Schedule

Friday, April 5, 2024
6:30 p.m. Performance

During a week-long residency at the University of Houston, Amanda Ekery will work with participants to write songs and play selections from her upcoming album, Árabe, culminating in a free performance at Asia Society Texas' public art installation Rafael Domenech and Tomas Vu: Heat Silhouette, co-commissioned by the Mitchell Center for the Performing Arts. 

Árabe is an ongoing genealogy composition and research project focusing on Syrian immigration to El Paso/Mexico in which Ekery draws on her own family history and the influence these mixed cultures have on film, food, economy, and music. She will collaborating with the Community Arts Academy at the University of Houston as well as members of the public to realize the performance.

All are welcome to join in the creative process; no musical experience necessary to participate.

Sign Up to Participate

The performance is free and open to the public; RSVPs are requested for planning purposes.

About the Artist

Vocalist and composer Amanda Ekery collaborates with everyone, literally. Amanda works with all to create projects that invite others to explore and share their stories. She weaves her experience in improvisatory creative music, research, and jazz into her compositions, workshops, and performances. Her compositions have earned support from New Music USA, Chamber Music America, and the Jerome Foundation, and have been featured at the Portland Jazz Festival, Panama Jazz Festival, and the Kennedy Center.

Amanda earned a 2022 ASACAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer's Award honorable mention for her composition “Three Days” which is part of Árabe, a collaboration with the Syrian Ladies Club, her family, and neighbors about Syrian immigration to El Paso/Mexico and the influence these mixed cultures had on film, food, economy, and music. She is the founder of El Paso Jazz Girls, a non-profit organization for young female musicians that serves as a direct, practical intervention for gender equity in her hometown jazz community and which earned Amanda the 2022 Jazz Hero Award from the Jazz Journalist Association. Amanda holds a Master of Music in Jazz Performance from the New England Conservatory and a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies from the University of North Texas. She is on faculty at the New School and Fordham University and a regular at the Cortelyou Library in Brooklyn, NY.

This program is organized by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston, in partnership with Asia Society Texas. Heat Silhouette is commissioned in partnership with the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts.

Exhibitions and their related programs at Asia Society Texas are presented by Nancy C. Allen, Chinhui Juhn and Eddie Allen, and Leslie and Brad Bucher. Major support comes from The Brown Foundation, Inc., the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance, The Clayton Fund, and Houston Endowment Inc. Generous funding also provided by The Anchorage Foundation of Texas, National Endowment for the Arts, and Texas Commission on the Arts. Free Thursday exhibition admission presented by Regions Bank. Funding is also provided through contributions from the Exhibitions Patron Circle, a dedicated group of individuals and organizations committed to bringing exceptional visual art to Asia Society Texas.

Presenting Sponsors

Nancy C. Allen
Leslie and Brad Bucher
Chinhui Juhn and Edward Allen

Program Sponsors

Presenting Partner