Concert

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.

Kente Arts Alliance kicks off their Summer Madness concert series with Vocalist Anyah Nancy. 
A relative newcomer to the Pittsburgh music scene, Anyah Nancy performed at the 2022 Three Rivers Arts Festival and received glowing reviews.  Heavily influenced by jazz vocalists such as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and others, Anyah Nancy and her band infuse classical jazz with modern soul and R&B.

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.

Kente Arts Alliance presents two more blockbuster concerts in its Kente Summer Madness Series. For this concert, Kente has assembled an all-star band of renowned jazz musicians who all hail from states within the tri-state area. This formation will present a rare opportunity for them to play together as the Kente All-Stars I. Each member of the band has spent time leading his own series of groups, and each has a keenly individual sound.