Zara Zaharieva Quartet, Reginald Dwayne Betts, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Volodymyr Rafeyenko, Anouar Rahmani for Jazz Poetry at Alphabet City-City of Asylum, Northside

Featured Musicians:

Zara Zaharieva: violin; Stu Mindeman: piano; Joshua Ramos: bass; Juan Pastor: drums

In Person - and online stream -

This performance welcomes widely acclaimed violinist Zara Zaharieva, whose international jazz quartet fuses the sounds and rhythms of the members’ home countries: Bulgaria, Peru, Puerto Rico, and the United States.

Joining the fusion - poets Reginald Dwayne Betts, MacArthur genius, poet, lawyer, and founder of Freedom Reads; LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, a poet and sound artist whose latest work, Village, is described by Camille Dungy as “part instruction manual, part celebration, part dance party, part garden tour”; Volodymyr Rafeyenko, a writer, poet, translator, and literary critic from Kyiv, Ukraine, who became a Writer-in-Residence at City of Asylum following the outbreak of Russian aggression in Ukraine in 2022; and Anouar Rahmani, an Algerian novelist, journalist, activist, and Writer-in-Residence at City of Asylum whose literary work boldly challenges societal norms and advocates for freedom of expression, LGBTQ+ rights, and social justice.