1. MITRA SUMARA
Date: Monday, December 21, 2015
Time: 7pm to 9pm
Venue: Cafe Nadery – Manhattan (16 W8th Street, New York, New York 10011)
Ticket: $48/ per person (includes tax and tips)
Tickets must be bought online at Eventbrite.com (no reservations taken)
Genre: Iranian 60’s pop music
Mitra Sumara is New York City’s only Farsi Funk group. This international party band gets down with the vibrant pop and funk music of 60s/70s Iran, an infectious pre-Revolutionary sound which combined the beats of Fela Kuti, salsa, and disco with Middle Eastern melodies and flowery poetry.
Interpreting hits by Iran’s beloved singers Googoosh, Pooran, Aghassi, Leila Forouhar, Nooshafarin, and Zia Atabi’s intoxicating Bandari beat tunes, Mitra Sumara’s repertoire also includes American hits of the era translated into Farsi. East meets West meets East while delighted audiences sing along.
2. Phill Niblock: Winter Solstice
Date: Monday, December 21, 2015
Time: 6pm
Venue: The Roulette (509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217)
Ticket: $20
Genre: six sublime hours music (acoustic and electronic) and mixed media film and video in a live procession
As the longest night of the year unfolds, and the journey of our planet nears the point when Winter commences in the Northern Hemisphere, join us for Phill Niblock’s annual Winter Solstice concert: six sublime hours music (acoustic and electronic) and mixed media film and video in a live procession that charts the movement of our planet and the progress of ourselves through art and performance at is maximal best.
Phill Niblock is an intermedia artist using music, film, photography, video, and computers. Since the mid-60s, he has been making music and intermedia performances which have been shown at numerous venues around the world: The Museum of Modern Art, The Wadsworth Atheneum, the Kitchen, the Paris Autumn Festival, Palais des Beaux Arts (Brussels), Institute of Contemporary Art (London), Akademie der Kunste (Berlin), Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard, World Music Institute at Merkin Hall NYC. Since 1985, Niblock has been the director of the Experimental Intermedia Foundation in New York where he has been an artist and member since 1968. He is the producer of Music and Intermedia presentations at EI since 1973 (about 1000 performances to date) and the curator of EI’s XI Records label. In 1993 he was part of the formation of an Experimental Intermedia organization in Gent, Belgium – EI v.z.w. Gent. Niblock’s music is available on the XI, Moikai, Mode and Touch labels.
3. Morley: Circle Round Dignity, Courage and Survival
Date: Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center (61 W 62nd St, New York, New York 10023)
Tickets: free (sponsored concert)
Genre: singer-songwriter & talk
Join singer-songwriter Morley for a performance-based round table among friends on empathy and healing through art and action. The evening will feature a cross section of artists and human rights activists including Damani Baker, filmmaker; Jacqueline Woodson, author and winner of National Book Award for her memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming; J. Bob Alotta, executive director of Astraea, Lesbian Foundation for Justice; Carl Hancock Rux, award-winning American poet, novelist, singer-songwriter, essayist, and theater/performance artist; Tiokasin Ghosthorse, host of First Voices Radio, cultural resonator and conscious advocate of Mother Earth and Adaku Utah, Liberation educator, performance ritual artist, founder of Harriet’s Apothecary. Prepare to be inspired.
4. SEBASTIAN CRUZ solo
Date: Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: Barbes (376 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY)
Ticket: $10
Genre: Colombian music
SEBASTIAN CRUZ solo. Sebastian Cruz is a Colombian guitarist and accomplished composer, lyricist and songwriter. Cruz has released two albums with his Colombian infused songwriting project ‘Coba,’ featuring some of the most interesting singers in the Latin American scene in NY. He has composed, arranged and directed for Lucía Pulido and La Cumbiamba eNeYé, two influential projects at the forefront of a new wave of Colombian music. After presenting a solo set at Bogota’s influential festival “El Distritofónico”, Cruz has embarked on a series of solo concerts. Expect Colombian grooves, prepared guitars, multi-layered improvisation and songs.
5. Jamie Saft’s New Zion Trio
Date: Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Time: 7pm
Venue: Joe’s Pub (425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10003, 212-967-7555)
Tickets: $15
Genre: Roots Reggae, Dub, Doom, and Jazz
Jamie Saft’s New Zion Trio brings together three masters of Reggae and Jazz musics for the first time in a unique piano trio setting straight from Kingston Yard. Featuring Jamie Saft on piano/keyboards, Brad Jones on acoustic bass, and Ben Perowsky on drums, the New Zion Trio forges a fresh new musical path that brings together Roots Reggae, Dub, Doom, and Jazz styles in an extra mellow acoustic ensemble. Burning Reggae and Dancehall beats provide the platform for complex original Jazz and Soul compositions. This evening, the New Zion Trio will be joined by the iconoclastic, neo-hasidic rapper and wordsmith ePRHYME.
