City of Asylum
Giving Voice.
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.
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. With featured performers and open mic storytellers. February's theme: For the love of the game
Margarita is a charming film and is the latest feature from lesbian co-directors Laurie Colbert and Dominique Cardona who brought us the 2007 drama Finn’s Girl.
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.
Jonathan Gottschall joins us live at Alphabet City to share the science behind storytelling and his quest to ask “How can we save the world from stories?”
Mostly Other People Do the Killing is a group founded on the idea that jazz should be enormous fun. They de-construct jazz standards and weave the remnants into new compositions that the quartet rips into with zest.
In person tickets for this concert are sold out. You can still tune into the livestream by clicking the "Free Online Tickets" button.
In her early career, Emily Maloney worked as an emergency room technician: a job undertaken to pay off the crippling medical debt brought about by years spent in and out of hospitals and doctor’s offices while grappling with life-changing depression. Doing the grunt work in a hospital, and taking care of patients at their most vulnerable moments, Emily chronicles her interactions and offers a brilliant examination of just what exactly our troubled healthcare system asks us to pay.
Award winning writers Patrick Rosal and David Wright Faladé join us in virtual conversation to celebrate the launch of their new works, Faladé’s novel Black Cloud Rising and Rosal’s poetry collection The Last Thing.
Cole Arthur Riley is a Pittsburgh raised writer and creator of Black Liturgies (@blackliturgies), daily spiritual reflections on Instagram. Cole joins City of Asylum to read from her debut collection, This Here Flesh, which weaves stories from three generations of her family to discover the “necessary rituals” that connect us with our belonging, dignity, and liberation.
Joined by bassist Eli Namay, the trio is inspired by sounds of Near Eastern music, free-jazz, and world roots. They create sounds that cross genres and do not exist in typical musical spaces. Their goal is to share rich audience experiences that reach deeper into the nuance of life and listening in the 21st century global culture.
This is a virtual-only event hosted via City of Asylum @ Home. A poetic and raw coming-of-age memoir about Blackness, masculinity, and addiction, Punch Me Up to the Gods is Brian Broome’s NY Times’ Editor’s Pick debut work. Brian’s early years growing up in Ohio as a dark-skinned Black boy harboring crushes on other boys... more →
Join the musicians of the Off Minor Jazz Series as they showcase some of Gryce's best known pieces along with some rare gems.
They visit Pittsburgh to play their newest album, Were We Where We Were (March 2022) featuring primarily original compositions from Michael Formanek. This is an evening of jazz masters at work.
In person tickets for this concert are sold out. You can still register to watch the live-streamed concert via City of Asylum @ Home.
Please note this program is in person only.
A live reading and conversation with translator and poet Yasmine Seale, the first female translator to release The Thousand and One Nights in English.
Founded by Violinist/Composer Gwen Laster in 2015, New MUSE 4tet is an improvising string quartet offering 20th and 21st century new works and original compositions as a vehicle for social activism. Their "Black Lives Matter Suite" continues to draw great audiences and critical acclaim.
The concert celebrates the release of their newest album "Blue Lotus".
Michael Weiss is one of the great journeymen in Jazz and has played and recorded with many of the music's masters. He joins the Off Minor Jazz series to present a program of original music along with original arrangements from his latest album, Persistence.
In her new book, "Healing," former oncology nurse Theresa Brown vividly chronicles her journey from the mammogram appointment that would change her life to her diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. Despite years working in oncology and hospice, Brown is constantly surprised by the lack of compassion she experiences during her treatment. And she can’t help reflecting on her time caring for patients. Did she treat them with the dignity and respect that she now craves? What could she have done to make other people’s suffering even a little bit easier?
Kinetic celebrates multiculturalism, wisdom, and unity, blending global folk traditions and contemporary jazz.
Listen, sing, and dance with the group as they perform music blending Ghanaian folk songs with original music from their new release 'Dances of Lake Volta'. This special concert will highlight the genius of folk songs from Ghana, and also premiere some brand new songs.
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.
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)
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)
