City of Asylum
Giving Voice.
Rico Parker has strong spiritual ties to the work of August Wilson. He has acted in only three of the plays, but in “King Hedley II,” he played one of the most difficult, complex lead roles in unusually difficult circumstances. Hear his thoughtful responses to the personal connections that make such work possible. Register to see it (just your zip code required) and send the link to August Wilson fans among your friends!
Over the past few months, Yoko Suzuki has curated concerts showcasing the music of female jazz composers—Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane among them. Yoko closes out her series with a concert featuring the music of pianist and composer Geri Allen.
In-person tickets for this program are SOLD OUT. You can still join us online.
With multiple European tours already under their belt, QWANQWA, an Ethiopian experimenta/traditional ensemble, embarks on their debut US tour. The tour visits 23 states with performances including the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, Boston Global Music Festival, and the North Carolina Folk Festival. Plus the City of Asylum stage.
Founded in 2012, QWANQWA is a supergroup of musicians from the baddest ensembles of Addis Ababa, brought together by a shared passion for the power of Ethiopian music. Named for the Amharic word for “language,” QWANQWA, is a project creating dialogues between cultures, promoting the idea of music as universal language.
In-person tickets for this program are SOLD OUT. You can still join us online. Having delighted the City of Asylum community with readings in 2019 and 2020, prize-winning poet and essayist Ross Gay returns to our stage to share his newly released collection of essays, Inciting Joy. In conversation with Damon Young.
This concert features some of Cory’s original music as well as music by one of his biggest inspirations, saxophonist Hank Mobley. Local musicians Alton Merrell, Paul Thompson, and Thomas Wendt round out the group in what promises to be a lively, fun, and cool evening of music.
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.
November’s conversation feature ROSIE GORDON-WALLACE (6:00 PM) and DOMINIQUE ENRIQUEZ (7:00 PM)
Join City of Asylum and Story Club Pittsburgh 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.
November's theme is : TBD
Ciao! Local group Alla Boara celebrates the release of their debut album, Le Tre Sorelle, with an intimate concert for the City of Asylum community.
Alla Boara seeks to bring recognition and new life to Italy’s diverse history of regional folk music. Their modern arrangements of near-extinct folk songs are surprising, playful, mournful, tender, and bewitching. Alla Boara’s dynamic work aims to inspire audiences of all ethnic heritages to treasure their musical roots and consider the contemporary cultural relevance of historical songs. Check out their spin on the Italian folk song “Fimmene, Fimmene” here.
August Wilson House celebrates America’s greatest playwright with substantial insider interviews with leading August Wilson actors, directors, and artists—regional and national. Hosted and moderated by Chris Rawson, a 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.
Writer, theatre professor, and Northsider Kathleen George makes her City of Asylum debut to celebrate the launch of her new novel, Mirth.
Kathleen George is the author of ten novels: a series of thrillers set in Pittsburgh; a novel about the Johnstown Flood, The Johnstown Girls; a novel about Lena Horne and jazz, The Blues Walked In; and most recently, Mirth. Kathy has also written a collection of short stories (The Man in the Buick), edited a collection of short fiction (Pittsburgh Noir), and contributed to many scholarly theatrical books and articles. She is a professor of theatre and writing at the University of Pittsburgh.
How powerful is food, really? Can it bring people together in times of joy and strife? What’s the role of food in diasporic communities? What stories can be told through food?
Franco-Palestinian chef Fadi Kattan ponders these topics and more in what’s sure to be an engrossing evening of contemplation, exploration, and celebration.
City of Asylum artist-in-residence Mai Khôi presents a concert of brand-new music composed in collaboration with Pittsburgh-based pianist Mark Micchelli.
Khôi founded Mai Khôi and the Dissidents in Vietnam in 2017 as a vehicle to perform her genre-busting songs protesting government censorship and police violence. The band performed secretly at underground shows in Hanoi until threats from the Vietnamese government forced the band to change their name, then ultimately dissolve. Following Khôi's exile to the United States, she reformed the band with local Pittsburgh musicians while continuing the group's radical mission.
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