Pittsburgh, PA, August 26, 2021—City of Asylum Pittsburgh announces the 17th annual Jazz Poetry Month, consisting of nine concerts throughout September, including four international commissions.
The performances will kick off live from Alphabet City on Sunday, September 12, at 6:00 PM with Layale Chaker, a Lebanese violinist and composer whose work weaves together classical music, Jazz, Arabic Music, and improvisation. She is joined by her band to perform Inner Rhyme—Layale’s debut album— a suite of music that explores the sounds, rhythms, rhymes, shapes, and forms of Arabic poetry.
“At its core, Jazz Poetry is about the exchange of music, language, and ideas. This year, we feature musicians and poets from seven countries, including artists with long and deep connections to City of Asylum and artists new to Pittsburgh. We look forward to welcoming back in-person audiences to Alphabet City and to connecting with artists and concertgoers around the world via our online programming,” said Andrés Franco, Executive Director of City of Asylum.
“Jazz Poetry demonstrates that bringing musicians and poets together to experiment, to collaborate, and to express themselves freely yields performances greater than the sum of their parts. The 9 performances of Jazz Poetry 2021 allow artists to transcend differences in genre, style, and even language, and allow them to connect with audiences around the globe.” added Director of Programs, Abby Lembersky.
The four international commissions include a favorite from Jazz Poetry 2019, Jure Pukl (with live audiences in Slovenia and Alphabet City)… and three new to Pittsburgh, Norihide Nakajima (marking the first time Jazz Poetry Month has reached out to Japan), Vlatko Stefanovski Trio (North Macedonia), and Slow Motion Orchestra (Estonia). The musicians will perform concerts in renowned jazz clubs in their home countries.
The remaining programs feature work from national musicians, including Thumbscrew, who, as part of their fourth City of Asylum residency, recorded a showcase of their new material and a sneak peek of a forthcoming album. Additionally, audiences will enjoy two evenings of critically-acclaimed saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis. Finally, Mai Khoi—the first exiled musician in residence at City of Asylum—presents her Bad Activistproject live, performed for the first time in Pittsburgh. She is an Artist Protection Fund Fellow in residence at the University of Pittsburgh with participation from City of Asylum.
Jazz Poetry Month is made possible by the generous support from the Allegheny Regional Asset District, National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Heinz Endowments, The Pittsburgh Foundation, Posner Foundation of Pittsburgh, Trust for Mutual Understanding, Allegheny Health Network and UPMC. Media sponsorship courtesy of WZUM.
Registration and more details are located at alphabetcity.org/jazz-poetry-
About City of Asylum: City of Asylum builds a just community by protecting and celebrating creative free expression. We provide sanctuary to endangered literary writers, so that the writers can continue to write, and their voices are not silenced. We offer a broad range of free literary, arts, and humanities programs in a community setting to build social equity through cultural exchange. And by transforming blighted properties into homes for our programs, we anchor neighborhood economic development.
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