https://arcane.city/events/5919

Wednesday Apr 30th 2025

Show 6:00 PM

Pittsburgh Livecode
BGC Community Activity Center 113 N. Pacific Avenue Pittsburgh
All Ages $0

The first Pittsburgh Livecode event consisting of presentations and performances.

6:00 - Event starts, meet and greet, Pizza and Refreshments provided
6:30 - Talks

"Getting Started with Sonic Pi"
- Chris Palmer
- https://www.youtube.com/@capalmer1013/videos

"An Algorithmic Tour of the Spinach Blender"
- Yoni Maltsman
- https://linktr.ee/friendlyspinach

"Intro to TidalCycles for Livecoding Sound"
- May Wilcher
- https://soundcloud.com/frogonbough

8:00-10:00pm - Performances
8:00 - performances
TBD
https://www.meetup.com/pgh-livecode/events/307180064/

https://arcane.city/events/gabriel-zucker-and-till-jarvis-ricki-weidenhof-at-bantha-tea-bar

Wednesday Apr 30th 2025

Show 7:00 PM until 10:00 PM

Gabriel Zucker and Till Jarvis, Ricki Weidenhof at Bantha Tea Bar

Experimental Jazz event featuring Gabriel Zucker, Till Jarvis, and Ricki Weidenhof
Concert
Bantha Tea Bar5002 Penn Ave Pittsburgh
All Ages $15

New York-based multi-instrumentalist Gabriel Zucker (piano, synth, voice) and Budapest-based drummer Till Jarvis have been making music since they met in 2017 in New York. Ricki Weidenhof is a Pittsburgh-based cellist and producer whoseamlessly blends composition with improvisation, intertwining deep listening practices with pop sensibilities. Together they will perform at Bantha Tea Bar at 7pm on April 30th. Tickets at the door!

Experimental Guitar Night 56 at Kingfly Spirits

Wed Apr 30 7:30 pm 21+ $7 door, cash only
Kingfly Spirits 2613 Smallman St Strip District

brand new venue. get your whiskey on!

spontaneous guitar and vocal compositions by Luke and Vanessa
REGOLITH
https://regolithpgh.bandcamp.com/

acoustic fingerpicking wizard (from the duo Pairdown)
JAGTIME MILLIONAIRE
https://jagtimemillionaire.bandcamp.com/

postpunk guitar ministrations (from Hemlock for Socrates)
HEATHER SHORE
https://hemlockforsocrates.bandcamp.com/music

upright double bass improvisor, composer & organizer
ELI NAMAY
https://elinamay.bandcamp.com/

busy guitarist around town, owner of Ice House Recording
RYAN NEITZNICK
https://christiankriegeskotte.bandcamp.com/.../perfect...

https://www.facebook.com/events/3704610969828798?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22attachment%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22newsfeed%22%7D]%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D

https://arcane.city/events/beltane-festival-w-celeste-neuhaus-brett-alexander-boye-mirror-trio-ben-dumbault-8-cylinder

Thursday May 1st 2025

Show 7:00 PM

BELTANE FESTIVAL w/ Celeste Neuhaus, Brett Alexander Boye, Mirror Trio, Ben Dumbauld, 8Cylinder +

eclectic sounds for the season
Concert
Bantha Tea Bar 5002 Penn Ave Pittsburgh
All Ages $0
This Beltane/May Day!

I've been wanting to do a seasonal-focused show for a long time, and couldn't ask for a better lineup:

-@celesteneuhaus will be leading a Beltane offering
-Music from Mirror Trio (@belchercomp @rickiweidenhof)
-Irish Pipes and songs from Brett Alexander Boye,
-A/V performance by @daveeightc
- A percussion ritual from myself.

IN ADDITION:
-Create your own Beltane mix with dried herbs and flowers from @hocuspocuspgh!
-Seasonal teas specials from @banthateabar
-Take home a oatcake to offer the fairies.

No bonfires or may poles will be available, sadly.

And its FREE. Come celebrate Beltane with us!

Jazz Poetry 2025: Thumbscrew, Mahogany L. Browne, Oleksandr Frazé-Frazénko, Camille Rankine

May 1 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm EDT

https://cityofasylum.org/program/jazz-poetry-2025-opening-night/

May is Jazz Poetry Month! Each Jazz Poetry program begins with a full set from a live jazz band, followed by a collaboration with local and international poets. In these collaborations, poets share their work alongside the musicians, the two art forms melding to create that signature Jazz Poetry improvisational style that offers something exciting, new, and unique with each individual performance. 

The 21st annual Jazz Poetry festival kicks off with “One of the most spellbinding trios in contemporary improvised music” (Echoes magazine). Jazz trio Thumbscrew travels to Pittsburgh to launch their latest album, Wingbeats, which germinated during the band’s last trip to Pittsburgh in 2023. Joining the trio on stage for a series of unique, improvisational collaborations are poets Mahogany L Browne, a Kennedy Center’s Next 50 fellow and author of the collection Chrome Valley; Oleksandr Frazé-Frazénko, a filmmaker, writer, and musician from Ukraine and City of Asylum Writer-in-Residence since 2023; and Camille Rankine, whose chapbook, Slow Dance with Trip Wire, was selected by Cornelius Eady for the Poetry Society of America’s New York Chapbook Fellowship. 

Featured Musicians:

Mary Halvorson: guitar

Mike Formanek: bass

Tomas Fujiwara: percussion

About the Band:

Thumbscrew accidentally came about after bassist Michael Formanek subbed in a band including guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. Something extraordinary happened among them right away, so they formed a trio, a co-operative in the truest sense. They play originals by all hands, compositions whose rhythms may surge, lag, or veer sideways according to their own internal logic. Bass and drums solo within the ensemble, not in quarantine. No one needs to be the loudest. The blend is tight: one string (or metal) sound may bleed into another. It’s something to hear—something twisty, turny, and always on the move.

About the Poets:

Mahogany L. Browne, a Kennedy Center’s Next 50 fellow, is a writer, playwright, organizer, & educator. Browne received fellowships from All Arts, Arts for Justice, Air Serenbe, Baldwin for the Arts, Cave Canem, Hawthornden, Poets House, Mellon Research, Rauschenberg, Wesleyan University, & UCross. Browne’s books include Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky (optioned for a play by Steppenwolf Theater), Black Girl Magic, and banned books Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice and Woke Baby. Founder of the diverse lit initiative Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne currently tours Chrome Valley (highlighted in Publishers Weekly and The New York Times) and is the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize winner. She holds an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree awarded by Marymount Manhattan College in 2024, is the inaugural poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center, and is at work on her first adult fiction and fourth YA novel-in-verse in Brooklyn, NY.

Oleksandr Frazé-Frazénko is a renowned film director, writer, music producer, and publisher. Over the years, his feature documentaries and fictional short films have had a lasting impact on Ukrainian culture. With a prolific music career, he has amassed millions of streams. His latest poetry collection, FAQ Ukraine, delves into the sophisticated and often controversial love-hate relationship between the poet and his motherland, guiding readers through the labyrinth of history while shedding light on the nation’s uncertain future. During the first year of the war in Ukraine, Oleksandr stayed in the country and became involved in a volunteer movement, working with foreign journalists as a producer, filmmaker, and writer to spread the truth about the situation and the historical context. He has been a Research Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh and a writer in residence as part of City of Asylum’s Fellowship for Ukrainian Writers since March 2023 with his wife, Mari Frazé-Frazénko, a gifted Ukrainian singer.

Camille Rankine is the daughter of Jamaican immigrants. Her first book of poetry, Incorrect Merciful Impulses, was published by Copper Canyon Press, and her chapbook, Slow Dance with Trip Wire, was selected by Cornelius Eady for the Poetry Society of America’s New York Chapbook Fellowship. She is the recipient of a Discovery Poetry Prize and fellowships from MacDowell, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her poetry has appeared in The Believer, Boston Review, The Nation, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Poetry, A Public Space, and Tin House, and elsewhere. She co-chairs the Brooklyn Book Festival Literary Council and is an assistant professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University.

HORSES & FOXES Performance

• Saturday, May 3, 2025

• 7:00 PM 8:30 PM

• WQED Studio A, 4802 Fifth Avenue

http://heidiwiren.com/events/2025/horsesandfoxes

7:00 - 8:00pm Performance
8:00 - 8:30pm Discussion with Anneliese Martinez
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

HORSES & FOXES is a 40-minute immersive performance exploring matriarchal agency and transformation, performed live by three artists, three women. 

Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh (Sound Direction, Performer)
Veronica Santiago Moniello (Movement Direction, Performer)
Heidi Wiren Kébé (Art Direction, Performer)

Inspired by the mythology of horses and foxes—symbols of strength, cunning, and control—the piece interrogates how patriarchal societies frame women as both powerful and perilous.

Set in Studio A at Pittsburgh’s WQED, HORSES & FOXES positions the audience in the round, using a dance cipher as a site of engagement. Through choreographed bodies, objects and live sound processing, the piece examines power thresholds: when it is given, how it is wielded, and when it fractures.

Drawing from Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Maggie Nelson, and bell hooks, HORSES & FOXES invites audiences to reflect on imposed roles, self-possession, and liberation through movement, sculpture, and sound.

This project has been sponsored and supported by the Tomayko Foundation and The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry FRFF Grant.

PS

See you Sunday, May 4, 3-9pm, $10-20

Lineup:

Rojo

Heather Harper (live)

Johnny Zoloft

DM @ ps.pgh.hi on IG for location & details.

  Rojo warms up our Sunday with pretty soulful selections featuring deep & groovy elements. In just the past few years, Pittsburgh witnessed Rojo blossom into an established community gatherer and party thrower through events such as Twirl and Hot Stuff Disco. Lean back into his celebration of individuality, love, and liberation, and leave feeling a happier, fiercer and sexier version of yourself by way of this grounding experience. [instagram]

  Heather Harper shares a hybrid live/DJ set that will shift from an experimental blend of ambient, drone, and noise, toward deep and textural bass music to get our bodies moving. Loop lovers will enjoy this trance-like atmosphere incorporating her vocal processing instrument “The Augmented Voice.” A multi-talented musician, Heather Harper is also a violinist in the noise band SHAME HOLE, one half of the DJ/VJ duo Reverse Cowgirl, and a frequent collaborator with Bella Figlia. [instagram]

  Johnny Zoloft seeps into rich soil to dream of a different world with their closing DJ set. Keep it moving, keep it pushing as they share rejuvenating sonics for body activation, restoring ourselves to prepare for what's next. JZ’s track digging is often done in the presence of their partner Eva Conrad’s (aka deposit unknown) ceramic creations, which will be on display for us. This conversation between two art mediums explores the grid imperfect, the human touch, the soul in the pattern. [soundcloud]

Jazz Poetry 2025: Nicole Mitchell Quintet, Chen Chen, Cameron Lovejoy, Roya Marsh, Ajibola Tolase

May 7 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm EDT

https://cityofasylum.org/program/jazz-poetry-2025-night-2/

City of Asylum’s iconic Jazz Poetry Month festival continues this week with a set of acclaimed poets and musicians! Each Jazz Poetry program begins with a full set from a live jazz band, followed by a collaboration with local and international poets. In these collaborations, poets share their work alongside the musicians, the two art forms melding to create that signature Jazz Poetry improvisational style that offers something exciting, new, and unique with each individual performance. 

Keeping the celebratory energy going, the second night of Jazz Poetry Month welcomes Nicole Mitchell, the former Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, playing tribute to a selection of Pittsburgh Greats, including Geri Allen, George Benson, and Erroll Garner. Nicole and her quintet are accompanied by poets Chen Chen, whose debut collection, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, was longlisted for the National Book Award; Cameron Lovejoy, a printer and poet who operates the slow press Tilted House; Roya Marsh, author of the poetry collection dayliGht, which was nominated for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Poetry; and Ajibola Tolase, a Nigerian poet and essayist whose collection 2000 Blacks won the 2024 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.

Featured Musicians:

Nicole Mitchell: flute, compositions

Anqwenique Kinsel: vocals

Irene Monteverde: piano

Jeff Grubbs: bass

James Johnson III: drums

About the Band:

Nicole Mitchell is an award-winning creative flutist, conceptualist, and composer. Emerging from Chicago’s creative music community in the 90s, she was the first woman president of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Nicole’s music celebrates contemporary African American culture with a creative process informed by literature, narrative, and a special interest in science fiction. For over 20 years, Nicole has utilized her art to create alternative worlds that “bridge the familiar with the unknown” with her Black Earth Ensemble. Encompassing philosophy and a strong debt to the writings of Octavia E. Butler, her music invites intercultural collaboration. As a soloist, bandleader, and improviser, she has repeatedly performed throughout Europe, Canada, and the U.S. With an impressive 15-year run (2010–2024) as “Top Flutist of the Year” by both Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll and the Jazz Journalists Association, she is celebrated for her development of a unique improvisational language on the flute. Mitchell is a Guggenheim fellow and a recipient of several awards, including the Doris Duke Artist Award, the United States Artist Award, the Herb Alpert Award, and more. Nicole is currently a Professor of Music at the University of Virginia. At home in North Carolina, she enjoys being a mother and grandmother.

About the Poets:

Chen Chen is the author of two books of poetry, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions, 2022) and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. His work appears in many publications, including Poetry and three editions of The Best American Poetry. He has received two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from Kundiman, the National Endowment for the Arts, and United States Artists. He was the 2018–2022 Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University and currently teaches for the low-residency MFA programs at New England College and Stonecoast. He lives with his partner, Jeff Gilbert, and their pug, Mr. Rupert Giles.

Cameron Lovejoy is a printer and poet who operates Tilted House, a slow press that publishes books of poetry under letterpress machines. In 2025, Eulalia published his translation of Argentina’s Olivia Milberg’s dos dedos de agua. Different things appear in Annulet, DIAGRAM, Ghost Proposal, and others. He lives and prints in New Orleans.

Roya Marsh is a Bronx, New York native and a nationally recognized poet, performer, educator, and activist. She is the author of the poetry collection dayliGht, which was nominated for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Poetry. The former Poet-in-Residence at Urban Word NYC, Marsh’s work has been featured on NBC, BET, and Def Jam’s All Def Digital, and published in Poetry, The Village Voice, Nylon, Huffington Post, and in the collection The BreakBeat Poets Volume 2: Black Girl Magic. She most recently released her poetry collection savings time, a riveting exploration of Black joy, collective action, and healing, in February of 2025. 

Ajibola Tolase is a Nigerian poet and essayist. He graduated from the creative writing MFA program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His chapbook, Koola Lobitos, was published as a part of the New Generation African Poets Series edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani in 2021. His writing has appeared in LitHub, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, and elsewhere. He is a former Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford University and has received a creative writing grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. He is the 2023–2024 Olive B. O’Connor Fellow in Poetry at Colgate University. He is the author of 2000 Blacks, winner of the 2024 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.

Jazz Poetry 2025: Stephanie Chou Quintet, Jan Beatty, Olena Boryshpolets, Mubanga Kalimamukwento

May 8 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm EDT

https://cityofasylum.org/program/jazz-poetry-2025-night-3/

The second week of City of Asylum’s annual Jazz Poetry festival introduces another jam-packed night of international poetry and musical performances from some of the world’s most talented artists. Each Jazz Poetry program begins with a full set from a live jazz band, followed by a collaboration with local and international poets. In these collaborations, poets share their work alongside the musicians, the two art forms melding to create that signature Jazz Poetry improvisational style that offers something exciting, new, and unique with each individual performance. 

New York City–based composer, saxophonist, and singer Stephanie Chou takes to the jazz poetry stage for the first time. Stephanie blends Chinese musical influences with Western jazz and pop to create a unique and vibrant musical world. Pairing with Stephanie and her quintet are renowned poets Jan Beatty, whose eighth book, Dragstripping, takes readers to dragstrip (in all its forms) where the ecstatic is rescripted; Olena Boryshpolets, a Ukrainian poet (and City of Asylum Writer-in-Residence) who recently released her moving and beloved collection Orpheus and Eurydice in New York; and Zambian writer and winner of the 2024 Drue Heinz Prize Mubanga Kalimamukwento, who returns to Pittsburgh to share her debut poetry collection, Another Mother Does Not Come When Yours Dies.

Featured Musicians:

Stephanie Chou: vocals, saxophone, compositions

Tomoko Omura: violin

Hyuna Park: piano

Ike Sturm: bass

Ronen Itzik: drums

About the Band:

Stephanie Chou is a composer, saxophonist, and singer based in New York City. Stephanie’s music creates immediate cross-cultural connections and focuses on connecting with the audience. Her debut album, Prime Knot, was an instrumental jazz sextet album featuring trumpeter Marcus Printup (Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra). Stephanie’s second album, Asymptote, focused on jazz reinventions of classic Chinese folk songs and features fresh takes on Chinese classics and a setting of one of Li Bai’s most famous poems. She has performed her music in Taipei, Beijing, Canada, and throughout New York City, DC, and more. Stephanie believes in the power of music to create social change. Comfort Girl, her 80-minute song cycle exploring the lives of Chinese “comfort women” abducted into sexual slavery by the Japanese army during WWII, is not only a groundbreaking fusion of East-West musical traditions but has also sparked public dialogue on a formerly taboo subject that still resonates globally for women today. DownBeat magazine called it “A stunning work that…shines light on a dark chapter of history.” Comfort Girl is currently being developed into an opera. Stephanie was a 2024 American Music Abroad US State Department tour finalist, a 2021 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship finalist, and a finalist in the iSING! 2020 Composition Competition (China).

About the Poets:

Jan Beatty‘s eighth book, Dragstripping, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in September 2024. She was featured in Poetry magazine in December 2024. Jan is the winner of the Red Hen Nonfiction Award for her memoir, American Bastard. Her sixth book, The Body Wars, was published in 2020 by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Jan is at work on her ninth full-length book, a collection of essays about gender and censorship. Jan’s work has been published in the Atlantic, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Poetry, BuzzFeed, North American Review, and Best American Poetry. Her books include Red Sugar, finalist for the 2009 Paterson Poetry Prize; Boneshaker, finalist for the Milton Kessler Award; and Mad River, winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. Of Jan’s work, Pitt Poetry Series Editor Ed Ochester said, “Nobody has a better sense of the colloquial American idiom. Nobody among her contemporaries writes better poems about urban working-class life.” Awards include the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, Discovery/The Nation Prize finalist, an Artist Grant from The Pittsburgh Foundation, a Creative Achievement Award in Literature, Heinz Foundation, and two fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. For 25 years, Jan hosted and produced Prosody, a public radio show on NPR-affiliate WYEP-FM featuring the work of national writers. She worked as a waitress, a welfare caseworker, an abortion counselor, and in maximum-security prisons for many years. She was the managing editor of MadBooks, a small press that published a series of books and chapbooks by women writers. Jan has taught poetry for over 25 years at the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, and Carlow University. She is Faculty Emerita at Carlow University, where she directed creative writing, the Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops, and the international low-residency MFA program.

Olena Boryshpolets is originally from Odesa, Ukraine. They say you can leave Odesa, but Odesa will never leave you. Thus, Olena brought Odesa with her when she came to Pittsburgh and is ready to share this incredible city with all of us. Olena is a poet, writer, journalist, actress, cultural manager, and author of the short story book Ukrainian Detox and the book of poetry Orpheus and Eurydice in New York. Olena is also a member of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, a co-founder of the public organization Creativity Without Borders, and a member of PEN America. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Olena traveled to Poland, where she spent a year acting in the Polish-Ukrainian play Life in Case of War. Since March 2023, she has been a Research Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh and a Writer-in-Residence at the City of Asylum Fellowship for Ukrainian Writers.

Mubanga Kalimamukwento is the author of Shipikisha: A Novel (forthcoming from Dzanc Books, 2026), winner of the 2024 Dzanc Prize for Fiction and the 2024 Drue Heinz Literature Prize for her short story collection Obligations to the Wounded, and finalist for a 2025 Minnesota Book Award. Her debut poetry collection, Another Mother Does Not Come When Yours Dies: Poems, is forthcoming from Wayfarer Books in 2025. Her creative work has also appeared in adda, Aster(ix), Isele Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Kweli, Overland, on Netflix, and elsewhere. Her editorial work can be found or is forthcoming in Shenandoah, the Water~Stone Review, Doek! Literary Magazine, and Safundi. She founded Ubwali Literary Magazine and co-founded the Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop. When she’s not writing or editing, Mubanga serves as a Mentor at the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. She is currently a PhD student in the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota (Twin-Cities), where she is also an Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change (ICGC) Scholar. Her research centers on the autoethnographic study of the lives of Zambian married women who are long-term survivors of HIV.

JAZZ & IMPROVISATION at the ORMSBY AVE CAFE

Thursday May 8th
Music at 7pm
$10 cover

ELSINORE comes to Ormsby Ave Cafe bringing local friends from the jazz & improvisation community.

At this event Elsinore will be:
Luke Farkas (Skeletonized)
RJ Myato (Wiretappers)
Alexander Stajduhar (Pocket Cookies)
Eric Stark (Pocket Cookies)

Other local artists tba.

Be respectful and have a killer time!

https://www.facebook.com/share/1BQAc8TDsa/

The NYC-based harp and violin / vocal duo of Marilu Donovan and Adam Markiewicz plays at Telephone with a stacked lineup of diverse local support.

Advance tickets can be purchased for $15 below or for a slightly higher price of $18 at the door on the evening of the event.

https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/errantbooking/leya-telephone-pittsburgh

Friday, May 9th, 2025

7pm

Telephone, 5120 Penn Ave

LEYA - harp + violin duo touring from NYC

Local support from:

Estelle

Clear Creek SP

Ricki Weidenhof + slowdanger

D.L.B.

Saturday May 10th 2025

Show 7:00 PM until 10:00 PM

Max Johnson 3 at Bantha Tea Bar
5002 Penn Ave Pittsburgh

https://arcane.city/events/max-johnson-3-at-bantha-tea-bar

All Ages $15Described as “an intrepid composer, architect of sound and beast of the bass…” (Brad Cohan, NYC Jazz Record) composer, bassist, and improviser Max Johnson is one of the most prolific music makers in the jazz, bluegrass, improvised music, and contemporary classical worlds. Johnson has released nearly 20 albums and performed over three thousand concerts internationally. For this concert, Max Johnson presents his incredible trio with Neta Raanan on tenor saxophone and Connor Parks on drumset, celebrating the trio's 2024 album, "I'll see you again". This trio explores Johnson’s more traditional jazz compositions while always featuring Johnson's unique soundworld

SECOND SATURDAYS

doors open 8pm

performances 9pm-11pm 

$15​​

MAY 10  -  Opie / Throckmorton

https://www.thespaceupstairs.org/second-saturdays

​

TICKETS 5/10/25

Established in 2007, SECOND SATURDAYS have been the signature jazz-happenings at The Space Upstairs, becoming a beloved staple of the local arts scene. This unique venue is not just a space; it is an immersive cool and separate world, lit by naked light bulbs, accoutered in vintage couches, coffee tables, deconstructed instruments, and with random sticks of chalk about and a wall of books to invite spontaneous inquiry, creativity and contemplation. The improvisational postmodern-jazz dance performances by The Pillow Project are captured in vivid splashes of light, as the synergy between sound and movement turns the space into a living canvas of artistic expression.

Hosted by Founding Artistic Directors, Jaka Porter and John Lambert, The Space presents different musical guests each month. SECOND SATURDAYS are a modern speakeasy event that unfolds in our expansive 4,000 sq/ft warehouse-gallery loft-space. It’s the sort of atmosphere in which creativity thrives and quality connections can be encountered. This artistic haven has quietly become one of Pittsburgh's best-kept secrets, attracting those who seek alternatives to the mainstream entertainment scene.

​

*SECOND SATURDAYS are proudly sober events, emphasizing a community-focused atmosphere. Guests can enjoy a selection of housemade infused waters, specialty iced coffees, and other seasonal drinks and refreshments available for donation at The Space Bar. Additionally, don’t miss out on the Mocktail Happy Hour from 8p - 9p, where attendees can indulge in refreshing non-alcoholic beverages while mingling and enjoying the vibrant scene!

Foundation Improvised Music Series

Every 2nd Sunday, 7pm

Bantha Tea Bar, 5002 Penn Ave

$10-20 suggested donation

No one turned away for lack of funds!

May 11th lineup:

Opera by Roman Antopolsky with large improvising ensemble featuring Jay Rauch, Mai Khôi, Caleb Gamble, tre seguritan abalos, Dittocrush, Carl Fuermann, Nick Sirio, Thomas Scheurich, Nick Fagnilli.

More details to come.

Jazz Poetry 2025: Reginald Dwayne Betts, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Volodymyr Rafeyenko, Anouar Rahmani

May 13 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm EDT

https://cityofasylum.org/program/jazz-poetry-2025-night-4/

Jazz Poetry Month brings so much talent to the stage, it’s hard to believe we’re only halfway through! Each Jazz Poetry program begins with a full set from a live jazz band, followed by a collaboration with local and international poets. In these collaborations, poets share their work alongside the musicians, the two art forms melding to create that signature Jazz Poetry improvisational style that offers something exciting, new, and unique with each individual performance. 

This performance puts the spotlight on incredible poets Reginald Dwayne Betts, MacArthur genius, poet, lawyer, and founder of Freedom Reads; LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, a poet and sound artist whose latest work, Village, is described by Camille Dungy as “part instruction manual, part celebration, part dance party, part garden tour”; Volodymyr Rafeyenko, a writer, poet, translator, and literary critic from Kyiv, Ukraine, who became a Writer-in-Residence at City of Asylum following the outbreak of Russian aggression in Ukraine in 2022; and Anouar Rahmani, an Algerian novelist, journalist, activist, and Writer-in-Residence at City of Asylum whose literary work boldly challenges societal norms and advocates for freedom of expression, LGBTQ+ rights, and social justice. These four poets will share the stage with an incredible, soon-to-be-announced band, so stay tuned for further details!

About the Poets:

Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet and lawyer. A 2021 MacArthur Fellow, he is the Executive Director of Freedom Reads, a not-for-profit organization that is radically transforming access to literature in prisons through the installation of Freedom Libraries in prisons across this country. For more than twenty years, he has used his poetry and essays to explore the world of prison and the effects of violence and incarceration on American society. The author of a memoir and three collections of poetry, he has transformed his latest collection of poetry, the American Book Award winning Felon, into a solo theater show that explores the post-incarceration experience and lingering consequences of a criminal record through poetry, stories, and engaging with the timeless and transcendental art of paper-making. In 2019, Betts won the National Magazine Award in the Essays and Criticism category for his New York Times Magazine essay that chronicles his journey from prison to becoming a licensed attorney. He has been awarded a Radcliffe Fellowship from Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Emerson Fellow at New America, and most recently, a Civil Society Fellow at Aspen. Betts holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.

Interdisciplinary poet and sound artist LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs is the author of Village (Coffee House Press, 2023) and TwERK (Belladonna, 2013). She is the author of three chapbooks, which include Ichi- Ban and Ni-Ban (MOH Press), Manuel is destroying my bathroom (Belladonna*), and the album Televisíon. Diggs’ work is truly hybrid: languages and modes are grafted together and furl out insistently from each bound splice. Diggs has received a 2020 C.D. Wright Award for Poetry from the Foundation of Contemporary Art, a 2016 Whiting Award and a 2015 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, as well as grants and fellowships from the Howard Foundation, Cave Canem, Creative Capital, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission, among others. Diggs has presented and performed at a wide and eclectic array of venues, from the California Institute of the Arts and The Museum of Modern Art to the International Poetry Festival of Copenhagen and the International Poetry Festival of Romania. As an independent curator, artistic director, and producer, Diggs has presented events for BAMCafé, Black Rock Coalition, El Museo del Barrio, La Casita, and more. She teaches at Brooklyn and Barnard College and lives in New York City.

Volodymyr Rafeyenko is an award-winning Ukrainian writer, poet, translator, and literary and film critic from Kyiv, Ukraine. He graduated from Donetsk University with a degree in Russian philology and culture studies, and from 1992 to 2018, he wrote his works in Russian, was mainly published in Russia, and was considered a representative of Russian literature. Following the outbreak of Russian aggression in Ukraine, Volodymyr left Donetsk and moved to a town near Kyiv where he wrote Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love, his first novel in the Ukrainian language, which was shortlisted for the Taras Shevchenko National Prize—Ukraine’s highest award in arts and culture. Volodymyr learned Ukrainian from scratch and has dedicated himself to speaking Ukrainian, rather than Russian, his mother tongue, as an act of resistance and perseverance. Among other recognitions, he is the winner of the Volodymyr Korolenko Prize for the novel Brief Farewell Book (1999) and the Visegrad Eastern Partnership Literary Award for the novel The Length of Days (2017). Volodymyr’s prose is full of phantasmagorical images and storylines, as well as explicit and implicit allusions to well-known texts. He is sometimes called the “magical postmodernist” due to the intertextuality and richness of his prose. He is a Research Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh and a Writer-in-Residence at City of Asylum with his wife, Olesia Rafeyenko, since June 2023.

Anouar Rahmani is an Algerian novelist, journalist, and human rights defender whose literary work boldly challenges societal norms and advocates for freedom of expression, LGBTQ+ rights, and social justice. He has published four novels, each igniting critical discourse and controversy. As a pioneering advocate for human rights, Rahmani was the first to publicly demand the legalization of same-sex marriage in Algeria, breaking one of the country’s most significant taboos. He is also a prominent figure in the women’s rights movement in Algeria and the broader Arab world. Rahmani’s commitment to literature and human rights has earned him prestigious international recognition. In 2021, he was shortlisted for the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award and honored by the German Bundestag’s “Parliamentarians for Parliamentarians” initiative. He is a 2022 Artist Protection Fund Fellow and a City of Asylum Writer-in-Residence (2022-2025). His academic journey includes esteemed fellowships such as the Carnegie Mellon Scholars Fellowship (2022-2024) and the Scholars at Risk Fellowship (2023-2024). Rahmani holds a Master’s degree in law, States, and Institutions & International Law from Algeria and a Master’s in Global Communication and Applied Translation from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Forced into exile due to threats and repression, Rahmani now resides in the United States, where he continues his literary and advocacy work. 

5/14 at 7pm

Frank Hurricane (touring)

w locals

Silenus & St. Christopher

Some Pepper

$10-15

DM @scobi_hotel on IG for address or email pittsburghsoundpreserve [at] gmail.com

Jazz Poetry 2025: House of Waters ft. Priya Darshini, Safia Elhillo, Haleh Liza Gafori, Rania Mamoun, Nathan Osorio

May 15 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm EDT

https://cityofasylum.org/program/jazz-poetry-2025-night-5/

For this dazzling Jazz Poetry performance, City of Asylum welcomes a celebrated group of poets and a Grammy-nominated band. Each Jazz Poetry program begins with a full set from a live jazz band, followed by a collaboration with local and international poets. In these collaborations, poets share their work alongside the musicians, the two art forms melding to create that signature Jazz Poetry improvisational style that offers something exciting, new, and unique with each individual performance. 

City of Asylum is thrilled to host musical group House of Waters, featuring Priya Darshini. Nominated for Best Contemporary Instrumental album in 2024 and described as “one of the most unique groups you will ever come across” (The Bubble), House of Waters incorporates elements of West African, psychedelic, indie rock, and classical and world musics in their style to be at the forefront of jazz innovation. Sharing the stage with the group are Safia Elhillo, the Sudanese author of The January Children (Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, Arab American Book Award); Haleh Liza Gafori, Persian poet and musician whose acclaimed translations of Rumi (Gold and Water) have given new audiences insight into the mind of the 13th-century poet; Rania Mamoun, Sudanese activist and poet (and City of Asylum Writer-in-Residence) who beautifully captured the early days of the pandemic in her collection Something Evergreen Called Life; and Nathan Osorio, poet and scholar whose debut poetry collection, Querida, was selected by Shara McCallum as the winner of the 2024 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize.

Featured Musicians:

Max ZT: hammered dulcimer

Moto Fukushima: 6-string electric bass

Franco Pinna: drums

Priya Darshini: vocals 

About the Band:

House of Waters is a trio that makes those words come alive as they incorporate elements of West African, jazz, psychedelic, indie rock, classical, and world music into their astonishingly unique sound. The “Jimi Hendrix of the Hammered Dulcimer” (NPR), Max ZT is an innovator of an instrument rarely heard in contemporary music. With roots in Irish folk music, Max has studied in Senegal, where he trained with the Cissoko Griot family, and India, where he studied under the santoor master Pandit Shivkumar Sharma. His unorthodox playing style has been a pioneering force in revolutionizing dulcimer techniques. Moto Fukushima is a recognized master of the six-string bass. With a background in jazz improvisation, Western classical music, and the music of South America, Moto’s playing combines finesse, subtlety, and power that leaves audiences “slack-jawed in awe” (Jazzwise). 

About the Poets:

Safia Elhillo, Sudanese by way of Washington, DC, is the author of the books The January Children, Girls That Never Die, Home Is Not A Country, and Bright Red Fruit. Safia’s work appears in Poetry Magazine, Callaloo, and The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-day series, among others, and in anthologies, including The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop and The Penguin Book of Migration Literature. With Fatimah Asghar, she is co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket Books, 2019), which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in 2020. Her fellowships include a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, Cave Canem, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. Safia received the 2015 Brunel International African Poetry Prize and was listed in Forbes Africa’s 2018 “30 Under 30.” Her work has been translated into several languages and commissioned by Under Armour, Cuyana, and the Bavarian State Ballet.

Haleh Liza Gafori is an American poet, translator, and musician of Persian descent. As a vocalist, she has performed as part of David Byrne’s One Note Series at Carnegie Hall and at Bonnaroo. The translator of Rumi’s Gold, she teaches workshops on Rumi’s poetry at universities and festivals across the country. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Rania Mamoun is a Sudanese activist and bestselling writer of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. She completed Something Evergreen Called Life, a poetry manuscript written during the COVID-19 quarantine, translated into English by Yasmine Seale and published by Action Books in March 2023. Rania has published two novels to great international acclaim, Green Flash and Son of the Sun, and Thirteen Months of Sunrise, a short story collection that was shortlisted for the 2020 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. Rania continues to organize for democracy in Sudan. Her writing has appeared in English, Korean, French, and Spanish translation. She has been a Writer-in-Residence at City of Asylum since 2019.

Nathan Xavier Osorio’s debut collection of poetry, Querida, was selected by Shara McCallum as the winner of the 2024 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize and published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. He is the author of The Last Town Before the Mojave, selected by Oliver De la Paz as a recipient of the Poetry Society of America’s 2021 Chapbook Fellowship. He received his PhD in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz and was a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Irvine. His work has also appeared in BOMB, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, Boston Review, Public Books, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art. His writing and teaching have been supported by fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, The Kenyon Review, and the Poetry Foundation. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Texas Tech University.

Celebrate the release of Zach Peckham’s “Cycle Hum” on May 15, support touring readers, and check out new work from some familiar local readers and performers! Ceremonial Abyss on 5/15. All start at 7pm!

Fungus Books & Records

700 1/2 S Trenton Ave

5/15 at 7pm

Tough Pill is a creative music and performance series held primarily at The Government Center, third Thursdays of Every month in Pittsburgh. Tough Pill seeks to create space for practitioners while also expanding the scope of the experimental art audience. It's not always this, but it's always good... so always come!

Tough Pill 46: May 15, 2025
$10-15 suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds!

Check back for line-up.

Jazz Poetry 2025: Jerome Jennings & iLL Philosophy, Carly Inghram, Montaser Abdel Mawgoud, Bo Mima

May 20 @ 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm EDT

https://cityofasylum.org/program/jazz-poetry-2025-jerome-jennings-ill-philosophy/

City of Asylum is thrilled to host this Jazz Poetry performance in collaboration with our first-ever Bridges Creative Summit! Each Jazz Poetry program begins with a full set by the band, followed by a collaborative performance with each poet. In these collaborations, poets share their work alongside the musicians, the two art forms melding to create that signature Jazz Poetry improvisational style that offers something exciting, new, and unique with each performance. 

This program welcomes sextet Jerome Jennings & iLL Philosophy. The brainchild of drummer and Emmy Award–winning composer Jerome Jennings, the group performs original compositions that fuse jazz with blues, bebop, Afrobeat, and hip hop, featuring turntables courtesy of DJ OOOChild. This performance is a collaboration and improvisation with talented poets from all over the world, including former ICORN resident Montaser Abdel Mawgoud; Bo Mima, the newest City of Asylum Writer-in-Residence; and Carly Inghram, a poet from Atlanta whose 2021 collection, The Animal Indoors (Autumn House Press), was selected by Terrance Hayes as the winner of the Book Prize of the Center for African American Poetry & Poetics.

Featured Musicians:

Jerome Jennings: drums, compositions

Stephane Clement: trumpet

Neta Raanan: tenor and soprano saxophones

Alexis Marcelo: piano

Malik Kiyoshi McLaurine: bass

DJ OOOChild: turntables

About the Band:

Jerome Jennings is a drummer, activist, and Emmy Award–winning composer. His debut album, The Beast, was a reflection of the everyday joys and traumas of Black life in the USA. It was named one of the top three jazz releases by NPR and received a four-star rating in Downbeat Magazine. Jerome’s sophomore recording, Solidarity, focused on the experiences of African American women, examining their lives through the prisms of the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements. His new musical group, Jerome Jennings & iLL Philosophy—drums, trumpet, sax, keys, bass, and turntables (courtesy of DJ OOOChild)—performs Jerome’s original compositions, which fuse jazz with blues, bebop, Afrobeat, and hip hop.

About the Poets:

Carly Inghram is a poet from Atlanta. She received an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. Her work is featured in The Indianapolis Review, Prelude, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, Sometimes the Blue Trees, was released from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press in 2019. Her 2021 collection, The Animal Indoors, was selected by Terrance Hayes as the winner of the Book Prize of the Center for African American Poetry & Poetics.

Montaser Abdel Mawgoud is an award-winning poet, writer, and literary critic from Alexandria, Egypt, based in Norway. He holds a BA in Arabic Language & Literature. Montaser has participated in numerous international festivals, and his works have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Romanian, Macedonian, Swedish, and Norwegian. He has published four poetry collections, including Wars and Defeats (2004) and In Praise of Small Towns (2019), as well as a novel, Typewriter Teacher and His One Colour (2021), among other works. He has two new books on the way: Archipelago Isolation (Svalbard Diaries) and In the Presence of the Mountains (Haiku poems). After the publication of his poetry collection, There Are Things That Will Never Be Tried (2012), Montaser Abdel Mawgoud was accused of blasphemy and atheism, facing legal challenges and pressure to withdraw his work. In 2018, Abdel Mawgoud arrived in Trondheim, where he was an ICORN Artist-in-Residence until 2020.

Jazz Poetry 2025: James Brandon Lewis Quintet, ft. Chad Taylor, Haile Bizen, Doralee Brooks, Huang Xiang

May 22 @ 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm EDT

https://cityofasylum.org/program/jazz-poetry-2025-james-brandon-lewis/

The final Jazz Poetry performance of 2025, and the second in collaboration with the Bridges Creative Summit at City of Asylum, goes out with a bang, welcoming back a legendary headliner and the first initiate of City of Asylum’s sanctuary program. Each Jazz Poetry program begins with a full set by the band, followed by a collaborative performance with each poet. In these collaborations, poets share their work alongside the musicians, the two art forms melding to create that signature Jazz Poetry improvisational style that offers something exciting, new, and unique with each individual performance. 

Celebrated saxophonist James Brandon Lewis takes to the stage for his fifth year as festival headliner. His performance gives audiences a sneak peek of his next project: a suite of songs in tribute to American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and bandleader Eric Dolphy. This program will feature poetry collaborations with residents from visiting European ICORN cities, including Eritrean poet Haile Bizan; Poet Laureate of Allegheny County (2022–2024) Doralee Brooks; and City of Asylum’s first-ever Writer-in-Residence, Huang Xiang, who was the inspiration and original poet for our (now annual) Jazz Poetry Month Festival. In contemporary Chinese literature, Huang Xiang is one of the earliest and most prolific liberal poets and writers in the “underground literature” scene. 

Featured Musicians:

James Brandon Lewis: saxophone

Kirk Knuffke: cornet

Patricia Brennan: vibraphone

Chris Lightcap: bass

Chad Taylor: drums 

About the Band:

New York tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis is “one of the fiercest sounds in jazz today” (The Guardian) with a “penchant for unbound exploration” (Pitchfork). James’s latest album, Apple Cores, is his sixteenth and further cements James as one of the provocative and prolific musical voices of his generation. It follows his breakthrough with JazzTimes’ Album of the Year Jesup Wagon (2021), a dreamlike mosaic of gospel, folk-blues, and catcalling brass bands inspired by inventor George Washington Carver; and Eye Of I (2023), his joyous and exploratory debut for ANTI-. The latter paved the way for The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis (2024), a collaboration with experimental jazz punk trio the Messthetics. Recently named their Rising Star as both Artist of the Year and Composer of the Year, Downbeat declared: “James Brandon Lewis does not take the easy road. Having forged a singular sound on the tenor saxophone, he could simply devise settings that showcase his brawny tone. Instead, he has rooted his recent music in extramusical research.”

About the Poets:

A poet, journalist, editor, art critic, and translator, Haile Bizen has published several collections of poetry and short stories. He has also translated two children’s books and co-authored three. Before fleeing Eritrea in 2009, Haile served in various capacities and positions, including as an editorial board member of Hiwyet magazine from 1995–2001, editor at Hidri Publishers from 1996–2007, and a jury member of Eritrea’s highest literary award, Raimock, and other national literary contests. Haile came to Norway in 2011 through ICORN. He was co-founder and president of PEN Eritrea. In Norway, he has been published in several anthologies. He has translated and published translations of Norwegian books, including beloved children’s stories into Tigrinya. 

Doralee Brooks is an educator and poet. She is the author of When I Hold You up to the Light (Main Street Rag), winner of the Cathy Smith Bowers Chapbook Prize (2019), and the editor of the 2025 anthology The Gulf Tower Forecasts Rain: Pittsburgh Poems (Main Street Rag). Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. In the fall of 2024, her poem “Hips,” was posted as November’s Poem of the Month on Mom Egg Review’s website and nominated for a Pushcart prize. Professor Emerita of the Community College of Allegheny County, Doralee currently facilitates a Madwomen in the Attic poetry workshop at Carlow University. She holds an MEd from the University of Pittsburgh and an MFA in poetry from Carlow University. Doralee is a fellow of the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project and attended Cave Canem Fellows workshops. She was City of Asylum’s Poet Laureate of Allegheny County from 2022–2024.

Huang Xiang, a native of Guidong County, Hunan Province, China, was born in December 1941. Huang Xiang began publishing his work in 1958 when his poems were selected in a nationwide poetry collection. He was admitted to the Chinese Writers Association and became its youngest member at 17. Huang Xiang’s writings cover various forms and styles such as poetry, philosophy, essay and prose, political commentary, autobiography, and more. His writing “An Open Letter to President Carter” brought worldwide attention to the human rights movement in China. From 1959 to 1995, he was imprisoned a total of six times (for 12 years) for his determined pursuit of freedom of spirit and expression and human rights advocacy. Between October 2004 and October 2006, Huang Xiang was the first Writer-in-Residence at City of Asylum Pittsburgh. His creation of “House Poem” was the original “House Publication” on Sampsonia Way and features his poetry in bold white lettering covering the house’s exterior. In 2005 and 2006, Huang Xiang staged a joint performance in the first and second-ever Jazz Poetry festivals with Oliver Lake, a renowned American jazz musician, in Pittsburgh. In April 2007, Huang Xiang and Oliver Lake were invited to attend the PEN World Voices festival, where they revived their Jazz Poetry performance among appearances by other world-renowned writers, artists, and musicians, including Patti Smith and Elvis Costello.  

Kamraton performs an expanded version of Eric Moe’s chamber opera “We Crossed the River”

 "We Crossed the River" by Eric Moe and Angie Cruz, along with:

inti figgis-vizueta: new cosmologies (2020)

Allison Loggins-Hull: Homeland (2018)

Jimena Maldonado: Observance of Light (2017)

https://www.kamraton.org/

2025 Xenharmonic Summer Workshop!

Place: Gesundheit Institute, Hillsboro, WV (home of our 2011, 2012 and 2019 events)
Dates: 6-20 July 2025
Lodging, Food, and Session: $2000--value exchange and financial aid can be discussed; write to summercamp@untwelve.org
Website: https://www.patchadams.org/course/xenharmonic-music-summer-camp/

We're an experienced team who have hosted 10 like events dating back to 2008, which explore a unique, non-institutional, and almost neo-anthropological approach to microtonal tuning and the harmonic imagination.

Many attendees have felt their worlds change and their networks grow.

In summer 2024 we had a mini 4-day camp that was exciting and replenishing for attendees, but since losing our 2020 event to the pandemic, we've been seeking the momentum to hold a full camp. This year, we believe we have it.

Our present course of action: find out who is coming; what projects/tech/interests they are bringing; and thus see what we've got. Expect abundant demos, coaching/project development, and sing-alongs with xenharmonic achievers.

The point is as much to see each other, revel in our shared joy in xeno-tuning, and enjoy community and the outdoors, as to get anything specific done... though fascinating projects and recordings often have a way of taking flight.

And some just keep going from there, with awesome results:

• Hark Ye, Music Lovers, 2019 EP incubated at past camps:

• Microtonal cover song compendium, Stephen Weigel:

• Mirage for string trio by Nicholas Osborn:

• Nature's First Green Is Gold, vocal round by Danny Newman-Lessler:

So here are our two requests:

1) Add the save-the-date to your calendar, to begin squaring this opportunity to your other summer commitments.

2) If you become sure this is an event that would be great for you, don't be shy to APPLY (&). Your expression of interest need not become a firm commitment until April 4, but seeing the list of likely attendees and their interests is what begins to bring this event into focus, so those who say yes earlier are influential.

Best for a year full of bright creativity, for which dark times are ultimately no match,

Bruce, Chris, Jacob, and Thomas

Event Info TBD