Arts for Art takes a Stand for Racial & Economic Justice to create a World where Peace is possible. 

AFA stands in solidarity and support of the current protests against the ongoing dehumanization, violence, and murder targeting Black men and women. There is no room for ambivalence in a society that criminalizes the daily lives of any segment of its population.

No one is Free unless All are Free

A special online fundraising event to benefit AFA and the Sun Ra Arkestra, marking the anniversary of each of their arrivals on earth — Sun Ra on May 22 and Marshall Allen on May 25.

What: Exclusive Video of Arkestra at The Town Hall from March 4, 2020
Event: Video available May 24 5PM ET - May 26 11:59 PM ET
Extra: May 24 6:30PM ET Zoom interview with Marshall Allen
Donation: $25 suggested minimum donation
Learn More: www.artsforart.org/eartharrivalday
 
This is a fundraiser to help AFA stay healthy and safe while continuing to serve our community of artists and audience. Proceeds will also support the Sun Ra Arkestra as they struggle in this difficult time. The event itself is a celebration of these groundbreaking musical legends. On the cusp of his 96th year, Marshall Allen is still redefining the music called everything from FreeJazz to AfroFuturism. 

 Donors will receive exclusive access to the video of the Arkestra’s historic return to The Town Hall from March 4, 2020, made available for a limited time only, from Sunday, May 24 5pm ET to Tuesday, May 26, 11:59pm ET. 

 As part of the kick-off, AFA will host a public Zoom chat with maestro Marshall Allen this Sunday at 6:30pm ET on the eve of his 96th birthday. Participation in the Zoom call requires a separate registration, but no donation.

Donate and Register at https://www.artsforart.org/eartharrivalday

Learn more about Arts for Art's new online programming initiatives! 

Arts for Art Events

Footage from AFA/Vision Archives 
Every Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday on YouTube

AFA Artist Diaries
Mondays & Wednesdays on Facebook and Instagram

AFA On_Line Salon Series 
Fridays on Zoom
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Arts For Art has responded to the COVID-19 crisis by going into our archives to edit and release video of special performances, bright moments from our 25 year history, called Screening Vision, three times per week. These archives include performances from Vision Festivals, Evolving Series, Salons, panel discussions, and more. The performances highlight our embrace of music, dance, poetry and visual art as expressions of FreeJazz for a Just World.

This page contains emergency funding opportunities for artists, health and safety guidance, and other resources in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

THE LATEST

There are some new Grants on the NYFA website. Check them out HERE

The Artist Relief Fund (grants up to $5000 for individual artists) 2 days left to apply
The Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency COVID 19 Grants
​Equal Sound Corona Relief Fund – musicians who have lost income due to a canceled gig as a result of the coronavirus outbreak can apply to receive money.

​MORE RESOURCES on SoundExchange site

The COVID-19 Care Act !
Freelancers, musicians, and gig workers are now eligible for unemployment:
Apply Here
Review Guidelines Here

If you operate as a sole proprietorship, you are eligible for a 10k grant. See all grants. 

Concerned about rent? Many are negotiating directly with their landlord to receive rent forgiveness. We recommend speaking with your landlord for a chance to receive a month of rent forgiveness. See and sign the petition for rent and mortgage suspensions below:

Rent/Mortgage Suspension Petition
c/o Action New York and Met Council on Housing
 
Get involved with the NYC Artist Coalition and join the Music Workers Alliance.

​Other Petitions

Petition for Unemployment Benefits for ALL Workers

Grant Opportunities & Artist Resources
​
Emergency Grants for Artists
Compiled by NYFA
​
Emergency Funding Database
Compiled by Music Works International

New Music USA Solidarity Fund
$500 emergency assistance grants are available; applications begin 12pm ET on March 31

International Opportunities
Compiled by Composers Forum

Jazz Near You
Complimentary advertisements for live streaming events uploaded to their event calendar

COVID-19 Artist Resources
Compiled by Tanya Kalmanovitch

Artist Resources 
Compiled by Creative Capital
​
Covid 19 Resources and Updates
Compiled by NYFA

NYC Well, for trouble coping

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer shared the following list of useful general resources:

New York evictions are suspended through June 20
For free food for children and families
FOOD HUB
​
For reliable health information
NYC Department of Health
New York State Dept of Health
The Centers for Disease Control

​Donate to help artists
Donate to the Artists & Friends Campaign today.

The Legacy of Amiri Baraka: Art in Action

Moderator: Mike Burke - Democracy Now
Speakers: Oliver Lake, Fred Moten, William Parker, Jason Kao Hwang

Filmed at Vision Festival 19, June 13, 2014 at Roulette, Brooklyn.

Amiri Baraka was an important presence at the Vision Festival since its inception in 1996. Long before the festival, he was a champion of the music with his seminal books on Jazz including Blues People and Black Music.

For many of the other artists and audiences who have participated in the festival, Baraka has been an inspiration. For many years, Baraka helped organize the panel discussions that deepened the context and impact for the art that being presented.

William Parker is a bassist, improviser, composer, writer, and educator from New York City, heralded by The Village Voice as, “the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time.”  In addition to recording over 150 albums, he has published six books and taught and mentored hundreds of young musicians and artists. http://www.williamparker.net/

Fred Moten is a teacher and writer whose areas of study and practice include Black Literary, Aural and Visual Culture, Critical Theory, Performance Studies, and Poetry and Poetics. He is especially concerned with the social force and social origins of black expressive cultural practices. In particular, Moten is interested in the relation between insurgent social movement and experimental art, and has been preoccupied with understanding these fields of endeavor as indissolubly linked and irreducibly popular. https://www.dukeupress.edu/explore-subjects/browse?AuID=1384061

The artistic scope of renowned saxophonist, composer, painter, and poet Oliver Lake’s half-century-long career is unparalleled. An extensive resume of his collaborations includes work with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Flux String Quartet, Bjork, Lou Reed, A Tribe Called Quest, Mos Def, Me’shell Ndegeocello, Anthony Braxton, James Blood Ulmer, William Parker, Vijay Iyer, Reggie Workman, Andrew Cyrille and a veritable who’s who of the jazz vanguard. Oliver’s efforts extend far beyond the music, with his creation of the non-profit Passin’ Thru organization, becoming a mainstay at Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, publishing two books of poetry and frequently producing visual artwork for exhibitions across the country.
https://oliverlake.net/

The music of Jason Kao Hwang (composer/violin/viola) explores the vibrations and language of his history. His compositions are often narrative landscapes through which sonic beings embark upon extemporaneous, transformational journeys.  His most recent releases, Conjure, his duo with Karl Berger, and Blood, performed by Burning Bridge, his octet of Chinese and Western instruments, have received critical acclaim. In 2019, 2018, 2013 and 2012, the El Intruso International Critics Poll voted him #1 for Violin/Viola. His chamber opera The Floating Box, A Story in Chinatown was one of the Top Ten Opera Recordings of 2005 by Opera News. As composer, Mr. Hwang has received support from Chamber Music America, NEA, Rockefeller Foundation, NY Community Trust, NJSCA, NYSCA, US Artists International and others. As violinist, he has worked with William Parker, Anthony Braxton, Butch Morris, Reggie Workman, Pauline Oliveros, Tomeka Reid, Patrick Brennan, Will Connell, Jr., Zen Matsuura, Oliver Lake, Adam Rudolph, Jerome Cooper and others.
www.jasonkaohwang.com

Mike Burke is the longest-standing producer at Democracy Now! In addition to his work on the show he helped found The Indypendent a monthly social and economic justice newspaper based in New York.

Poet Amiri Baraka

Amiri Baraka - poetry
Wilber Morris - bass
Herbie Morgan - tenor saxophone

Filmed at Vision Festival 4, May 25, 1999, St. Nicholas of Myra Church, NYC.

The dramatist, novelist and poet Amiri Baraka is one of the most respected and widely published African-American writers. With the beginning of Black Civil Rights Movements during the sixties, Baraka explored the anger of African-Americans and used his writings as a weapon against racism. Also, he advocated scientific socialism with his revolutionary inclined poems and aimed at creating aesthetic through them.

Amiri Baraka’s writing career spans over nearly fifty years and has mostly focused on the subjects of Black Liberation and White Racism. Today, a number of well known poems, short stories, plays and commentaries on society, music and literature are associated with his name. A few of the famous ones include, ‘The Music: Reflection on Jazz and Blues’, ‘The Book of Monk’ and ‘New Music, New Poetry’ among others.
​
The literary world respects the playwright and poet Amiri Baraka as one of the revolutionary provocateurs of African-American poetry. He is counted among the few influential political activists who have spent most of their life time fighting for the rights of African-Americans.

This entry features performer bios, photos, records, and relevant resources for April 7-12 of Screening Vision archival videos. 

Screening Vision is a new digital venture digging deep into the Arts for Art and Vision Festival archives to highlight great performances and discussions from 25 years of programs. New videos are posted on our Youtube channel Tuesday through Sunday.
​
​See the video schedule here and learn more about the performers in the first week of videos below.

Warrior of Light

Djassi DaCosta Johnson - dance
Shayna Dulberger - bass
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Vision Festival 22, June 1, 2017, Judson Church, NYC
​
Djassi Dacosta Johnson and Shayna Dulberber's current collaboration for the Vision Festival is an exploration of what the foundations are for “a just future” in this country as interpreted through the tradition of American Anthems written in the 1950s. Their musical and dance synthesis will explore the structured improvisational forms born in the Harlem Renaissance, in the birth of Jazz, as well as seeped in the history of Judson Church and the modern dance movement. Their collaborations are inspired by the conversation between music and dance, sound and song, past and future, and the art and artists that laid the foundations for the art that is now.

Press Quotes

Bassist Shayna Dulberger walked out to the middle of the floor, white tape over her mouth, and began playing. Above her images of America's past started to slide by. Union rallies, lynchings, civil rights marches, protests, up to present day Black Live Matters marches. Dancer Djassi DaCosta Johnson began slowly approaching the stage area, also with white tape over her mouth. Shedding an American flag cape, she began a free form dance. She removed the tape and began reciting the words to 'My Country tis of Thee,' and at some point, made a connection to Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit’ and then to a bull horn where she delivered a litany of protest phrases. The performance captured the anger and confusion in a country, whose country seems to be breaking up with them. It was a good performance and it will be interesting to see if the duo develops it further.
- Paul Acquaro, Free Jazz Blog

Wednesday April 8

Tony Malaby Solo
​
Under_Line Salon, December 13, 2015, Broome St. Loft, NYC

Since his arrival in NYC in the early ‘90’s, Tony Malaby has become an integral member of the thriving improvised music community with his noted singular voice on the saxophone. Malaby was recently named one of Downbeat's "80 Coolest Things in Jazz". In recent years, Malaby has led and recorded many projects including the Tamarindo Trio with Nasheet Waits and William Parker, TubaCello with John Hollenbeck, Chris Hoffman and Dan Peck, as well as Palomo Recio with Ben Monder, Eivind Opsvik, Dan Weiss, Billy Mintz and Ben Gerstein. Malaby has lent his talents to such groups such as Paul Motian’s Electric Be-Bop Band, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, Fred Hersch's Quintet and Ches Smith's These Arches. Born and raised in Tucson, Malaby's Mexican heritage permeates his musical life. Malaby remembers that, "being a kid, in 1970s Tucson, was very Mexican.
The atmosphere was filled with music and rituals -going to mass, funerals, praying the rosary, plumes of incense smoke ...all of these things have lingered. I really think that's who I am. And there's really strong imagery for me, from back then. I try to communicate those experiences, with my sound and how I play." Malaby's vivid improvisational work and his sparse, folklike melodies are part-and-parcel with his unique musical concept.

Thursday April 9

Jean Cook & Melvin Gibbs
Panel Discussion: On the Internet
​
Vision Festival 24, June 15, 2019, Roulette, Brooklyn

Jean Cook is a program associate on the Technology and Society team at the Ford Foundation, working to support universal access, open systems, and clear protections for the public within the internet environment. For a decade prior to joining the foundation, from 2005 to 2015, she directed research, education, and advocacy initiatives for Future of Music Coalition, with a portfolio that mapped some of the most significant impacts of emerging digital structures on marginalized segments of the music industry. Her key areas of work included jazz and classical music metadata, data collection and musician payment infrastructure, and understanding how copyright and technology impact indigenous artists in places like Ethiopia, Tajikistan, and Australia.  Also at FMC, she served as interim executive director of FMC from 2009 to 2010 and was a co-director of the Artist Revenue Streams research project, assembling one of the most comprehensive data sets on US-based musician income and copyright. As a musician, Jean has performed on over 100 albums and toured on four continents with various groups, including Jon Langford, Beauty Pill, and Ida/Elizabeth Mitchell. She served on the founding steering committee for the Cultural Research Network (USA), is a member of Women of Color in the Arts, and sits on New Music USA’s Program Council and the boards of directors for Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Foundation, Future of Music Coalition, and the Association of Performing Arts Presenters.
​
Melvin Gibbs
Read this great JazzTimes feature and career overview to learn more about Melvin Gibbs. 
​https://jazztimes.com/features/profiles/melvin-gibbs-isnt-looking-back/

Friday April 10

Fire Breathers
​
Patrick Holmes - clarinet
James Brandon Lewis - tenor saxophone
Josh Werner - electric bass
​Ches Smith - drums
​
Raza y Resistencia, Teatro LATEA, October 9, 2018

Listen to music from the band members, embedded here:

Patrick Holmes 

James Brandon Lewis

Ches Smith

Sunday April 12

Brötzmann / Parker / Drake

Peter Brötzmann - tenor sax, tarogato
William Parker - bass, gimbri
Hamid Drake - drum set, frame drum

June 12, 2014, Vision Festival 19, Roulette, Brooklyn

Twelve years after their last performance, the power trio of reedist Peter Brötzmann, double-
bassist William Parker, and percussionist Hamid Drake reunited at the Vision Festival.

​This survey is designed to assess the impact of COVID-19 on our Creative Community. Please fill out and share so we can convince the funding community how much this sector needs support. 

​The Sun Ra Arkestra and William Parker’s Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield
 
March 4, 2020 7pm, at The Town Hall
123 West 43rd Street, NYC
                                                             
TICKETS: ticketmaster.com
                                   
Arts for Art celebrates 25 years of programming with Sounds of Justice, a night of intergenerational FreeJazz/AfroFuturism, on March 4th at NYC’s historic The Town Hall. Both the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen and William Parker’s Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield are steeped in a commitment to the ideals of music and art as agents of social change, exemplifying the very ethos of Arts for Art. This boundary-breaking blend of FreeJazz, funk, R&B, and soul aesthetics looks both back and into the future, bridging time and space to share warnings, hope, and inspiration. 

Under the leadership of Marshall Allen, the Arkestra carries the Sun Ra experience of sound, dance, song, light, and color into the present. Having joined the Arkestra in the 1950s, Allen is uniquely positioned to move this performance tradition forward, further cementing Sun Ra and the Arkestra’s twinned legacies as both progenitors and practitioners of the genre now called AfroFuturism. The Town Hall performance will include video art and painting by NYC artist William Mazza to create a synesthetic sight/sound experience of Sun Ra and his mind-bending view of the universe.

William Parker’s highly acclaimed, intensely free Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield builds upon both the text and music of the politically engaged and activist singer-songwriter. This latest version of Parker’s ongoing project includes an expanded band with vocalist Leena Conquest joined by Thomas Sayers Ellis performing Amiri Baraka’s and his own poetry. Filmmaker Moon Lasso’a impressionistic video portrayal of the texts and sounds of Curtis Mayfield and William Parker will complete the experience.
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Arts for Art, presenter of the internationally renowned Vision Festival, is focused on developing strategies for the future as it enters its 25th year: how to better the world in which we live, and how to inspire, grow, and build a diverse community of uncompromising artists and audiences.