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Concert open to the MIT community on covid pass and open to the public with Tim Tickets

Portugal-born vocalist-composer Sara Serpa and MIT Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music Evan Ziporyn join an array of MIT musicians (MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, MIT Wind Ensemble, and MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble) to present a unique program of Brazilian music.

Music from Amazônia and works by Antônio Carlos Jobim, Hermeto Pascoal, Egberto Gismonti, and Chiquinha Gonzaga, arranged by Guillermo Klein and Evan Ziporyn, will be featured. 

The concert will include talks by Talia Khan, MIT SB ’20 and future MS/PhD Candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, on her research in Brazil, and Maritta R. von Bieberstein Koch-Weser, who leads the “Amazonia em Transformação: História e Perspectivas” program at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

Created and led by MIT Sounding Co-Director Frederick Harris Jr., Hearing Amazônia–The Responsibility of Existence is inspired by Brazilian music influenced by the natural world and by 2020 MIT graduate Talia Khan’s research on natural botanical resins and traditional carimbó music in Santarém, Pará, Brazil. Kahn’s research is made possible by a MIT-Brazil/MISTI Sun internship grant.

Building upon experiences with 2020-21 CAST Virtual Visiting Artists Luciana Souza and Anat Cohen, this multi-year project launches with a special concert drawing attention to the urgency of the climate crisis. Portugal-born vocalist-composer Sara Serpa and MIT Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music Evan Ziporyn join an array of MIT musicians (MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, MIT Wind Ensemble, and MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble) to present a unique program of Brazilian music.

Music from Amazônia and works by Antônio Carlos Jobim, Hermeto Pascoal, Egberto Gismonti, and Chiquinha Gonzaga, arranged by Guillermo Klein and Evan Ziporyn, will be featured. 

The concert will include talks by Talia Khan, MIT SB ’20 and future MS/PhD Candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, on her research in Brazil, and Maritta R. von Bieberstein Koch-Weser, who leads the “Amazonia em Transformação: História e Perspectivas” program at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the University of São Paulo, Brazil. In this context she spearheads work on the establishment of the world’s first Rainforest Business School. 

Regarding her talk, Maritta Koch-Weser offers the following introduction:

“Biodiversity is the greatest treasure of Amazonian people and all Brazilians. A new path is possible (and most urgent) with ambitious science-based development of a standing-forest bioeconomy. The people living in this region look for sustainable social and economic progress. Renewed respect for Brazil’s environmental and indigenous protection legislation and building back nature on vast deforested lands could make a huge and positive difference. The reset has started.”

Hearing Amazônia–The Responsibility of Existence is presented by MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology and MIT Music and Theater Arts and includes research conducted with support from a MIT-Brazil/MISTI Suninternship grant.

Livestream https://mta.mit.edu/multimedia/view 

After a year of not performing live, I am presenting my latest project, Recognition, for the first time in Portugal, in a few days. 

Joining me will be Mark Turner (tenor sax) and David Virelles (piano). For those who attend our performance in Lisboa, you will have the chance to hear the amazing Angolan singer Aline Frazão in person narrating Amílcar Cabral texts.

All performances follow covid safety rules.
Make your reservation today by clicking on the links:

3 de Julho, 21.15h
 gnration, Braga
 Reservas

(This concert is supported by Mid Atlantic Arts through USArtists International in partnership with National Endowment for the Arts, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Howard Gilman Foundation)

4 de Julho, 19h
Porta-Jazz, Porto,
Reservas

6 de Julho, 19h30
Casa do Capitão/ Fábrica do Pão, Lisboa
Rua do Grilo, 119
 Reservas 

Porto and Lisboa concerts are made possible thanks to the generous support of Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, Arte Institute, and Robalo Music.

Sara Serpa will participate virtually in the following event, taking place on May 28th at Museu do Aljube, in Lisboa:

16h/18h30h – Fifth Circle: Unlearning Colonialism: ways of seeing and knowing

16h/16h20 – Inês Beleza Barreiros, presentation theme and authors

16h20/17h05 – Screening of excerpts from ANTICORPO: a Parody on the Colonial Ambition (Patrícia Lino, 2019-20, 44’); Teko Haxy – ser imperfeita (Patrícia Ferreira and Sophia Pinheiro, 2018, 39’) e Recognition (Sara Serpa, 2020, 56’). 

17h05-18h30 – Talk with Patrícia Ferreira, Sophia Pinheiro, Patrícia Lino and Sara Serpa, moderated by Inês Beleza Barreiros. 

No history of decolonization or of decolonizing praxes is ever completed without attention to gender. How did women view the liberation struggles in the former Portuguese colonies? How were their ways of seeing integrated or not in the imagination of colonialism? Was there a specific gaze to women over the liberation struggles? What knowledge and awareness do we have of/about these ways of seeing? And how do these ways of seeing intersect with those of contemporary filmmakers, artists, curators and academics who are now questioning public and private archives, are visually recreating their memories or re-imagining colonialism? What role academic research, archive conservation policies, programming and curatorship have in questioning or prolonging (official) “politics of memory”?

GATHERING(S) Gendering Decolonizations: Ways of Seeing and Knowing intends to contribute to the debate.

M³ released The Art Of Being True: M³ Anthology of Writings, the first of an archive of writings by the first cohort of M³ artists that aims to take control of the narrative with regard to the work of underrepresented musicians. The anthology was released on International Jazz Day, Friday, April 30, and is available from online literary arts publication, Publik / Private, for free. 

The Art Of Being True: M³ Anthology of Writings aims to expand M³’s mission, by empowering and elevating narratives by musicians of underrepresented gender identities including musicians marginalized on the basis of race, sexuality, or ability. It features contributions by M³’s inaugural Summer Solstice 2020 cohort’s performer-composers: Romarna Campbell (UK), drums; Caroline Davis (New York), saxophone; Eden Girma, (US / UK), voice, multi-instrumentalist; Val Jeanty (Haiti / New York City), percussion, electronics, turntables; Maya Keren (Philadelphia), piano; Erica Lindsay (Rosendale, NY), tenor sax; Lesley Mok (New York City), drums; Tomeka Reid (Chicago / New York City), cello; Sara Serpa (Portugal / New York City), voice; Jen Shyu (New York City / East Timor), voice, multi-instrumentalist; Anjna Swaminathan (Brooklyn), violin, voice, multi-disciplinary theatre artist; and Sumi Tonooka (Philadelphia), piano.

The pieces range from essays and poetry on creative expression, composition, mentoring, artistic statements, to personal experiences in music, grief, motherhood, mental health, and fertility treatment, The Art Of Being True: M³ Anthology of Writings reveals the artists’ inner world that the M³ founders say have largely been ignored and diminished in the music field, one in which non-male voices are powerful creators, listeners and critics. M³ founders Jen Shyu and Sara Serpa say:

We wanted to create an archive of writings that takes control of the narrative with regards to underrepresented musicians. We envision it as a legacy for future generations in which authorship and power shifts towards women and non-binary musicians while decentering white patriarchy in music.

Jordannah Elizabeth, the founder of Publik / Private and also Mutual Mentorship forMusicians’ Editor-in-Chief, adds:

Women in jazz and creative music fight through the disparity of representation, and it takes bravery to work in such a medium and male-dominated realm. This anthology is a testament that art must prevail within the prison of others’ perceptions.

For more information about the M³ model, see the original announcement of the project, as well as MutualMentorshipForMusicians.org. Inquiries about the initiative may be directed to info@MutualMentorshipForMusicians.org.

The Europe Day Event 2021, on 5 May 2021, 1.00pm EST  is devoted to gender equality stories -displaying EU efforts, in partnership with the UN, in achieving &supporting Women’s & Girls’ Rights around the world.

There will be video messages of Josep Borrell, EU High Representative/Vice-President & Helena Dalli, EU Commissioner for Equality, UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcukainterview by EU trainees, Irina Sukhy, Women Environmental Human Rights Defender,Ecohome co-founder, Belarus, Sara Serpa, vocalist, composer & gender equality activist and a performance by Mycale featuring Ayelet Rose Gottlieb, Sofia Rei, Sara Serpa & Malika Zarra. Mycale is a group of four vocalists-arrangers, put together by John Zorn in 2009 to create an acapella quartet that would collaboratively arrange selections from his Book of Angels compositions. 

Sara Serpa will premiere her new piece Miniatures online, commissioned by the Jazz Coalition, on Thursday, April 22nd, at the Biophilia Records Festival.

Featuring Sara Serpa on voice and André Matos on guitar, Miniatures is a reflection on Serpa’s experience during the Covid-19 pandemic in New York. The piece is divided in 4 parts: 1. News Cycle, 2. Optimism and Despair (with text by Zadie Smith), 3. How Can I Create? , 4. Watching You Grow. Video was created by Mariana Meraz.

To sign up for the Biophilia Records Festival, click here.

Sara Serpa is included in the list of nominees for the 2021 Jazz Journalists Awards, in the Female Vocalist of the Year category.

Nominees in most categories were chosen by the votes of the Professional Journalist Members of the Jazz Journalists Association. Nominations were made on the basis of work done in calendar year 2020, with the exception of Lifetime Achievement Awards categories, in which nominations are for a lifetime body of work. For more info on the nominees click here.

Sara Serpa was voted #1 Vocals of the Year 2020 by the NPR (National Public Radio) Jazz Critics Poll.

“Below are the results of NPR Music’s 8th Annual Jazz Critics Poll (my 15th, going back to the poll’s beginnings in the Village Voice). These are the jazz albums that lit up a dark, unsettling year. Maria Schneider’s Data Lords was the critics choice — no surprise, though relative unknown Sara Serpa’s victory in the Vocal category in a year when both Kurt Elling and Gregory Porter released new albums was.” Click here to read more.