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  • 6:00 PMIn-person! Donna J. Rilling will present on her upcoming book, Foreclosed: Race and Dispossession in a Nineteenth Century Community
  • 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM The University City Historical Society (UCHS) West Philadelphia Book Talk Series

    Donna J. Rilling will present on her upcoming book Foreclosed: Race and Dispossession in a Nineteenth Century Community. Professor Rilling’s research has focused on a community of land-owning African Americans in and around the intersection of 41st and Ludlow Streets. The genealogy of some of these folks may be found in the adjacent area formerly known as the Black Bottom. Donna Rilling is Associate Professor of History at the State University of New York at Stoney Brook where she focuses on the history of the early American republic. Her first book, Making Houses, Crafting Capitalism: Builders in Philadelphia, 1790-1850, examines frequently over-leveraged master builders of rowhouses.

    Admission is FREE

     

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  • 3:00 PMIn-person! Creatives Chat Series 2024, a pop-up series for curated discussions merging creative industry topics, best practices, complimentary food, networking, and live music—an immersive experience for all
  • 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM

    Creatives Chat Series 2024The Women's Coalition for Empowerment, Inc. in partnership with The Rotunda, presents the Creatives Chat Series 2024, a pop-up series for curated discussions merging creative industry topics, best practices, complimentary food, networking, and live music—an immersive experience for all.

     

    Moderated by Shekhinah B., author of the Art Economic Empowerment Workbook, an artistic multi-hyphenate, arts administrator, Edutainer, and vocal performer.

     

    Artists of all disciplines are invited to explore innovative approaches to creativity in a safe and non-judgmental environment. Join us for an enriching experience and be part of a community that values and encourages creativity in all forms.

     

    Sunday, March 10, 2024 at 3pm - Women's Month

    Sunday, May 5, 2024 at 3pm - Creative Business

    Sunday, June 2, 2023 at 3pm - Black Music Month

     

    Free | Open to the Public | Live Music | Free Food | Networking(Guest panelists will be announced soon....)

    Please register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/creatives-chat-series-2024-registration-775240664697

     

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  • 8:00 PMIn-person! Fire Museum Presents: Polky & Medukha
  • 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM

    Polky:

    Toronto based Polish folk group Polky, led by multi-talented female musicians, delights audiences with joyful vocal harmonies, unusual instruments, and upbeat performances. Drawing deep inspiration from Poland's rich cultural tapestry, they push musical boundaries by fearlessly blending Polish traditional music with sounds and rhythms from across the globe, carving out a niche entirely their own. With their infectious charm, captivating performances, and unyielding passion for exploration, Polky is undoubtedly a band that stands apart. Their music is not just a sonic experience but a celebration of cultural diversity, women empowerment, an invitation to revel in the joy of life, and a reminder that, deep down, we are all connected by the power of music.

    Polky stands out for its distinctive elements, including the mesmerizing traditional vocals and incorporation of the 'suka,' an ancient lap fiddle reconstructed from historical paintings. Marta Solek, an accomplished suka virtuoso, has performed alongside esteemed Polish artists like Same Suki, Maria Pomianowska, and Nikola Kołodziejczyk. Furthermore, the lead vocalist, Ewelina Ferenc, earned the prestigious title of Traditional Singer of The Year at the 2022 Canadian Folk Music Awards. Through their performances, Polky introduces Polish culture to North American audiences, embodying the role of cultural ambassadors for Polish modern traditions.

    Medukha:

    Medukha uses ethnographic recordings, tokens of our homelands, the languages we've grown up with, and the folk music conventions we've been exposed to as an emotive vehicle for interrogating the immigrant experience: a wedding song from Southeastern Poland with patriarchal undertones becomes a curbside conversation with a bird, a Ukrainian spring song is fractured into an unrecognizable ambient soundscape, a song with disputed origins becomes fertile ground for a new language.

    Registration is FREE/pay-what-you-can. Registering helps us to know how many people to expect. Please register HERE

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  • 7:00 PMOnline! FREE Workshop! The Bigger Picture presents Web Design Basics for Artists
  • 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

    This is a virtual workshop on Zoom. Workshop topics include:

    Plan the basic building blocks of your websiteLook at examples of artist websites to learn what appeals to you and best suits your workLearn about different online platforms you can use to design and host your website

    Registration is FREE and required. Please register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/website-design-basics-for-artists-tickets-787458959947

    Access to workshop replays will be available to attendees only.

    The Bigger Picture is a new workshop series partnership with The Bigger Picture (TBP) is a new workshop series in partnership with the Rotunda, offering free monthly resource workshops for artists and artists' organizations, facilitated by local artists and creative entrepreneurs.

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  • 8:00 PMIn-person! Bowerbird presents the Music of Moondog performed by the Arcana New Music Ensemble
  • 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM

    Bowerbird is pleased to present the Music of Moondog performed by the Arcana New Music Ensemble.

    Louis Thomas Hardin, Jr., better known as Moondog, is one of the most famous and influential outsider musicians of the twentieth century. Born in Kansas to a devoutly religious family, Hardin was blinded at age 16 when he dug up a live dynamite cap. For 30 years, from the early 1940s to the early 1970s, he lived in New York City, where he became a well-known street performer known, thanks to his Nordic garb, as “the Viking of Sixth Avenue.” During this time he recorded several albums and won the respect of many important musicians, including Leonard Bernstein, Charlie Parker (for whom he wrote the piece “Bird’s Lament”), and Philip Glass (with whom he briefly shared an apartment). From 1974 until his death in 1999, Moondog lived primarily in Germany, where he enjoyed the most stable and productive creative period of his life. Celebrated for his diverse body of work that combines– among other influences– the rhythmic energy of jazz, the ritualistic intensity of Native American tribal music, and classical principles of counterpoint, Moondog’s music is at once uncategorizable and instantly identifiable.

    PROGRAM

    To be announced.&nbsp

    ENSEMBLE

    Aaron Stewart – saxophonesTessa Ellis – trumpetCarlos Santiago – violinThomas Kraines – celloAndy Thierauf – percussion

    ABOUT THE ARTISTS

    Founded in 2016, the Arcana New Music Ensemble is a group of Philadelphia-based musicians dedicated to presenting interesting, beautiful, and unconventional music in interesting, beautiful, and unconventional places. Built on a flexible roster of 25 musicians, Arcana is able to perform a broad range of repertoire in numerous configurations. Composers featured in recent programs include Julius Eastman, Morton Feldman, Galina Ustvolskaya, Pauline Oliveros, Tom Johnson, Moondog, and James Tenney. Arcana has performed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fleisher Art Memorial, The Rotunda, The Kitchen (NYC), and collaborated with Variant Six, Prometheus Chamber Orchestra, and Pig Iron Theater Company.

    Admission is FREE

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  • 2:00 PMIn-person! Breath and Specter: Braxton's Ghost Trance Music
  • 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM There is no telling what is going to happen, what plans might be hatched, traps sprung, dramas unfolded. I wish to feel as though we are all carried away into a world with no end, where a note is an eternity, where we go through countless eternities, where we rise to the heavens as the earth swallows and remakes itself.Anthony Braxton, titan of creative music, NEA jazz master, and aficionado of mess and metaphysical vibrational dynamics, is the spark for this particular fire.In the 90's he wrote his Ghost Trance Music system, as a way to generate roads through which one can visit all his different musical worlds from operas to pure rhythmic interplay. Its democratic structure allows for any player to play any piece within the framework that he sets out, musicians can form groups of their own will, defect, overtly signal to each other.suggested donation of $10 to $20, and more is always appreciated.Pondora.ticketleap.com/gtm(tentative start time, this event is a merely save the date style reminder, and will be updated periodically with more information)Breath and Specter (with more players to be announced)Aaron Pond- Horn, Voice, Flutes, Electric MbiraSonali Singh- BassoonPete Dennis- Contrabass, FluteCarlos Santiago- ViolinGabe Preston- Many Reeds and FlutesDylan McDonnell- FluteDan Blacksberg- TromboneSyl Winch- TromboneJack Braunstein- ClarinetKatherine Brady- VoiceKaren Smith- drums and percussionWill Fredendall- Flute 
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  • 8:00 PMIn-person! Bowerbird presents LA-based musician and artist claire rousay with opening set by Apologist
  • 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM

    Bowerbird is pleased to present LA-based musician and artist claire rousay at The Rotunda with opening set by Apologist. claire rousay, known for challenging conventions in experimental and ambient music forms, recently released a new album in early 2024. A meditation on loneliness, her new album is her most audacious work yet, synthesizing disparate and unexpected influences from throughout rousay’s long and varied career as a performer.

    Photo: Zoe Donahoe

    claire rousay is a singular artist, known for challenging conventions in experimental and ambient music forms. rousay masterfully incorporates textural found sounds, sumptuous drones and candid field recordings into music that celebrates the beauty in life’s banalities. Her music is curatorial and granular in detail, deftly shaped into emotionally affecting pieces. sentiment is a meditation of the poignant emotional terrains of loneliness, nostalgia, sentimentality, guilt, and sex. The album’s narrative arc is guided by delicate musical gestures and artistic vulnerability, audaciously synthesizing disparate and unexpected influences. rousay crafted the songs in various homes, bedrooms, hotels, and other private places, the feeling of time and energy spent alone radiating from each passage. The album is a collection of heart-rending, incisive pop songs that explore universal feelings with subtlety and remarkable vision.

    Rose Actor-Engel is a Philadelphia based musician and composer. She uses synthesizer, tape and field recordings to create ambient and experimental music, implementing specific rules and protocols to determine structure. She has been recording/performing as Apologist since 2018.

    Admission is FREE

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  • 7:00 PMIn-person! Rhythmic Soundscapes: a Q & A Master Session with Grant Calvin Weston
  • 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM Rhythmic Soundscapes:a Q & A Master Session with Grant Calvin WestonDoors at 7pmShow time 7:30@The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut Street, PhiladelphiaGrant Calvin Weston has blazed a harmolodic, funkadelic trail through modern jazz. This record is a culmination of recordings made on the West Coast and his hometown of Philadelphia. Weston puts his Midas touch on electronics and acoustic instruments that blow the socks off any jazz-rock poser out there. Listen to the man who funked-up Ornette Coleman in the 1970s.Come hear him on the drums and ask him anything about his approach to improv music as well as his experiences with James Blood Ulmer, John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards, Ornette Coleman, and others!A rare experience!“Weston lays down a ferocious groove with ecstatic shouts … tugging rhythmic displacements that tease like thunder and lightning throughout.” — All About Jazz“Calvin Weston is wild enough by himself; he gets even crazier when he’s joined by other percussionists … [achieves] a rare cohesion, fusing jazz, hip-hop, African rhythms, and funk into an invigorating and exploratory sound that’s both enjoyable and intellectual.” — Philadelphia WeeklyAdmission is FREE for all ages; donations accepted. CDs available for purchase.
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  • 8:00 PMIn-person! Fire Museum Presents: Dialogues 4: Leyya Mona Tawil aka Lime Rickey International & Julius Masri
  • 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM

    Fire Museum Presents: Dialogues 4: Leyya Mona Tawil aka Lime Rickey International & Julius MasriPresented in co-operation with Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture.

    Dialogues: A Conversation and Performance is a series of events in which we invite someone to discuss their creative process and present an aspect or aspects of their work. For this edition we present artist and curator Leyya Mona Tawil aka Lime Rickey International in collaboration and discussion with multi instrumentalist and composer Julius Masri.

    Leyya Mona Tawil [Lime Rickey International] is an artist, curator, and cultural activist. She works in sound art, dance, and hybrid transmissions. Tawil is a Syrian, Palestinian, American engaged in the world as such. Her works have toured throughout Europe, the Arab region, and the US. As 'Lime Rickey International', Tawil has been commissioned by Abrons Arts Center (NYC), New Performance Turku (Finland), KONE Foundation (Helsinki), ZVRK Festival (Bosnia), Serendipity Arts Festival (Goa), Fire Museum Presents (Philadelphia), Arab American National Museum (Dearborn) and was nominated for a 2019 “Bessies” Award in Music (NYC). She is the director of Arab.AMP - a platform for experimental music, live art, and ideas from the SWANA diaspora and  allied communities. Tawil is on the curatorial team of the Arab American National Museum (Dearborn), Southern Exposure Gallery (SF), Daring Dances (Ann Arbor), Al Bustan Seeds of Culture (Philly) and was the 2020 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow at ISSUE Project Room and is now a member of their Artistic Advisory Council. She is also the director of TAC Temescal Art Center in Oakland, California.

    Julius Masri is a Philadelphia based multi instrumentalist, and performer/composer for the city's dance community at large. His music focuses on improvisatory methods and syncretic / linguistic exchanges  within  various  musical languages including Jazz, Metal, AfroCuban, Experimental Noise, and Arabic music. Born in Tripoli, Lebanon, he moved to the States in 1990 and picked  up drumming a year later. He studied with Philadelphia instructors Carl Mottola, Elaine Hoffman-Watts, and as an undergraduate at Bard College, with AACM's Thurman Barker, Richard Teitelbaum, and Joan Tower. He currently performs  in groups such  as  grind/crust metal bands Night Raids, Nomad War Machine, free jazz groups Sirius Juju, Spectral Forces, Dromedaries, trombone & synth duo Superlith, and has released the solo album "The Arabic Room", under the project name Mephisto Halabi to international acclaim in 2021.  He has  performed with Henry Grimes,  Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Bobby Zankel, Thurman  Barker, Jaap Blonk, Randi Potoppidan & members of the Sun Ra  Arkestra. Festivals performed include Sonic Circuits DC (2013, 2016), High Zero Baltimore (2016), Maryland  DeathFest  (2015, 2017), Shadow Woods Metal Festival (2017), The Outsiders Improvised & Creative Music Festival (2016, 2018). Julius is a recipient of a 2022 Yaddo Fellowship for composition, the 2022 University of the Arts creative research and innovation grant.Registration is FREE/pay-what-you-can. Registering helps us to know how many people to expect. Please register HERE

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