by watching online via our virtual channel. 

The second of three concerts created by Yoko Suzuki exploring the history of female jazz harpists and composers and the rarely heard contributions they made to the jazz scene. This month spotlightsAlice Coltrane whose talents as a composer, singer, pianist, and harpist led her to create a distinctive style combining elements of gospel, classical, and jazz music.

Jimmy Heath is one of the great talents of jazz: a world-class saxophonist, composer, and arranger. In August, the Off Minor Jazz series offers an evening of Master Heath’s music, drawing on all parts of his long career. 
This concert features a quintet with a trumpet and alto saxophone frontline playing arrangements by Lynn Speakman. Discussions related to Jimmy Heath’s autobiography, I Walked with Giants, sprinkle in throughout the set.

Errata is a contemporary jazz trio that moves between highly formalized composition and intuitive improvisation. Formed in 2017 in Chicago by guitarist, cellist, and composer Ishmael Ali and rounded out by close friends Eli Namay and Bill Harris, the trio combines elements of jazz, 20th-century classical music, and improvised music with rhythmic language influenced by Steve Lehman and Henry Threadgill. Their music exists between discernibility and noise, regularity and irregularity. A listening experience for all styles of jazz fans. 

The American Sufi Music Project is an exploration and celebration of the connection between original Sufi compositions and improvised Jazz. Featuring readings of Rumi poetry and traditional Sufi dancers (twirlers). This will be an evening of genres mixing, improvisation, and rhythmic music.