Tag Archives: Washington Heights

Word Up: “Play On, Washington Heights!”

“Play On, Washington Heights!” is a festival of monthly outdoor concerts curated and performed by Leadlights, in partnership with Word-Up Community Bookshop. The festival celebrates the resilience of New Yorkers during the COVID-19 pandemic and brings the energy of live music to the streets of Washington Heights. The performances will take place on the third Wednesday of every month outside the bookstore on the sidewalk. This location is ADA accessible.  Leadlights will follow CDC and NY state COVID-19 guidelines, including social distancing by spacing out chairs for listeners, and mask wearing. The festival will run from April through October, weather permitting.

Each event features the musical voices of composers of color and women composers, in addition to traditional classical fare. The featured composers include highly-acclaimed Black composer Jessie Montgomery, Puerto Rican composer Angélica Negron, and one of the earliest classical composers of African descent, Chevalier de Saint-George, among others.

To celebrate the resilience of Washington Heights’ residents during the COVID-19 pandemic, Leadlights will lead audiences in a short “collective composition” session during each event, exploring musical sounds together based on themes of resilience and hope for the future. “Play On, Washington Heights!” will culminate with these compositions featured on Leadlights’ website and social media.

Dates of Performance:
April 21
May 19
June 16
July 21
August 18
September 15
October 20 

Word Up: “Play On, Washington Heights!”

“Play On, Washington Heights!” is a festival of monthly outdoor concerts curated and performed by Leadlights, in partnership with Word-Up Community Bookshop. The festival celebrates the resilience of New Yorkers during the COVID-19 pandemic and brings the energy of live music to the streets of Washington Heights. The performances will take place on the third Wednesday of every month outside the bookstore on the sidewalk. This location is ADA accessible.  Leadlights will follow CDC and NY state COVID-19 guidelines, including social distancing by spacing out chairs for listeners, and mask wearing. The festival will run from April through October, weather permitting.

Each event features the musical voices of composers of color and women composers, in addition to traditional classical fare. The featured composers include highly-acclaimed Black composer Jessie Montgomery, Puerto Rican composer Angélica Negron, and one of the earliest classical composers of African descent, Chevalier de Saint-George, among others.

To celebrate the resilience of Washington Heights’ residents during the COVID-19 pandemic, Leadlights will lead audiences in a short “collective composition” session during each event, exploring musical sounds together based on themes of resilience and hope for the future. “Play On, Washington Heights!” will culminate with these compositions featured on Leadlights’ website and social media.

Dates of Performance:
April 21
May 19
June 16
July 21
August 18
September 15
October 20 

Word Up Lo’Mas Lit Book Club: Summer Edition

Lo’Mas Lit Book Club is back for the summer! Lo’Mas Lit Book Club is a reading group, a book club, a discussion zone, quarantine-era hangout time for youth ages 13–20. Started in Summer 2020, this book club has brought together teens from across the Uptown Manhattan neighborhood and across the country. Meetings will be held each week on Wednesdays at 5pm from July 28 to September 2021.

This summer season join us for a revamped and exciting new format:
– Read and discuss yet-to-be-published literature with peers
– Write reviews
– Interview authors
– Make a zine!

This season’s club is different in that many of the books we will be reading what are known in the publishing industry as “advance reading copies” (ARCs), which are sometimes called “galleys.” Publishers send these pre-publication copies out to potential reviewers, in hopes of getting media and others excited about the book before it comes out. Besides discussing the content of the official Lo’Mas Lit selections, club members will also make a zine about books, life, and whatever else we/they wish!

Books we will be reading together:
Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed: 15 Voices from the Latinx Diaspora (Flatiron Books, September 2021)
edited by Saraciea J. Fennell

My Monticello: Fiction (Henry Holt & Co., October 2021)
by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

Blue-Skinned Gods: A Novel (Soho Press, November 2021)
by SJ Sindu

REGISTER & MORE INFO: https://www.wordupbooks.com/lomaslit

 

Arts ON AIR livestreams 2021 Higher Ground Festival: “Lighter Than Sound”

Brian Morales and DoubleTake Dance
Lighter Than Sound is a contemporary ballet piece set to Brian Morales’s composition Wrapped. Choreographed by Vanessa Martínez de Baños and Ashley Carter the piece is purely based on movement to music without limitations and endeavors to show the wonderful aspect of music, its power and visual expression combined with the beauty of dance; technical, fierce, powerful and athletic. As the music is a string orchestra recording interwoven with electronic soundscapes and improvised music added through input, the choreography was created by using the pre-written music for structure all while sandwiching it within soundscapes created in real-time. This then becomes a work that is both a choreographed performance-ready piece that incorporates improvised, performative elements for the composer and dancers; cultivating an “every time is different” vibe.

Higher Ground Festival brings Northern Manhattan artists together to network and create interdisciplinary collaborations that are presented free to the community. This will be HGF’s 6th year as a notable arts festival in the upper Manhattan community.

To learn more about HGF, visit: https://www.creatinghigherground.com

As always, please consider donating. Performing artists are out of work during this time. We are grateful to all donations to the performers/creators of this show! You may donate via our PayPal Money Pool: https://paypal.me/pools/c/8BnmnfhnQC or via Venmo: @artsonairnyc


Arts ON AIR endeavors to bring back the opportunity of live performances safely to NYC-based artists and their audiences, as well as audiences around the world, during the time of Covid through outdoor rooftop productions and live-streaming. The creators of Arts ON AIR are Hudson Heights couple Derek Ratzenboeck and Temple Kemezis.

Word Up Lo’Mas Lit Book Club: Summer Edition

Lo’Mas Lit Book Club is back for the summer! Lo’Mas Lit Book Club is a reading group, a book club, a discussion zone, quarantine-era hangout time for youth ages 13–20. Started in Summer 2020, this book club has brought together teens from across the Uptown Manhattan neighborhood and across the country. Meetings will be held each week on Wednesdays at 5pm from July 28 to September 2021.

This summer season join us for a revamped and exciting new format:
– Read and discuss yet-to-be-published literature with peers
– Write reviews
– Interview authors
– Make a zine!

This season’s club is different in that many of the books we will be reading what are known in the publishing industry as “advance reading copies” (ARCs), which are sometimes called “galleys.” Publishers send these pre-publication copies out to potential reviewers, in hopes of getting media and others excited about the book before it comes out. Besides discussing the content of the official Lo’Mas Lit selections, club members will also make a zine about books, life, and whatever else we/they wish!

Books we will be reading together:
Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed: 15 Voices from the Latinx Diaspora (Flatiron Books, September 2021)
edited by Saraciea J. Fennell

My Monticello: Fiction (Henry Holt & Co., October 2021)
by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

Blue-Skinned Gods: A Novel (Soho Press, November 2021)
by SJ Sindu

REGISTER & MORE INFO: https://www.wordupbooks.com/lomaslit