In this video, Musician Erica Lindsay talks about composition, improvisation, poetry, and playing with a large band. Lindsay has been featured in the Jazz Poetry Concert series as a member of Oliver Lake’s Big Band Ensemble and is currently working on her own projects with improvised saxophone and orchestral compositions.
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According to baritone saxophonist Alex Harding, if you want to know jazz, you must first know the blues. “The blues is what this music is about. Period,” he said during rehearsal for City of Asylum/Pittsburgh’s 2010 Jazz Poetry festival. In this video, Harding explains how the sound of the sax emanates from the same place as the human voice and reflects on the rich jazz legacy of rust belt cities like Pittsburgh and Detroit.
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When the Nobel Foundation announced that Chinese intellectual and activist Liu Xiaobo won the Peace Prize, we celebrated at Sampsonia Way. The prize committee lauded Liu Xiaobo “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.” We hoped this would help the jailed writer gain his freedom. However, the announcement ignited a furious response from China.
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Than Htay Maung works on 324 Sampsonia Way most sunny days, painting an enormous mural that blends images of his native Burma with his new home of Pittsburgh.
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On April 27, novelist Tommy Wieringa visited Sampsonia Way to give a reading with Sofi Oksanen and Christos Tsoilkas. The event was sponsored by City of Aslyum/Pittsburgh in partnership with PEN/America.
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When Silvia Duarte interviewed saxophonist and painter Oliver Lake for our May issue, he had just started sketching out his ideas for the Oliver House, the latest “house publication” of City of Asylum/Pittsburgh. House publications are homes on Sampsonia Way adorned with original artworks and writings. Writers in exile and visiting writers stay in these houses when they visit COA/P.
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I recently had dinner with a group of writers including Maxine Case and Marius Ivaskevicius, two authors who were writers-in-residence at City of Asylum/Pittsburgh by way of the University of Iowa International Writing Program. Marius, who […]
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