New Agora: July

NEW AGORA
June – September
Morning to Sunset

July 9 | Rain Date: July 16

This second Saturday, New Agora is all about jazz as we partner with the Jazz Foundation of America for a day of music, improvisation and experimentation! Layering moments of traditional and contemporary, visit the park to interact with a workshop with artist Woomin Kim and Noguchi Museum educators, improvisations curated by the Jazz Foundation of America, take in the debut of “Trumpet Echoes”, an adaptive and ambient soundworld by musician Greg Hammontree, and experience the music experiment “.soundfulness” by pianist Nicole Brancato and Socrates’ own, artist Douglas Paulson.

Spend a full Saturday each month this summer exploring art and the outdoors with New Agora. Discover new creatives and perspectives with family-friendly workshops, conversations, tours, screenings, performance, music, and more!

SCHEDULE

9:30 am & 11:00 am – Yoga | Free, No Reservations required

10:00 am – 2:00 pm – Hellgate Farm Stand

10:00 am – 2:00 pm – Astoria Food Pantry Free Store
The Astoria Food Pantry will be in the park to distribute free clothes, books, and essential items. Accepting donations of non-perishables and clean clothes to bring back to the pantry for distribution to our neighbors also. Information about the Astoria Food Pantry and associated projects (including Astoria Free Store, The Rolling Library, and The People’s Bodega) will also be available on-site. Come say hello!

11:00 am – 1:00pm – Field Guide: Wildlife among us- finding shelter–> RSVP required
Location: Grove of Trees

12:00 – 4:00pm – Collage Workshop with Woomin Kim & The Noguchi Museum
Location: STICKS

Join artist Woomin Kim and Noguchi educators at Socrates Sculpture Park for a drop-in collage workshop for all ages. Take inspiration from Kim’s textile and sculptural projects, and the jazz music in the park to create a paper collage about everyday life in your neighborhood. Learn about the Artist Banner Project Kim participated in with The Noguchi Museum; and her exhibition, Shijang Project, currently on view at Susan Inglett Gallery (Chelsea, NY) through July 29th. All participants will be given a free pass to visit The Noguchi Museum after the workshop.

ALL DAY – Trumpet Echoes by Greg Hammontree
Location: Grove of Trees

Trumpet Echoes by Greg Hammontree creates an adaptive and ambient -soundworld- by blending acoustic trumpet performance and electronic processing. With each separate “echo” projected in different directions into the listening area, the public is invited to physically walk through and explore the field of sound, thus cultivating their own sonic space for deep listening.

All Day: Food Vendors

Halal Bakers Gourmet & Grocery
9 Bells Barbecue

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Performances are 30-45 minutes
2:00 pm – .soundfullness by Douglas Paulson and pianist Nicole Brancato
Location: Front Gate, near Eternal Flame

3:00 pm – Rudy Walker Ensemble
Location: North Gate Stage

3:30pm – Trumpet Echoes by Greg Hammontree
Location: Grove of Trees

4:00 pm – Cooper-Moore
Location: Inside Hélio Oiticica’s Subterranean Tropicália Projects PN15: 1971/2022

5:00 pm – Ununu
Location: North Gate Stage

5:30pm – Trumpet Echoes by Greg Hammontree
Location: Grove of Trees

6:00 pm – Elliott Sharp
Location: Inside Hélio Oiticica’s Subterranean Tropicália Projects PN15: 1971/2022

7:00 pm – Duology
Location: North Gate Stage

8:00 pm – .soundfullness by Douglas Paulson and pianist Nicole Brancato
Location: Front Gate, near Eternal Flame

ABOUT

The Jazz Foundation of America 

Jazz Foundation of America (JFA) is a national non-profit organization dedicated to supporting accomplished jazz and blues musicians with direct financial assistance and performance opportunities. With a licensed social work team, JFA provides creative solutions for the struggles that musicians face in every part of their lives, while also providing gigs through its performance programs, which create essential work for musicians while enriching communities.

Curated Artists

Rudy Walker Ensemble

Rudy Walker – Drums
Joe Ford – Saxophone
Greg Murphy – Piano
Belden Bullock – Bass

A veteran in creative jazz, drummer Rudy Walker has worked with major figures like Sir Roland Hanna, Sonny Fortune, Randy Weston and Pharoah Sanders, and held a decades-long run with the legendary poet / spoken word artist Amiri Baraka. His ensemble today includes tenor sax great Joe Ford and pianist Greg Murphy, known for his work with Rashied Ali.

Image: Paul Aresu

Cooper-Moore

Cooper-Moore is an American jazz pianist, composer and instrument builder / designer. Celebrated for his improvisational vigor in numerous groups alongside William Parker, David S. Ware, Alan Braufman and many more, he is equally noted for the inventiveness of his original instrument designs. He has said, “If you put me somewhere, and I had to play and didn’t have an instrument, I’d get everything I needed and make an instrument within a few hours.” (Davis, Barry, Jerusalem Post April 26, 2007)

Image: Claire O’Dea

Ununu

Melanie Dyer – Viola
Kurt Ralske – Reeds
Todd Capp – Drums

A new, dynamic, cooperative improvising trio assembled by violist Melanie Dyer (known for her work with William Parker, Salim Washington, and Heroes are Gang Leaders), with the mulit-faceted artist Kurt Ralske on saxophones and flutes, and the free jazz stalwart Todd Capp on drums.

Image: Charles Ezra Ferrell

Elliott Sharp

A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City for over 30 years, Elliott Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from orchestral music to blues, jazz, noise, no wave rock, and techno music. Today he presents Monkulations–interpretations of Thelonious Monk on acoustic guitar.

Image: Frankfurt, 11.05.2007: Elliott Sharp
Sascha Rheker/attenzione 20070511

Duology

Michael Marcus – Reeds
Ted Daniel – Trumpet
Lonnie Plaxico – bass
Darrell Green – drums

The multi-instrumentalist composer Michael Marcus has put forth an impressive body of work across the jazz spectrum, helming or co-leading dozens of recordings, including with greats like Sonny Simmons and Jaki Byard, while trumpeter Ted Daniel has been a formidable voice in creative music ever since his appearance on the 1969 classic, Sonny Sharrock’s Black Woman. Together, as Duology, they have worked as a duo and also alongside noteworthy collaborators like Henry Grimes and Andrew Cyrille. Here, Duology features a special multi-generational rhythm section.

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Greg Hammontree

Trumpet Echoes by Greg Hammontree creates an adaptive and ambient -soundworld- by blending acoustic trumpet performance and electronic processing. With each separate “echo” projected in different directions into the listening area, the public is invited to physically walk through and explore the field of sound, thus cultivating their own sonic space for deep listening.

Greg tours the world playing jazz trumpet, trombone, and tuba “with cartoons” for The Queen’s Cartoonists and resides in Astoria, Queens.

Image: Linsey Theong

Woomin Kim

Woomin Kim is a South Korean artist currently based in Queens. Through her textile and sculptural projects, she examines the active materiality of daily objects and urban landscapes. Kim has participated in exhibitions and residencies at the Queens Museum, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Boston Children’s Museum. Kim has received fellowships and awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation and the Korean Cultural Center. Her works have been featured in The New York Times, Hyperallergic, and BOMB Magazine. Kim holds a B.F.A from Seoul National University and received an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Website | Instagram

Image: “Golmok”, fabric, 140x135cm (55x53in), 2022

.soundfulness
Nicole Brancato & Douglas Paulson

.soundfullness begins with a piano found in pieces outside of a bar in Queens. Artist Douglas Paulson and pianist Nicole Brancato dragged it to an empty lot and reassembled it, weaving objects into the strings and taping simple electronics to the soundboard: breathing new life into an instrument that had been meant for the trash. Doug and Nicole celebrate the remarkable machinations of the piano by joyfully subverting its conventions: a ubiquitous musical instrument that’s seen alternately as precious or as furniture. They play the piano – and play with the piano – to rediscover sound and the mechanics that make sound. They invite the public to share in these experiments and play: to get under the hood and tinker; to stuff a bolt in the strings and tickle the ivories.

Halal Bakers Gourmet & Grocery

Owner Eddie is no stranger to Astoria with a halal butcher shop and bakery on Steinway Street, and has now expanded to 34-06 Ninth St. (and 34th Avenue), with Halal Bakers Gourmet & Grocery. The Moroccan-influenced menu offers fresh pastries, kofta and tuna sandwiches, fresh salads to-go, and rotating daily specials such as chicken tacos and lamb shank on couscous.

9 Bells BBQ

Also known as The Eastern Parkway BBQ Man in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, this solo operation is known to have long lines for their quality Texas brisket, Caroline pulled pork, collard greens, and more. Keep an eye out for their smoker on the streets & menu nailed on the trees!

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