City of Asylum
Giving Voice.
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.
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".
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.
In person tickets for this concert are sold out. You can still register to watch the live-streamed concert via City of Asylum @ Home.
Join the staff writers from Sampsonia Way Magazine for a launch party celebrating the magazine’s new website and its newest series: “The Everyday Pandemic.”
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 event are SOLD OUT but you can still join in virtually!
Storytelling is a tradition that spans across cultures, countries, and centuries. Storytelling traditions span across cultures, countries, and centuries. Stories bring us together to experience joy, wonderment, and intrigue—and they allow us to build deeper empathy and understanding.
Join the musicians of the Off Minor Jazz Series as they showcase some of Gryce's best known pieces along with some rare gems.
The Mendelssohn Choir invites you to Alphabet City to explore the rich traditions of global choral music with local artists. Participants will learn about specific cultural song traditions, and have the opportunity to sing songs from within those traditions. It’s an interactive concert like no other! And no singing experience required.
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.
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.
In person tickets for this concert are sold out. You can still tune into the livestream by clicking the "Free Online Tickets" button.
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.
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?”
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
A J Johnson's Love Unlimited Trio features cellist Akua Dixon, multi-instrumentalist Salim Washington (oboe, flute, bass clarinet), and multi-instrumentalist and leader A J Johnson (trombone, tuba, bass clarinet). In sharing and rotating the musical responsibilities, Love Unlimited is a model for collaborative work and play. The trio's music extends from funk to jazz to the church. Where there is Love Unlimited, joy follows.
Pianist and Mary Lou Williams biographer Deanna Witkowski celebrates the release of Force of Nature (label: MCG Jazz), her bold, new recording that brings Williams's forward-thinking, experimental compositions to a new generation of fans.
Journeys From There to Here is a stirring set of essays from leading immigration lawyer Susan Cohen, inviting us to walk alongside her clients as they share incredible journeys coming to America while overcoming unimaginable dangers and often heartbreaking obstacles.
Brittany Thurman writes stories for middle grade readers that soar with warmth and imagination. Brittany joins us live, virtually, to celebrate the launch of her new picture book Fly, released in January 2022.
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.
An in-person reading and conversation with author and Wall Street Journal reporter Kris Maher.
With flexible instrumentation, guest musicians and eclectic programming, the Bell’Art Ensemble commits to breaking down preconceived ideas about classical music in order to connect chamber music with a new audience. They produce the Living Room Chamber Music Project, a decade-long series of concerts designed to bring classical music out of the concert hall and into intimate spaces.
Novelist Porochista Khakpour joins City of Asylum live for a reading and conversation centering her collection of essays "Brown Album." From the much-acclaimed novelist and essayist, this beautifully rendered, poignant collection of personal essays chronicles immigrant and Iranian-American life in our contemporary moment.
Thoth Trio has previously appeared at City of Asylum in September 2020 to premiere a new collection of works by Ben Opie, Meditations on Quarantine. The suite was an intuitive and creative response to the initial pandemic lockdown. This performance will see the premiere of the followup, Reflections on Pandemic, a collection of seven new pieces inspired by both global and local circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Merrell is a composer of illustrious works in gospel jazz and regularly performs with local and nationally known Gospel/Christian artists such as Kim Burrell, Donnie McClurkin, David and Nicole Binion. He also has been featured several times on the nationally televised Bobby Jones Gospel Show. For his Kente engagement, he will perform with his own Jazz/Gospel group, IMPACT.
Pittsburgh-based chamber ensemble Kamratōn presents a genre-blurring program curated by flutist, composer, and band leader Nicole Mitchell, including the premiere of a newly commissioned work. Kamratōn will be joined by guest bassist Jeffrey Grubbs of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and vocalist Anqwenique Wingfield for works by Nicole Mitchell, Yvette Jackson, Brittany J. Green, and others.
The Joe Fonda Quartet is a powerful group of musicians who have collectively been active within the New York Jazz community for over 40 years. The Quartet features a combination of Bassoon and Saxophone—a unique and compelling sound, rarely heard in the world of Jazz.
This program features music written by Jewish composers as well as music that expresses the powerful human ability to move forward, and create great art, after tragedy. The program also features remarks from Rabbi Myers of the Tree of Life Congregation as well as literary readings, to honor the memory of those whose lives were taken at the Tree of Life Synagogues.
BTAN presents a screening of the documentary film "Make a Joyful Noize," + virtual artist talkback. Join us as we journey through the healing power of joy and centering Black art and artists. Free and family friendly event!
The 3rd concert in a series of Geri Allen performances by Yoko Suzuki, a former student and colleague of Geri Allen. This concert features all-new arrangements of Geri's Work with unique instrumentation. These songs are rarely heard and the concert reveals Geri’s genius and the complex puzzle of her work.
