APA Heritage Month and a Very Musical May at Flushing Town Hall

This May, Flushing Town Hall honors Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month with the return of Crazy Talented Asians & Friends: An Evening of Animated Shorts and a moving performance from the Jihye Lee Quintet, live from the stage at Flushing Town Hall.

Additional programs this May include a concert from the award-winning, Afro-Cuban roots and jazz duo OKAN, and Flushing Town Hall’s monthly Louis Armstrong Legacy Virtual Jazz Jam—this May featuring tunes about moms, just in time for Mother’s Day.

APA Heritage Month, which annually celebrates the lives and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States, gains increased significance this year as these same Americans face a rise in racist violence and bigotry.

“Flushing Town Hall’s mission is to bring people together by presenting arts and culture from around the world. We respond to bigotry through the arts,” says Executive & Artistic Director Ellen Kodadek. “All artists have a home on our stage, and we remain committed to presenting and learning from diverse cultural traditions, stories, and artists from around the globe, as well as right here at home.”

As noted by the Library of Congress and Smithsonian Institution, of which Flushing Town Hall is an affiliate, “the month of May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 17, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. The majority of the workers who laid the tracks were Chinese immigrants.”

The neighborhood of Flushing, often referred to as the Chinatown of Queens, is in fact home to a very diverse population of Asians and Asian Americans that includes people of Korean, Taiwanese, and mainland Chinese descent, as well as communities of South Asian and Latin American descent.

The borough of Queens is the most diverse county in all of the United States, where more languages are spoken than anywhere else in the world, and the programming at Flushing Town Hall reflects that diversity, bringing global arts to its global community.

Jihye Lee Quintet

On Friday, May 21 at 7:00 PM (ET), the Jihye Lee Quintet will perform live from the stage at Flushing Town Hall for an all-virtual audience. The livestreamed concert, titled “Rest in the Arms of Motherlands” and featuring Lee’s original compositions and arrangements of well-known songs, will be an elegy for the victims of anti-Asian hate crimes. An all-female, Korean jazz ensemble, the Jihye Lee Quintet will offer a special dedication to the women killed in the spa shootings this March in Atlanta, Georgia. The quintet features Lee on vocals alongside Hayoung Lyou (keys), Haeun Joo (piano), Jeonglim Yang (bass), and Dayeon Seok (drums).

The event will be presented free of charge with a suggested, pay-what-you-can donation. Fifty percent of the funds raised will support the nonprofit, global arts presenter and fifty percent will be donated to the Korean American Family Service Center (KAFSC) in support of their Rainbow House Shelter, which provides comprehensive and culturally-competent services to women and children in crisis.

Crazy Talented Asians & Friends: An Evening of Animation Shorts

On Saturday, May 29 at 6:00 PM (ET), Flushing Town Hall celebrates APA Heritage Month with the return of Crazy Talented Asians & Friends: An Evening of Animation Shorts, showcasing a wide-range of animated short films by Asian and Asian American artists. The films present a wide range of stories and experiences, as diverse as the APA community itself, through masterful storytelling, art direction, animation, production, and sound design. The selection jury was led by Ms. Hsiang Chin Moe, SVA’s BFA Animation Chair and Lead Advisor for this event, along with a panel of seasoned professionals in animation art: Wen-Chin Hsu at Pixar, Gonzalo Janer at Nickelodeon, Pilar Newton at Pilar Toons, CJ Walker at Titmouse, and Wendy Cong Zhao at CUNY Queens College. There will be a live Q&A with artists following the screenings.

OKAN

Taking their name from the word for “heart” in the Afro-Cuban religion of Santeria, OKAN is a women-led duo that fuses Afro-Cuban roots with jazz, folk, and global rhythms in songs about immigration, courage, and love. OKAN is the winner of an Independent Music Award and Juno award (Canada’s equivalent of a Grammy) and has put out two albums, Espiral and Sombras. Audiences can tune in for their Friday, May 14 virtual concert at 7:00 PM (ET) and stay for a live Q&A with co-leaders Elizabeth Rodriguez and Magdelys Savigne.

Monthly Virtual Jazz Jam

Flushing Town Hall’s popular monthly Louis Armstrong Legacy Virtual Jazz Jam is supported by the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation and led by Astoria resident Carol Sudhalter. House band members include Joe Vincent Tranchina, Scott Neumann, and Eric Lemon, who pay tribute to the great Louis Armstrong, performing songs associated with the legendary trumpeter/vocalist every month.

May’s jazz jam theme encourages participants to perform songs by and for mothers, or about motherhood, and especially Jewish moms and bubbes, as May also marks Jewish American Heritage month.

Musicians interested in participating should email education@flushingtownhall.org with the three- to four-minute tune they intend to play. The performance can be live or a pre-recorded audio or video (but not a professional, edited recording, such as a CD or YouTube video). Selection is on a first-come, first-served basis. Anyone is invited to join the audience via Flushing Town Hall’s Facebook page or Zoom on Wednesday, May 12 at 7:00 PM (ET).