There are many great musical events happening in NYC next week and I am really happy for the opportunity of performing with 3 different groups, all shows at The City Winery, as part of the Winter Jazz Festival 2023.

It will be the first in-person Winter Jazz Festival since the pandemic and it can be quite intense (the marathons have concerts from 6pm-3am!) but it is a great opportunity to start the year and hear amazing music from all over the US and world.  

 Come and say “hi”- I would love if you could make it!

Thursday, Jan. 12, 8.30pm
The New Standards
(curated by Terri Lyne Carrington)
feat. Devon Gates, Michael Mayo, Julius Rodriguez,
Rashaan Carter, Tcheser Holmes

Curated by NEA Jazz Master Terri Lyne Carrington and featuring an exciting assemblage of musicians, this debut performance will celebrate the recent publication of New Standards, a songbook featuring lead sheets by 101 women composers, the first of its kind.

TICKETS HERE

Friday, Jan 13, 8.30pm
Intimate Strangers
w/ Erin Pettigrew, Aubrey Johnson, Yoon Sun Choi,
Matt Mitchell, Qasim Naqvi
(Biophilia Records Showcase)

A collaboration with Nigerian writer Emmanuel Iduma, drawing inspiration from Iduma’s book, A Stranger’s Pose, exploring explores such themes as of movement, home, grief, absence and desire in what Iduma calls “an atlas of a borderless world”. Like echoes from a distant reality, Intimate Strangers aims to reflect on how we see the other and how we describe hospitality and humanity for future generations. 

GET YOUR TICKETS
(w/ 15% discount by using the code “ JAZZ15 ”)

Friday, Jan 13, 11.30pm
Linda May Han Oh – The Glass Hours
w/ Linda May Han Oh, Sara Serpa, Greg Ward,
Matt Mitchell and Obed Calvaire 
(Biophilia Records Showcase)

The Glass Hours is a Chamber Music America commission Linda May Han Oh wrote reflecting on what we choose to do in the limited time that we have on this earth. We recorded last year in June and the album is coming out this Spring!

GET YOUR TICKETS
(w/ 15% discount by using the code “ JAZZ15 ”)

In May 2019 I was really fortunate to enter the Park Avenue Armory as an Artist-In-Residence. I am forever grateful to Jason Moran, who opened this door for me, which was crucial for my artistic development. I was still mourning the loss of my father at that time and suddenly I received this gift: a studio, just for me, to work and practice, for one year. I didn’t fully grasp the importance of this until I entered that space. A beautiful and big room, with windows to Park Avenue, with a big table and a piano. Everyone was so nice and welcoming at Park Ave Armory – it was a huge contrast with what I had been used to until then.

Photo here.

I spent countless hours there, my refuge in Manhattan, enjoying the silence that the epic space at the Armory provides. I created and developed many works there. I realized how much musicians need a space of their own, beyond their houses, that can be left untidy and disorganized, so that you can return to the next day and continue the work left undone.

Well, my time at the Armory is coming to an end, and of course, I am sad. But it is time for other artists to move in, enjoy and take advantage of that space, as I did. To celebrate and express my gratitude towards the Park Ave Armory and everyone who works there, I am presenting a farewell concert on November 20th in my studio. Space is limited to 30 people. You can sign up for it here. It’s free! I have invited some amazing musicians with whom I am preparing collaborative work:

Sunday November 20th, 6pm

Park Avenue Armory- Company I

1st set:
Sara Serpa-voice
Matt Mitchell-piano

2nd set:
Sara Serpa- voice
André Matos- guitar
Dov Manski- piano and synth

Sign up here

Happening this Saturday, October 15th, at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina. 

It is my first time there and I am very excited about this concert. I am presenting my most recent work, Encounters and Collisions, with text by the amazing Italian-Somali writer Igiaba Scego. The beautiful thing is that Igiaba is in the U.S., in Durham, for a residency and I will get to meet her for the first time. She will also listen to the music I wrote for her story!

Friday October 14th, 12pm, The Pink Parlor
Transforming Arts
 A conversation between Igiaba Scego and Sara Serpa about the creative process of transforming artworks

Saturday, October 15th, 7pm, Nelson Music Room
Encounters and Collisions
A commission from Chamber Music America drawing inspiration from  Igiaba Scego’s book My Home is Where I Am
Sara Serpa- voice + composition
Caroline Davis- alto sax
Marta Sanchez- piano
Erik Friedlander-cello

(Free performance thanks to support from Romance Studies and Franklin Humanities Institute)

Celebrating Emmanuel Iduma’s Windham-Campbell Prize, Intimate Strangers will be performed at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University on September 20th, 2022, at 6pm. The performance is free and open to the public and will feature

Emmanuel Iduma- spoken word 

Sara Serpa, Aubrey Johnson and Yoon Sun Choi- voice 

André Matos- guitar and effects

Dov Manski- keyboards

More info here.

June of 2022 was a special month for M³. We presented our first in-person festival in New York City, which featured 19 women and non-binary musicians from our first two cohorts as band leaders, along with the 12 musicians who comprised our 4th cohort, with screenings of their six world premieres of music-video duo commissions. For the first time since its inception, several cohorts gathered in the same room to experience live music together. The visibility, the possibility, the energy, the joy, the amazement, and the diverse audiences reassured us of the power of music as a way to communicate, share, and listen.

At our Closing Night Gala, we awarded M³’s first Lifetime Achievement Award to Shanta Nurullah, a brilliant sitar and mbira player and storyteller based in Chicago who has been creating music since the 1960’s. In her award ceremony speech, Shanta said: “Before [this], I really hadn’t gotten any recognition as a musician. That’s 50 years of doing this work….After a while, when nobody’s calling you, and your peers are not acknowledging you, you come to think, ‘It must be because I’m not good enough. It must be because I didn’t do the work, or I didn’t practice enough.’”

Her speech resonated with so many of us who have had this persistent feeling despite any achievement and success. There is still much more work to do, and this anthology is proof of that. The contributions for this anthology come from all corners of the world: South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia, Spain, Lebanon, Argentina and the US. From motherhood, grief, joy, the myths of musical education, pursuing a musical career against all odds, to racism or transphobia, all of these essays and poems force us to reflect on how we can and must move forward. 

We extend deep gratitude to Naomi Extra as our Development Editor, who worked very closely with each artist in refining their writings and nurturing their voices through writing workshops and one-on-one meetings. 

This third volume of M³’s Anthology of Writings arrives a little late because we are still mainly a team of two artists + one (Laura Krider, our amazing administrative associate and anthology’s proofreader, who has been providing crucial support to all of our operations). We are so proud to continue this publication, as we truly believe it provides another kind of far-reaching support for those reading around the world. We believe these writings normalize conversations that are oftentimes only whispered amongst ourselves and might keep someone who feels marginalized from giving up. As Shanta Nurullah said later in her Lifetime Achievement Award speech, “This is why M³ is so important. This is why you have to keep on doing this thing, and you have to keep on breaking down doors and creating situations for yourself and other women. Just don’t give up.”

From the editors,
Jen & Sara

READ M³’s Anthology of Writings here

Sara Serpa’s composition “Primavera” is included in the pioneering book “New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers”, edited by Terri Lyne Carrington.

Featured in the New York Times:

“The inexhaustible drummer, producer and composer Terri Lyne Carrington’s latest multidisciplinary project was born out of a revelation.

Of course, I played with women that wrote their own material, so that was a given to me: that women are composers.” But, she added, she hadn’t fully realized how much learning about jazz and jazz composition was based on “material that was all written by men.” It’s a problem she addresses head-on with “New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers,” a book due Friday, and an album featuring 11 of its selections.“

Buy your book “New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers”

Sara Serpa is among the 2022 NYSCA/NYFA Fellows!

The NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship is a $7,000 unrestricted cash grant available to artists living in New York State and/or one of the Indian Nations located therein.

This grant is awarded in fifteen different disciplines over a three-year period (five categories a year) and the application is free to complete. The NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship is not a project grant, but is intended to fund an artist’s vision or voice, at all levels of their artistic development.

I am back in Portugal and really happy to present my most recent project, Intimate Strangers, in Lisbon (my hometown!) and Porto. Intimate Strangers was created in collaboration with the Nigerian writer Emmanuel Iduma, drawing inspiration from Iduma’s book A Stranger’s Pose, a unique blend of travelogue, musings and poetry, with a foreword by Teju Cole.

Combining music, text, image and field recordings collected by Iduma during his travels, Intimate Strangers explores such themes as of movement, home, grief, absence and desire in what Iduma calls “an atlas of a borderless world”. Like echoes from a distant reality, Intimate Strangers aims to reflect on how we see the other and how we describe hospitality and humanity for future generations.

Dia 16 de Julho, 16h
Festival Jazz no Parque, Fundação Serralves (Porto)
Bilhetes/ Tickets: Jazz no Parque – Fundação Serralves (Porto)

Dia 18 de Julho, 18h
Festival Robalo- Antena 2, Auditório do Liceu Camões (Lisboa)
Entrada gratuita/ Free entrance Sara Serpa, Sofía Rei, Aubrey Johnson
voice
Erin Pettigrew
spoken word
Qasim Naqvi
modular synth
Fabian Almazan
piano
Marta Viana
luz

This engagement is supported in part by Mid Atlantic Arts through USArtists International, a program in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding, and Arte Institute.

M³ will stage 19 live performances and six brand new duo commissions at their inaugural in-person festival, co-presented with NYC Winter Jazzfest. The concerts will feature musicians including Fay Victor, Val-Inc aka Val Jeanty SoundChemist, Shanta Nurullah, Michele Rosewoman, Monnette Sudler, Malika Zarra, Sumi Tonooka, Erica Lindsay, Caroline Davis, Jen Shyu & Sara Serpa and many more.

As venues and festivals re-open, many clubs, performing arts centers and festivals are still programming mostly male, established musicians, who have always dominated programming. The Mutual Mentorship for Musicians (M³) Festival, co-presented with NYC Winter Jazzfest, proposes a drastic reversal of this imbalance by presenting 19 women and non-binary bandleaders. The festival spans five days as performers, M³’s commissioned composers and workshop leaders provide powerful examples of women and non-binary perspectives to music lovers, students, families, children, other musicians and music industry professionals.

Portuguese vocalist-composer Sara Serpa presents her new work Encounters and Collisions at City of Asylum’s Jazz and Poetry Month Festival, in Pittsburgh. A commission by Chamber Music America, drawing inspiration from Somali-Italian writer Igiaba Scego’s book My Home is Where I Am, Encounters & Collisions combines music and text to reflect on ideas of identity and migration influenced by Scego’s writings on the post-colonial relationships between African and Europe.

Featured Musicians: Sara Serpa (voice, composition); Ingrid Laubrock (saxophone); Angelica Sanchez (piano); and Chris Tordini (bass).

Tickets here (online and in-person)