CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing)

gamin: Nong (concert at Roulette)
2022-12-04 20:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11217, United States
CRS invites you to join us in Brooklyn on Dec 4, 2022 for our first collaboration with Roulette, a concert in celebration of CRS Crossing Boundaries curator GAMIN’s recent album “Nong” presented at Roulette with support from CRS and performed by CRS Crossing Boundaries curator gamin with members of the INTERWOVEN ensemble, and composer and electronic sound artist Yoon-Ji Lee.
Nong is an ancient Korean term meaning “to play” — here, the joy of discovering new ways of playing when different cultures intersect. gamin, a Korean-born NYC-based multi-instrumentalist specializing in traditional Korean wind, along with her collaborators, places instruments and concepts from traditional Korean music alongside a variety of American musical elements.
On the program, Theodore Wiprud’s Mudang for Piri (a double-reed bamboo oboe) incorporates shamanic energy that ranges from meditation to ecstasy. Korean composer Yoon-Ji Lee dedicates her composition to ‘comfort women’ (local women enslaved throughout Japan-occupied East Asia, 1932-1945) in her work for taepyungso (a double-reed shawn) and strings. Works by William David Cooper weave Western string instruments with Korean winds, incorporating folk tunes and different tuning systems. Korean composer Ki-Young Kim reflects Korean traditional philosophical ideas in his new piece, and gamin’s composition broadens the range of the new musical realm with her traditional improvisatory ideas of Korean folk music.
With Nong, gamin and her collaborators—the string quartet Interwoven and electronic sound artist Yoon-Ji Lee—hope to diversify American audiences’ aesthetic understanding of East Asia, which is all too often painted in broad strokes. They also intend to inspire new generations of American composers and musicians to embrace the inherent multiculturalism of American music, inform their crafts with rich traditions from around the world, and approach music-making with the distinct goal of bridging cultural divides.
gamin is a Korean born NYC based multi-instrumentalist specialized for traditional Korean wind. She tours the world performing both traditional Korean music and cross-disciplinary collaborations. She is a scholar and designated Yisuja, official holder of Korea’s Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 46.
From 2000 to 2010, gamin was the principal player at the National Gugak Orchestra. gamin has received several cultural exchange program grants, including Artist-in-Residence at the Asian Cultural Council, and has collaborated in cross-cultural improvisation with world-acclaimed musicians, presenting premieres at Roulette Theater, New School, and Metropolitan Museum. gamin was featured artist at the Silkroad concert, Seoul, 2018, performing on-stage with the founder, Yo-Yo Ma.
Since 2018, gamin curated performances at the Center for Remembering and Sharing. For 2020, gamin was selected as artist-in-residency at the HERE Arts Center, NYC, and her album ‘Nong’ was released by Innova Records. gamin’s Carnegie Hall solo début, accompanied by Nangye Gugak Orchestra, scheduled for March 2020, was postponed by Covid 19. For 2021-2022, gamin was awarded the prestigious two year Fellowship by Jerome Hill Foundation.
gaminmusic.com/

Crossing Boundaries Vol. 16: FOCUSING ON HER
2022-12-10 19:00 - 20:30 | Tenri Cultural Institute, 43A W 13th St, New York, 10011
CRS and Tenri Cultural Institute of NY present Crossing Boundaries Concert Series Vol. 16: FOCUSING ON HER. The program features three AAPI female musicians — Amirtha Kidambi (Indian-American, voice/saxophone), Yoko Reikano Kimura (Japan, shamisen), and gamin (Korea, saenghwang) — improvising and performing music by female composers: Amirtha Kidambi (Indian-American), Yoko Sato (Japan), and Yoon-Ji Lee (Korea), with visual projection designed by Bang Geul Han (Korea). Each of the compositions is a prayer or elegy for those who endure or have endured trauma.
Curated by multi-Instrumentalist gamin, this fifth season of Crossing Boundaries consists of three concerts exploring the theme of WOMEN IN MUSIC performed by female and female-identifying musicians. Following the performance there will be a conversation with the audience about the concert and the theme of gender liberation in the music industry.
Tickets are available on eventbrite.com for $10 – $50 or for cash at the door.
Proof of vaccination is NOT required but we encourage (but don’t require) you to wear masks, and if you are feeling sick, please play it safe and stay home.
All proceeds will go to the Sendai Chamber Ensemble (SCE), a volunteer group of seven musicians from Sendai and Fukushima that provides concerts to uplift the spirits of the survivors in the region, including performances at more than 300 kindergartens, nursery schools, elementary and junior high schools.

THE PROGRAM
“Untitled after Kim Myung Soon”
composed by Yoon Ji Lee 이윤지 in 2019
performed by gamin 가민 / saenghwang solo
visual art by Bang Geul Han 한방글
“The Road”
composed by Yoko Sato 佐藤容子 in 2007
performed by Yoko Reikano Kimura 木村伶香能 / shamisen solo
“Swim Fast (2021) for Ellen O”
composed by Amirtha Kidambi in 2021
performed by Amirtha Kidambi / vocal & saxophone
Improvisation
performed by gamin, Yoko Reikano Kimura, and Amirtha Kidambi
ABOUT CROSSING BOUNDARIES CONCERT SERIES
CROSSING BOUNDARIES is a concert series devoted to dissolving boundaries between performers and audiences, the traditional and contemporary, classical and experimental, and the culturally specific and the global. Series curators are given the opportunity to create unique performance events in collaboration with musical, visual, and/or movement artists of their choosing.
Crossing Boundaries is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and administered by LMCC. LMCC empowers artists by providing them with networks, resources, and support, to create vibrant, sustainable communities in Manhattan and beyond.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
AMIRTHA KIDAMBI is invested in the creation and performance of subversive music, from free improvisation and avant-jazz, to experimental bands and new music. She is an educator, activist and organizer, informed by anti-racism, decolonization and anti-capitalism. As a bandleader, she is the creative force behind Elder Ones and Lines of Light vocal ensemble and has received critical praise from the New York Times, Pitchfork, Downbeat and WIRE magazine. Kidambi is a key collaborator in Mary Halvorson’s latest sextet Code Girl, the duo Angels & Demons with Darius Jones, a new project with Luke Stewart and in various collaborations with William Parker. She also had the honor of working with the late composers Muhal Richard Abrams and Robert Ashley. Amirtha is the co-founder of South Asian Artists in Diaspora collective and co-organizer of Musicians Against Police Brutality with Matana Roberts. http://www.amirthakidambi.com/audiovisual

Amirtha Kidambi, Elder Ones “Eat the Rich” from Amirtha Kidambi on Vimeo.
BANG GEUL HAN is an interdisciplinary artist working across video, performance, text, and code. Born and raised in Seoul, Korea and based in the US since 2003, her work has been shown in venues including The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Queens Museum, DOOSAN Gallery New York, NURTUREart, A.I.R. Gallery, Cuchifritos Gallery in New York City, Galerie Les Territories and Projét Pangée in Montreal, and Centro Internazionale per l’Arte Contemporanea in Rome. Her work has been reviewed in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Brooklyn Rail, and Art Papers. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. http://whatbunny.org/web/
GAMIN is a Korean-born NYC-based multi-instrumentalist specializing in traditional Korean wind instruments. She tours the world performing both traditional Korean music and cross-disciplinary collaborations. She is a scholar and designated Yisuja, official holder of Korea’s Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 46. From 2000 to 2010, gamin was the principal player at the National Gugak Orchestra. gamin has received several cultural exchange program grants, including Artist-in-Residence at the Asian Cultural Council, and has collaborated in cross-cultural improvisation with world-acclaimed musicians, presenting premieres at Roulette Theater, New School, and Metropolitan Museum. gamin was featured artist at the Silkroad concert, Seoul, 2018, performing on-stage with the founder, Yo-Yo Ma. For 2020, gamin was selected as artist-in-residency at the HERE Arts Center, NYC, and her album “Nong” was released by Innova Records. gamin’s Carnegie Hall solo début, accompanied by Nangye Gugak Orchestra, scheduled for March 2020, was postponed by Covid 19. http://gaminmusic.com
&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=”https://yoon-jilee.bandcamp.com/album/padong”&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Padong by Yoon-Ji Lee&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;
Based in Tokyo, composer YOKO SATO’s creative activities are focused on exploring intercultural musical elements and aesthetics while expanding the repertoire of contemporary music for traditional Japanese instruments. She has collaborated with many of Japan’s most prominent hōgaku (Japanese traditional music) musicians and ensembles and maintains an active career with a steady stream of commissions and performances from an extensive network of colleagues located throughout the globe. A prolific composer of music for the theater, she has composed several operettas commissioned by regional governments to promote musical activities for local Japanese communities. She received her Ph.D. in Music with an emphasis in composition from the University of Hawai‘i, Manoa in 2014, where she was the recipient of the East-West Center Graduate Degree Fellowship. She is currently working for the Lifelong Learning Division of Fujisawa City Hall to promote educational and cultural activities in the community. https://yokosatomusic.com
YOKO REIKANO KIMURA is one of the most captivating artistic voices of Japanese koto and shamisen consistently praised by critics for her musical elegance and versatile repertoire. Based in New York and Japan, Kimura has concertized around the world including prestigious venues such as the Warsaw Autumn Festival, Israel Festival, The University of Cambridge, John F. Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum, Kabuki-za and various World Heritage Sites. Kimura has also performed Daron Hagen’s Koto Concerto: Genji with the Wintergreen Music Festival Orchestra conducted by Mei-Ann Chen and worked with renowned artists and organizations such as Heiner Goebbels, Wiener Solisten Trio, American Symphony Orchestra, and Basil Twist. Her awards include the First prize at the prestigious 10th Kenjun Memorial National Koto Competition, the Kyoto Aoyama Barocksaal Award, and a scholarship from the Agency of Cultural Affairs of Japan. Kimura is a founder of Duo YUMENO, with cellist Hikaru Tamaki. http://yokoreikanokimura.com

YOON-JI LEE is a Korean composer based in Boston and New York. She has been creating music based on non-linear structure with a powerful focus on quickly juxtaposing disparate elements through the rapid transformation in both acoustic and electroacoustic mediums. Her works have been engaged with visual arts, dance, literature and intercultural influences. Lee’s chamber and electronic music have been performed in Korea and around the U.S., by ensembles including JACK Quartet, MIVOS Quartet, Argento Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Talea Ensemble, ensemble mise-en, and many others. Lee received Mass Cultural Council’s Artist Fellowship, the Jane Geuting Camp Fellowship from Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Patsy Lu Award from International Alliance of Women in Music, and the Henry M. MacCracken Fellowship from NYU. Lee has participated in artist residencies at National Sawdust, Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts. Lee earned her PhD at NYU and did her Masters/GD at New England Conservatory. Lee is Currently Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music. http://www.yoonjilee.org
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world. Currently, CRS is a lead sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions. https://crsny.org
TENRI CULTURAL INSTITUTE is a non-profit organization with a mission to promote the study of Japanese language and the appreciation of international art forms. The Institute hosts a variety of traditional and contemporary cultural programs in our modern, spacious educational facility, performing arts and exhibition space. Conveniently located in the heart of Greenwich Village, the center of New York City’s educational and artistic communities, Tenri Cultural Institute is a beautiful cultural oasis amidst the hustle and bustle that is New York City. Tenri Cultural Institute has a 30-year history in the celebration of Japanese and Western culture. By providing our audience with a traditional and unique point of view to the understanding of culture and the arts, we fulfill our mission: To foster cultural understanding, harmony and community.
https://tenri.org

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Rumi’s Wedding Night: Evening Sema Gathering, Zikr and Performance with Sufi Master Farima Berenji
2022-12-17 18:00 - 20:00 | Last Frontier NYC, 520 Kingsland Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11222, United States
Join us for our next Sufi dance / music event, a Sacred Dance, Music and Healing Journey with visiting Sufi Master of Yarsan Order and Scholar, Farima Berenji, PhD at Last Frontier NYC in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in celebration of Rumi’s Wedding Night!
Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/462455676377
Schedule:
– 12/17/2022 from 6 – 8 pm
Rumi’s Wedding Night:
Evening Sema Gathering, Zikr and Performance $25 ($20 for those who attend workshop)
$30 at the door
– 12/18/2022 from 2 – 4pm
Workshop
$50
Join us on a path of healing and self-growth through the power of Sufism, Sacred Circles, music, and Sacred Dance. In that journey, the promptings of the Inner Divine are found, and love, kindness, and compassion flow naturally into our daily life.
We will create a sacred, supportive space where we can all release whatever energy no longer serves us, relax and open our heart, body, and mind. We will discover the power and mystery of ancient Persian and Sufi dance and rituals – a gateway for self-growth and spiritual transformation–through prayers, whirling, music, and love. Be moved by beautiful Sufi rituals, sacred music, songs, chanting, poetry, and dance in prayers and Love!
In this workshop and gathering, we will combine the sacred phrases, chants, music, and movements from ancient Persian spiritual traditions of Khorasan and Yarsan to help touch the spiritual essence within us and to help us recognize it in others. These fundamental elements compose the ancient, contemporary, and devotional roots of sacred dance.
In this workshop/gathering we will experience:
– Presence and surrender to Love.
– Practice devotional embodiment and ancient Persian healing dance rituals.
– The power of healing and love through poetry, zikr, and Sufi whirling (Iranian, Central Asian, and Turkish Rituals and Zikr)
– The power of the sharing circle and acts of kindness and love toward self and others.
– Dance and Music as prayer and spiritual transformation.
The workshop and gathering will also include:
– Breathing meditations.
– Basic whirling techniques for beginners (Iranian, Turkish and Central Asian Sema and Semah)
– Gwati and Iranian Zikr Rituals (Sufi Prayers and Ancient Medicine Healing Circles)
– Sema Gathering, Performances, and Sohbet (Sufi Whirling Gathering and Spiritual Talk/Lectures), Q&A, and Sharing Circles.
Participants are encouraged to bring a poem or story to share. Musicians feel free to bring your instruments to inspire and bring love into our circle!
This event is done with support from NOoSPHERE Arts and Center for Remembering and Sharing.
Farima Berenji is an Iranian-American scholar and dance ethnologist, an award winning internationally acclaimed dance artist, a choreographer, instructor, and an archaeologist specializing in ancient, sacred, classical, and folkloric dances of Persia, Ionia, and the Silk Road. She is a third generation artist—her devotion to the world of arts inspired by both her mother and grandmother as performing artists, poets, and musicians of Azerbaijani heritage. Farima has spent her lifetime studying Persian/Iranian and Central Asian dance, culture, and history. Recognized as one of the few world scholarly experts of ancient and mystical dance ethnology, she travels worldwide to record, research, lecture, perform, educate, and to inspire dynamic creativity and rejuvenation through dance and movement.
As a Sufi from the bloodline of St. Fateme and a Magi (Shaman) from the bloodline of Iranian Zoroastrian Magi, Farima is strongly connected to spirituality and healing. She is one of the very few Iranian women granted by the Magi and Gwati tribes of Iran to perform ancient healing and sacred rituals. Her Shamanic healing therapies are now in use in hospitals in Iran and the US. Farima infuses spirituality into her dance and teachings to exceptionally impassion, empower, and inspire students to deeply understand the meaning of culture and dance and to explore dance as a powerful means to express emotion, facilitate spiritual healing, and bridge cultures. Using her own findings and techniques she makes the connection between soul and movement to create an artist not just a dancer. United in all her accomplishments is her contribution in advocating art, culture, and dance to help bridge cultural gaps and create respect among all people. She seeks to lead people to the historic beauty and richness of Persia and the Silk Road culture and to aid them find inner bliss through dance, music, and spirituality.
http://farimadance.com

Dance of the Soul Workshop with Sufi Master Farima Berenji
2022-12-18 14:00 - 16:00 | Last Frontier NYC, 520 Kingsland Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11222, United States

Secret Journey: Stop Calling Them Dangerous #4 Love Story, Palestine
2022-12-20 19:30 - 21:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS and The School of hard knocks present Secret Journey: Stop Calling Them Dangerous #4: Love Story, Palestine a long-table discussion between Yoshiko Chuma and assembled artists/panelists with Ryuji Yamaguchi https://jordantimes.com/news/local/experimental-dance-performance-delves-questions-identity-and-self from Jordan. The panel symposium will conduct several discussions that will explore, examine, and translate stories about oppression, marginalization, prejudice, and profiling. To aid in the moderation of the discussions, a simple and engaging structure will be introduced at the beginning of the panel symposium; this will allow for productive communication and thoughtful transparency. The members of the audience will have to suggest a topic related to the aforementioned categories.
Suggested donation $20. No RSVP required.
CRS is a place where emerging artists can learn from established artists, share their work, and explore new ideas.
Photo of Yoshiko Chuma by Robert Flynt
Landing in New York City in 1976, Yoshiko Chuma quickly settled in Manhattan’s East Village – a place that, at the time, was often labeled as “seedy”, “dirty”, and/or “dangerous”. Indeed, in 1976, the East Village was mostly devoid of the culture and inflation you would see before you today, and it is here that Chuma began her career, now spanning an impressive 45 years to date. She is notoriously well-traveled, and has crossed the borders between East and Central Europe, Palestine, Albania, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and most recently, Venezuela. For some, these places have been forbidden realms, but for Chuma, these lands have become centers of creation. As she might put it, her visits to these locations have challenged what were preconceived ideas of privilege, danger, and civilization as a whole….
The School of Hard Knocks, or fully titled “Yoshiko Chuma & The School of Hard Knocks, was founded in 1983 during a tumultuous time in New York’s East Village. The name was inspired by Chuma’s interest in American idioms during her early days in the United States. The School of Hard Knocks favors abstract art and discourages efforts to interpret the work, saying that “What we do is ambiguous. we don’t have a statement. If we had a statement, we would be writers. https://www.culturebot.org/2012/04/13019/yoshiko-chumas-love-story-palestine-at-lamama/ https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/12/arts/dance/love-story-palestine-by-yoshiko-chuma.html https://vimeo.com/41877261 https://www.thelodownny.com/leslog/2012/05/arts-watch-yoshiko-chuma-brings-her-love-story-palestine-to-lamama.html http://palestine.mei.columbia.edu/news-1/2016/8/26/love-story-palestine
Panel Statement: We refute the idea of an immigration travel ban – America is a nation of immigrants. We want the participants and our audience to see the other parts of the world in a new light. This is about sharing experiences – sharing experiences of other lives and other worlds. And through our sharing, explore what can and can’t be felt through our varied cultural and historical differences.
This panel was initially conceived by Yoshiko Chuma and Megan Kendzior during an impassioned conversation at Chuma’s private residence; this took place shortly after President’s Day (the first following Trump’s election) and served as yet another inspiration for the panel’s topics/categories. The primary reason for this creation and development of this event is to give to the art scene in New York another view point to discuss the same agenda: “Stop Calling Them Dangerous.”
*Acknowledgement: Yoshiko’s experience in Palestine with dancer and activist Noora Baker (one of the leading dancers and directors of the El-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe company in Ramallah, Palestine) has been a substantial inspiration for this project.
Ryuji Yamaguchi first came to King’s Academy in 2007 as the dance program coordinator in the Department of Art, Design and Technology. During his years at King’s, he served in various roles, including dean, department head, and international student coordinator. After leaving King’s to spend a year in New York to dance and choreography while studying for his Master’s degree in educational leadership at Columbia University, Ryuji Yamaguchi returned to King’s Academy in 2017 as dance program coordinator and a class dean. In 2022, he was appointed dean of residential life. Born in Nagoya, Japan, He grew up in Japan and the United States. He attended Deerfield Academy and received his Bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies from Harvard University. His dance activities have spanned the Middle East, Europe, Japan and the United States, and he has performed in works by such choreographers as Yoshiko Chuma, Douglas Dunn, Brenda Divelbliss and Christopher Williams. Mr. Yamaguchi has collaborated with numerous Jordanian and Palestinian artists, and has invited over 40 Japanese and American artists to Jordan. As assistant director and producer to Yoshiko Chuma and The School of Hard Knocks since 2007 with six major productions in Jordan, Palestine and New York City . In 2013, he founded Jordan Youth Dance Exchange, contributing to the growth of high school dancers in Jordan.
SCHEDULE
Panelists: Ryuji Yamaguchi, Yoshiko Chuma
7:15 PM House Opens – snacks and drinks
7:30 PM-7:40 PM Introductory remarks
7:40 PM -7:45 PM Introducing Ryuji Yamaguchi
7:45 PM -8:45 PM Ryuji Yamaguchi with many clips on the video . why, how, where, and what ( 2007-2022 ) – located Madoba , Amman in Jordan as Dance Artist, The educator, The leadership, The organizer, The Dancer, The producer .
8:45 PM -9:00pm the conversation between Ryuji Yamaguchi and Yoshiko Chuma
9:00 PM- 9:30 pm long table discussion
In recent years, and particularly following nationwide protests , there is a renewed interest in the day that celebrates freedom.
The School of Hard Knocks ends with some thoughts on lifestyle as the continuation of collaboration. The way we choose to live our lives can insist on collaboration, even from afar and across Zoom. The School of Hard Knocks would like all of us to feel comfortable collaborating with each other and most importantly to do so from our own vantage point. It assembles us because we’re all very different, living in different parts of the world, focussing on different things. In fact, despite our physical distance, modern technology allows for a proliferation of access to stories and information. Where once sources were limited, we have millions of people to connect with, millions of digitized books and records, and millions of performances online waiting to be watched. But what are the risks of this world of mass information? How can we contemplate the violence and carnal danger of borders and oppression in a creative or online space ?
The School of Hard Knocks was originally the title of a production in 1980. As the production expanded in the years after, The School of Hard Knocks, as an overarching investigation of embodied movement was established in 1983. With now the 40th anniversary lurking at the horizon, 2020-2023 was conceptualized and organized to not only celebrate over four decades of collaborations with multiple generations of artists but also mark a completely new style of theatre.
1 secret anniversary
2 secret theatre, club, gallery, park, apartment, and others
3 Secret festival
4 secret audience
5 secret artists
An ongoing multi-disciplinary performance series conceived. Assembling a mosaic of films, dance, music, visual art, and narratives, we continue a lifetime investigation of ideas regarding national security, perceived dangers within borders, immigration, and war.
For more than four decades now, Yoshiko Chuma has been building unique structures in the liminal area between her native Japanese culture and her adopted American one. Using trained and pedestrian movers, virtuoso instrumentalists (who’s playing she often conducts), film, video, and sculptural forms by collaborating artists, she develops unusual time-based art works that blend the live and the recorded, the flat and the three-dimensional, people and things. Chuma’s multidisciplinary work tries to capture the contemporary world in all its complexity: speedy, multi-faceted, diverse, both conceptual and concrete. She has traveled and worked in countries around the globe, with international casts.
Forbidden realms for some but centers of creation ., as visiting to these locations challenge preconceived ideas of danger and have brought about some of the most beautiful experiences. Intentionally proposes to confuse documentation with history, recreating segments from own documented events. We never give ourselves any boundaries or let them interfere with the work. Making art is not the intention at all. All of their efforts are oriented towards giving performances that have never been seen before.
Having received no formal art training, we pursue spontaneous and experimental techniques and methods of construction. The creative process begins with a single movement or abstract image conveyed to her film making pattern. Chuma once presented a crumpled piece of drowning to her team and requested a single movement that expressed similar qualities. Project after project, year after year, we upend conventional notions of dance and disrupt accepted characteristics of performance. The performances not only stand apart from the genealogy of dance but also resist definition and confound interpretation – endless peripheral borders.

President and founder of CRS Yasuko Kasaki is an internationally beloved spiritual writer, counselor, healer, lecturer and translator from Tokyo, Japan. The founder of CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), the first and only spiritual center devoted to the teaching and practice of A Course in Miracles (ACIM) in New York City, she is widely recognized as the person most responsible for the spread of A Course in Miracles throughout Japan.
CRS serves as a spiritual and creative laboratory, providing a diverse and international community of artists and healers across disciplines with opportunities to experiment and share their unique inner visions in order to illuminate what is true and universal. Yasuko Kasaki in 2004, CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) offers spiritual counseling, healing, and mind training and also develops and presents arts and cultural programming. The CRS mission is rooted in the non-dualistic teachings of A Course in Miracles (ACIM), which reminds us that we are limitless spiritual beings and encourages us to remember our true nature by committing to a practice of deep, non-judgmental inquiry.

FREE New Year's Eve Guided Meditation with Yasuko Kasaki
2022-12-31 18:00 - 19:00 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
Please join us on Saturday, Dec 31 at 6pm for our annual year ending guided meditation with CRS Founder Yasuko Kasaki. This year the meditation will be held in our award-winning White Room and space is limited so registration is required. Please RSVP by email to etsuko@crsny.org.
Let’s join our minds in stillness to remember who we are and prepare to begin the new year with a clear mind and renewed intention to see and share only love.
What would love have me do?
Where would love have me go?
What would love have me say, and to whom?

CRS Presents "Being Now Together” Concert with SACO & As It Is
2023-01-14 17:00 - 18:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents “Being Now Together” with SACO & As It Is, celebrating the New Year. The free spirit of this ten-piece ensemble will take you to the space of galactic love and harmony where we all can create, and experience beautiful vibrations together. One Love!
Tickets are $20 and are available via Eventbrite and at the door (cash only). Seating is limited and advanced ticket purchase is highly recommended. Proof of vaccination is not required but you are encouraged to wear a mask.
Saco Myoji: Vocal, Keyboard, Mbira
Sakurako Kataoka: Spoken-word
Michael T.A. Thompson: Percussion
ONE NOTE ONE SPIRIT Choir: Chieko Palenberg, Kashimi Asai, Miyoko Satoh, Motoi Urano, Senko Nishimura, Takemi Kitamura, Tomomi Kawai
The multi-instrumentalist, Saco Myoji (aka Yasuma)’s musical experiences are broad; Blues, Funk, Rock, Bossa Nova, Salsa, Jazz, and Free Improvisational music. She blends all together with her native Japan’s melodies and sensibility to express love and gratitude to nature and the Universe and her music uplifts audience’s spirit. Saco appears in clubs, galleries, festivals, and healing/wellness events in Japan and U.S., mostly in the New York City area, including the Celebrating Women Composer Festival, the Vision Festival, the WHAM Festival, and other venues and events. Saco offers various configurations of the ensemble; solo, duo, trio, and often brings the choir, extra percussionists and dancers, depending on the size and occasion of the event. She released the album “AS IT IS is Beautiful” in summer 2018. It features songs in Japanese and English. Saco is a co-founder of One Note One Spirit, the unique sound community for everyone and ATOWA, the piano duo with the celestial sound creator; composer, pianist and crystal singing bowl player, Naoe Moriya who lives in Yokohama, Japan.
https://www.sacoyasuma.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@saco1love
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world. Currently, CRS is a multi-year sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions. https://crsny.org

CRS Presents Crossing Boundaries Concert Series #19: Careful in the Sun
2023-01-28 19:00 - 20:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS presents Crossing Boundaries Concert Series Vol. 19, curated by Maya Keren. Careful In The Sun traverses a verdant landscape of collective improvisation grounded in loops and songs by Maya Keren. The collective (Eliza Salem on drums, Anna Abondolo on fretless bass and voice, Emmanuel Michael on electric guitar, Eden Girma on voice and electronics, and Maya Keren on piano and voice) find their center in lush harmonies and cathartic hooks underlaid with the strange and spontaneous logic of dreams. In this concert, they will inhabit the space together to let their songs bloom and breathe, offering an opportunity for connection, healing, and joyfulness.
Tickets are available on eventbrite.com for $20 ($10 for students) or for cash at the door.
Proof of vaccination is NOT required but we encourage (but don’t require) you to wear masks, and if you are feeling sick, please play it safe and stay home.
ABOUT CROSSING BOUNDARIES CONCERT SERIES
CROSSING BOUNDARIES is a concert series devoted to dissolving boundaries between performers and audiences, the traditional and contemporary, classical and experimental, and the culturally specific and the global. Series curators are given the opportunity to create unique performance events in collaboration with musical, visual, and/or movement artists of their choosing. The series was conceived in 2018 by the Korean traditional wind player and composer gamin, who has continued to help curate the series each year. https://crsny.org/crossing-boundaries-concert-series/
Crossing Boundaries is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and administered by LMCC. LMCC empowers artists by providing them with networks, resources, and support, to create vibrant, sustainable communities in Manhattan and beyond.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Anna Abondolo is a bassist and composer from Los Angeles, California. She is currently based in Brooklyn developing an interdisciplinary collective entitled, “Rainbow Princess.” https://www.facebook.com/people/Anna-Abondolo/100008127379473/
Eden Girma is a multi-instrumental musician and vocalist hailing from Madison, WI. Through a genre-bending compositional ear and a poetic lyricism, Eden aspires to create music that not only resonates with individual hearts, but brings people closer together in a spirit of intimacy and empathy. https://edengirma.me/
Eliza Salem is a drummer currently based in Brooklyn. She is a Metro DC native who learned her craft in the Washington area’s vibrant musical scene under the guidance of mentors Paul Carr and Chris Allen. In the spring of 2021, she received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan where she had the privilege of studying with professors including Michael Gould, Sean Dobbins, Ellen Rowe, Dennis Wilson, Robert Hurst, and Benny Green, among others. In the summer of 2019, she studied at Brooklyn’s School for Improvisational Music, where she worked closely with Ralph Alessi, Andy Milne, Gerald Cleaver, Kris Davis, Tim Berne, and other distinguished improvisers. In 2021, Eliza was one of 15 fellows selected to take part in the Ravinia Steans Music Institute’s renowned jazz program where she had the opportunity to learn from and workshop original compositions with masters Rufus Reid, Billy Childs and Steve Wilson. Over the last several years she has worked professionally as a bandleader and side person in the greater Detroit and D.C. areas at renowned venues such as Cliff Bell’s, the Blue Llama Jazz Club, Columbia Station, An Die Musik, the Keystone Korner, Twins, and Jojo’s. Since moving to New York City in 2021, she has performed at acclaimed performance spaces such as Dizzy’s, Smalls Jazz Club, the Django, Ornithology Jazz Club, the Harlem Museum of Jazz, 55 Bar, the McKittrick Hotel, and more. In the summer of 2022 Eliza had the opportunity to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival as a part of the Michael Dudley trio. Currently, Eliza is enjoying working full-time as a freelance musician and drum teacher, and can be found playing in the band Careful In the Sun led by pianist and composer Maya Keren, crocheting, and hanging out with her roommate’s cat Azula. https://metropolisensemble.org/artists-collection/eliza-salem
Emmanuel Michael has been a part of various diverse ensembles and has had the honor to work with a wide variety of artists such as Rufus Reid, Wycliff Gordon, Matt Wilson, Keyon Harrold, and Immanuel Wilkins. Michael was also a member of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Peer-to-Peer All-Star Sextet of 2019, giving him the honor of touring and holding workshops through several schools within the state of Oklahoma with jazz icons Steve Wilson and Lisa Henry, under the direction of Dr. J.B Dyas and Bart Marantz. Michael also toured throughout parts of China and Taiwan under Carnegie Hall’s NYO Jazz 2019 with Sean Jones and Kurt Elling, allotting him the honor of working for two weeks in New York with artists such as Shammie Royston, Obed Calvaire, Erika Von Kleist, and Mathew Stevens. Michael now attends the Manhattan School of Music and works as a professional musician in New York City. https://www.sfjb.org/emmanuel-michael
Maya Keren is a Brooklyn-based pianist, vocalist, composer, and songwriter from Philadelphia. They are interested in the process of environing people, voices, instruments, and sounds in ways that invite connection with one’s erotic instinct, embody compassionate and queer relations with the self and the collective, and destabilize learned systems of domination. Sites of learning include the Creative Music Program in Philly, Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music, Mutual Mentorship for Musicians and the Ida B. Wells JUST Data Lab. Maya graduated from Princeton University in 2022 with a Bachelor’s degree in Music and a certificate in African American Studies. They currently live in Brooklyn where they teach at Brooklyn Conservatory and write songs, loops, and words for their band Careful In The Sun, drawing inspiration from Gwendolyn Brooks, Clarice Lispector, Pinegrove, and the Wissahickon. https://www.mayakerenmusic.com/
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world. Currently, CRS is a multi-year sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions. https://crsny.org

Four Seasons in NY: Gems of Japanese Music Vol. 26
2023-02-05 16:00 - 17:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
We invite you to celebrate the winter season with us at Four Seasons in New York: Gems of Japanese Music Vol. 26 by the acclaimed vocalist and koto and shamisen player Yoko Reikano Kimura, with special guest composer and shakuhachi player Elizabeth Brown, on Sunday, February 5, 2023 at 4pm in the award-winning White Room at CRS. This concert is presented by CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) and Yoko Reikano Kimura and is supported by Hogaku Journal and Mar Creation, Inc.
Tickets are $30 cash only at the door. To RSVP, email info@yokoreikanokimura.com
* Our top priority is the health and safety of the CRS audiences, artists, and staff. For this concert we ask that you wear a mask. Thank you for your kind understanding and corporation.
“…Yoko Reikano Kimura, playing the shamisen and singing, is superb….” — New York Times
“…Kimura’s voice was rich and full-bodied ….” — KC METROPLIS
About Four Seasons in New York – Gems of Japanese Music
New York’s music scene reflects the diverse and vibrant culture of the city. Kimura, together with CRS (Center for Remembering and Sharing), began this concert series in the fall of 2015. As a Japanese instrumentalist, she hopes to introduce the brilliance of traditional Japanese music, which is still being passed on to future generations after many centuries. Starting with the 2018-19 season, the series has featured contemporary pieces composed by living composers as well. Since the first concert, about 50 works from the classical repertoire have been introduced in the concert series. Please come and experience the sounds of koto and shamisen and enjoy the taste of the four seasons here in New York!
About past performances: https://www.yokoreikanokimura.com/projects/fourseasons/
About the Artists
YOKO REIKANO KIMURA is a distinguished virtuoso of Japanese koto, shamisen performer and singer in both traditional and contemporary music. Kimura has concertized in about 20 countries around the world based in New York and Japan. Following her studies at the Tokyo University of the Arts, she studied at Institute of Traditional Japanese Music, an affiliate of Senzoku Gakuen College of Music in Japan. Kimura was awarded a scholarship from the Agency of Cultural Affairs of Japan. Her teachers include Kono Kameyama, Akiko Nishigata and Senko Yamabiko, a Living National Treasure. Awards include the First prize at the prestigious 10th Kenjun Memorial National Koto Competition and the First prize at the 4th Great Wall International Music Competition. Kimura performed at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo, accompanying Danjuro Ichikawa XII. Her performances have been broadcasted on NHK-FM’s Hogaku no Hitotoki, NPR’s Performance Today and WKCR. As a koto soloist, Kimura has performed Daron Hagen’s Koto Concerto: Genji with the Wintergreen Music Festival Orchestra conducted by Mei-Ann Chen and several string quartets. As a shamisen soloist, she performed Kin’ichi Nakanoshima’s Shamisen Concerto at the National Olympic Memorial Youth Center.
Her performances have been featured at many opera and theater works, such as Michi Wiancko’s Murasaki’s Moon at Metropolitan Museum, Piestro Mascagni’s Iris by American Symphony Orchestra, Basil Twist’s Dogugaeshi, Yasuko Yokoshi’s Bell and many others.
Kimura is a founder of Duo YUMENO, with cellist Hikaru Tamaki. The duo received the Kyoto Aoyama Barock Saal Award in 2015, and featured at Chamber Music America’s 2016 National Conference, and performed at the John F. Kennedy Center in 2017. In 2019, the duo had its ten-year anniversary recital at Carnegie Hall.
yokoreikanokimura.com | duoyumeno.com
Elizabeth Brown combines a composing career with a diverse performing life, playing flute, shakuhachi, and theremin in a wide variety of musical circles. Her chamber music, shaped by this unique group of instruments and experiences, has been called luminous, dreamlike and hallucinatory.
Brown’s music has been heard in Japan, Russia, Colombia, Australia, South Africa and Vietnam as well as across the US and Europe. A Guggenheim Fellowship recipient and Juilliard graduate, she has received grants, awards and commissions from Orpheus, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Newband, The Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Kamratōn, the Barlow Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, the Japan/US Friendship Commission, Music from Japan, Meet the Composer, the Electronic Music Foundation, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, the Cary Trust, and NYFA, among others. She has two solo CDs: Elizabeth Brown: Mirage (New World) and Blue Minor: Chamber Music by Elizabeth Brown (Albany), and her music is also available on CRI, Innova, and Music and Arts. She has been Artist-in-Residence at the Hanoi National Conservatory and in Grand Canyon National Park, and a fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy and at the MacDowell Colony.
elizabethbrowncomposer.com

CRS presents Shoko Nagai’s Tokala with violinist Sita Chay & percussionist Satoshi Takeishi
2023-02-18 20:00 - 21:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents Shoko Nagai’s TOKALA ensemble featuring Shoko Nagai(piano/accordion), Satoshi Takeishi (percussion) and Sita Chay (violin). Tokala explores the ancient connections between Japan and the Middle East established via the Silk Road; this conduit of cultural and commercial exchange left an imprint that became an integral part of Japanese culture.
Bringing together Japanese and Korean folk, pop music and Middle Eastern music, Tokala illuminates and expands the centuries-old connections between these traditions.
Tickets are $20 ($10 for students) and are available via Eventbrite and at the door (cash only). Proof of vaccination is not required but you are encouraged to wear a mask.
“We have seen the art works, instruments, and other artistic objects from the Persian empire preserved in Imperial storage in Nara, Japan. We can but only imagine what it was like for musicians of Japan to hear the sounds of Persian court music. We are sure that it has left strong imprints deep in the Japanese traditional culture.” — Shoko Nagai
Tokala received a grant from NYFA (New York Fine Arts) for City Artist Corps 2021.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Shoko Nagai is a versatile musical artist who improvises and performs with world-renowned musicians on piano and accordion and composes original scores for films and live performances. As a teenager in her native Japan, Nagai was trained on Yamaha’s electronic organ, the “Electone,” to perform popular music. Since moving to the U.S. from Japan and studying classical, jazz music, and compositions at Berklee, she has adapted her mastery of the keyboard to prepared piano, accordions, and other keyboard instruments, often inspired by the minimalist approach of composer Toru Takemitsu. Whether she is performing Klezmer, Balkan or experimental music, Nagai is a charismatic presence onstage, who hypnotizes audiences with her intense focus and virtuoso sound. http://www.shokonagai.net/
“Whether traipsing over a steady, rolling rhythm or swimming through a collage of abstract sound, Nagai, a pianist, treat every moment as an opportunity for deep synchronicity.” — GIOVANNI RUSSONELL, New York Times
Satoshi Takeishi, drummer, percussionist, and arranger is a native of Mito, Japan. He studied music at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. While at Berklee he developed an interest in the music of South America and went to live in Colombia following the invitation of a friend. He spent four years there and forged many musical and personal relationships. One of the projects he worked on while in Colombia was ‘Macumbia’ with composer/arranger Francisco Zumaque in which traditional, jazz and classical music were combined. With this group he performed with the Bogota symphony orchestra to do a series of concerts honoring the music of the most popular composer in Colombia, Lucho Bermudes. In 1986 he returned to Miami, U.S. where he began working as an arranger/producer as well as a performer.
In 1987 he produced ‘Morning Ride’ for jazz flutist Nestor Torres on Polygram Records. His interest expanded to the rhythms and melodies of the Middle East where he studied and performed with Armenian-American oud master Joe Zeytoonian. Since moving to New York in 1991 he has performed and recorded in vast variety of genre, from world music, jazz, contemporary classical music to experimental electronic music with musicians such as Ray Barretto, Carlos ‘Patato’ Valdes, Eliane Elias, Marc Johnson, Eddie Gomez, Randy Brecker, Dave Liebman, Anthony Braxton, Mark Murphy, Herbie Mann, Paul Winter Consort, Rabih Abu Khalil, Erik Friedlander, Ned Rothenberg, MIchael Attias, Shoko Nagai, Paul Giger, Toshiko Akiyoshi Big Band, Ying String Quartet, Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, Dhafer Youssef, Lalo Schifrin and Pablo Ziegler to name a few. He continues to explore multi-cultural, electronics and improvisational music with local musicians and composers in New York.
Sita Chay is a violinist, composer, and producer who won a 2017 Latin Grammy Award for Best Mariachi Album, as violinist with the Flor de Toloache. She is also an awardee of New York Foundation for the Arts Women’s Fund, NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship, New Music USA’s Creator Development Fund, Joe’s Pub Working Group, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Creative Engagement Grant for various projects she is envisioning. Ms. Chay is the director and a founder of the Korean Shaman Music Ritual, SaaWee, which was received by international critics as a “delicate powerhouse”. For SaaWee, she has interwoven her theatrical experiences from Broadway shows, folkloric spirituality from Korean shaman rituals, and contemporary music flare from New York jazz scenes. SaaWee’s Return of Songbirds debuted at the Lincoln Center as part of #Retartstage project in 2021 and was invited to Ars Electronica Festival 2021. SaaWee won the California Music Video Awards 2022 in Best World Music category. She has appeared as a speaker and a lecturer at Chamber Music America Conference 2019, New York Musical Festival 2018, Seoul National University, Colombia National University, and Joong Ang University.
Sita often performs at artistically acclaimed venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Blue Note, Apollo Theater,Madison Square Garden, and was invited to the Montreal International Jazz Festival in 2015, London K-Music Festival in 2018, Global Fest 2018 and to the New York Sanjo Festival 2017 and 2018 to premiere her original and commissioned compositions. She has appeared as a guest violinist for critically acclaimed Broadway shows, My Fair Lady, Miss Saigon, Ain’t Too Proud, Hello Dolly, Sweeney Todd, On the Town, Fiddler on the Roof and Sunset Boulevard. Frequent TV and NPR appearances include “Tonight Show”, “Mozart in the Jungle,” and Randy Cohen’s “Person Place Thing”. She has collaborated with such artists as the Lionel Loueke, the Eagles, Kenny Werner, Billy Drewes, Sandeep Das, Frank London, Edward Perez, Balla Kouyate, Emerson String Quartet, Natalia Laforcade, Duksoo Kim, Bette Midler, Alicia Hall Moran, Alan Ferber,Taebaek Lee, Pamela Frank, Nadia Solemo Sonenberg, Frank Huang, and Robert Craft, the student of Stravinsky and Schoenberg. Her album credits include Stereography Project 1st and 2nd album, Miho Hazama’s M Unit “Dancer in Nowhere, Flor de Toloache “Las Caras Lindas.” http://www.sitachay.com
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world. Currently, CRS is a lead sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions. https://crsny.org

CRS Presents Hot Wrk Ensemble: WRKin it Out
2023-03-04 16:00 - 17:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents the Hot Wrk Ensemble: WRKin It Out in the award-winning White Room at CRS on March 4, 2023 at 4pm. With J Brooks Marcus (J Why) on percussion, Lois Hicks-Wozniak on saxophones, and Brad Hubbard on baritone sax & woodwinds, Hot Wrk Ensemble performs diverse, genre-busting chamber music — everything from Bach & Scarlatti to contemporary art music, and jazz-like fusion with improvisation and compositions by ensemble members. Audience members are encouraged to ask questions, share ideas, and feel part of the music creation process.
Tickets are $30 ($15 for students and $20 for seniors) and are available via eventbrite.com and for cash only at the door.
Proof of vaccination is not required, but we do strongly encourage you to wear a mask. Please note that CRS is only accessible by stairs.
Brad Hubbard is a Composer who plays Baritone Saxophone, Flute, and Bass Clarinet. Brad has performed throughout the world in many diverse settings. In addition to performing as a solo recitalist and with the Hot Wrk Ensemble, Brad is a member of 3rd Bell, a quartet that combines jazz, world, and electronic music filtered through a singer/songwriter mentality. He is also a member of David Sanford’s Pittsburgh Collective an innovative 20 piece big band and Neil Alexander’s X Ensemble, a modern Chamber Jazz Octet. He commissioned and premiered Benjamin Boone’s “Concerto for Baritone Saxophone and Orchestra” as well as pieces from Sherwood Shaffer, Monica Ashton, Mark Taylor and Michael Bellar. He is also involved as a composer and performer with Composers Concordance in New York City. As a sideman Brad has appeared with a broad range of artist including Corey Glover of Living Colour, Nancy Wilson, Pinetop Perkins, Lew Tabackin, Lenny Pickett, Boots Randolph, Roy Clark, The Monica Ashton Jazz Band and various local groups in the Hudson Valley.
Brad was a member of the New Century Saxophone Quartet from 1988-2004. During his tenure with the quartet, the ensemble was the first of its kind to win the prestigious Concert Artist Guild competition in New York City in 1992. The quartet toured throughout the United States and the World performing in major concert venues including Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Atlanta’s Spivey Concert Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, New York’s Merkin Concert Hall and the Kosciuszko Foundation Townhouse, Washington, D.C’s Strathmore Hall, Alaska’s Juneau Jazz and Classics Festival, the Villla Schönberg in Zurich, Switzerland, the Conservatoire de Musique in Esch Luxembourg, the Macau International Music Festival and the Academy for the Performing Arts in Hong Kong, China. New Century was also the first saxophone quartet to perform at La Huaca del Complejo Atlapa in Panama City, Panama. NCSQ has also appeared in unique concert settings including two command performances for President Clinton in the White House to a concerto performance with the United States Navy Band. Brad appears on the first 6 New Century recordings on the Channel Classics label.
Brad is currently the Woodwind Instructor at The Beacon Music Factory in Beacon NY, where he lives with his family.
J. Brooks Marcus (aka J Why) is a multi-instrumentalist and composer who studied jazz, classical, electronic and experimental music at California Institute of the Arts, Berklee College of Music, and San Francisco State University. He has composed for dance, film, puppet theater, and podcasts. Collaborators have included: multi-instrumentalist and composer Julz A, dance filmmaker Anna Brady Nuse, and choreographer Sasha Welsh. J has composed music for filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev, Los Angeles theater company About Productions, dance filmmaker Susan Osberg, and animator/puppet theater artist Susan Simpson. In 2017 he formed the collaborative production duo Obsidian Soundsystem with musician and engineer Jonny Taylor. As a performer, he has played with Pamela Z, Gwen Laster’s Gameboard, and Andy Rinehart. J teaches composition at SUNY New Paltz and percussion, clarinet and computer music at Beacon Music Factory. His music can be found at https://soundcloud.com/j-why-1 and https://obsidiansoundsystem.bandcamp.com/music.
Lois Hicks-Wozniak is an active concert saxophonist and educator in the New York Metropolitan and the Hudson Valley region, committed to community engagement through new music and Global Music styles. A D’Addario Woodwinds Artist, her many awards include winning the Special Presentation Winners Recital Series, sponsored by Artists International Presentations; earning her a New York Recital Debut at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. She is described in performance as having “tremendous technique and fidelity to tone without sacrificing musical line,” and a “beautiful soprano saxophone sound…preserving the beauty and consistency of her sound regardless of the technical or musical demands of the moment” (Saxophone Symposium). An active soloist, she has performed and recorded within many ensembles to include the Albany Symphony, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and with Pat Waing master, Kyaw-Kyaw Naing and the first Burmese-American Hsiang Waing ensemble. Her album Playback: Music for Saxophone and Bass Trombone is with Matt Wozniak and Nadine Shank, piano. She is a featured educator in the textbook, World Music Pedagogy Vol VII: Teaching World Music in Higher Education (Routledge 2020). She co-founded the saxophone and percussion chamber group, Hot Wrk Ensemble, featuring improvisatory music, arrangements, and original works, to include her own compositions. She previously served active duty in the U.S. Army as a saxophonist with the West Point Band and taught at Marist College, Montclair State University, and SUNY New Paltz. She holds degrees from Florida State University and Montclair State University. Her sixth grade band director suggested she play the saxophone, and although she cried when she first saw the instrument, she has no regrets.
http://loishickswozniak.com/

CRS Presents INTERWOVEN International Chamber Ensemble at Resobox
2023-03-11 14:00 - 15:30 | Resobox East Village, 91 E 3rd St, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS presents the international chamber music ensemble INTERWOVEN on Saturday, March 11, 2023 at 2pm at Resobox East Village, our first collaboration with Resobox. INTERWOVEN’s Yoko Reikano Kimura (Shamisen/Voice), Andy Lin (Erhu/Viola), Emilie-Anne Gendron (Violin), Keiko Tokunaga (Violin), and Nan-Cheng Chen (Cello) will perform a program featuring Japanese, Chinese, and western compositions such as “A Popular Tune” by JungYoon Wie, “Sekiheki no Fu — Red Cliff” by Kin’ichi Nakanoshima, “Chimera” by Theodore Wiprud, “Crosscurrents” by Takuma Itoh, and Ravel’s “String Quartet” (First and Second Mv).
Tickets are $30 ($15 for students and $20 for seniors) and are available via eventbrite.com or for cash at the door.
Founded by Grammy-winner Keiko Tokunaga, INTERWOVEN is a chamber ensemble whose mission is to bring together the sounds from different places and time. The ensemble name derives from the idea that music making is like creating a tapestry, woven together with threads that represent and celebrate diverse origins, traditions and materials.
RESOBOX is a Japanese cultural center dedicated to sharing and celebrating Japanese influence in the arts. It offers a broad range of authentic Japanese activities, events, classes, art exhibitions and even cuisines to spread to diverse audiences every day.
This concert falls on the 12th anniverary of the Great East Japan earthquake, tsunami, and ongoing nuclear disaster, and we’d like to dedicate this concert to those who were lost, those left behind, and those who helped. We remember you.
“I want to express how grateful we (Japanese) were to all the neighboring countries for helping us when we were most vulnerable, and witnessing such kindness made me want to work towards a more harmonious relationship between all the Asian countries despite its complicated past.” — Keiko Tokunaga
VENUE LOCATION:
Resobox East Village
91 E 3rd St
New York, NY 10003
(212) 598-5993
DIRECTIONS:
Resobox EV is located in Manhattan’s East Village on the north side of E 3rd Street just west of 1st Avenue on the ground floor.
NEAREST SUBWAY STATIONS:
F train to 1st/2nd Ave & Houston St, 6 train to Bleecker St or Astor Place, R/W to Prince St
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Violinist EMILIE-ANNE GENDRON, lauded by the New York Times as a “brilliant soloist” and by Strad Magazine for her “marvellous and lyrical playing,” enjoys a dynamic career based in New York City. Ms. Gendron is on the roster of the Marlboro Music Festival and the touring Musicians From Marlboro, as well as acclaimed groups such as A Far Cry, Argento Chamber Ensemble, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Iris Orchestra (as one of its concertmasters), Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Talea Ensemble, and Sejong Soloists. She is a founding member of Ensemble Échappé, a new-music sinfonietta, and of Gamut Bach Ensemble, in residence with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. A deeply committed chamber musician, Ms. Gendron is a longtime member of the Momenta Quartet, whose vision encompasses contemporary music of all backgrounds alongside great music from the past—currently quartet-in-residence at Binghamton University and most recently serving as Bates College’s 2019-20 Artists-in-Residence in Music. Other regular collaborations include the Melody and Company chamber series with pianist Melody Fader and the longstanding G-Sharp Duo, founded with pianist Yelena Grinberg in 2003.
Ms. Gendron is also a sought-after educator and clinician. She has been a member of the Toomai String Quintet, specializing in innovative educational outreach and community engagement, since 2009. Toomai, one of the original pilot ensembles in Carnegie Hall’s “Musical Connections” program, helped design composition and performance workshops with incarcerated men at Sing Sing Correctional Facility; has worked with student composers in the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers Program and with NYC public school students through the “Midori and Friends” educational initiative; and presents at institutions across the U.S., ranging from grade school to university level. As a member of the Momenta Quartet, Ms. Gendron gives guest masterclass and coaching appearances on their educational-performing circuit of nearly 40 institutions ranging from public and arts schools, universities, and conservatories in the U.S. and as far afield as Bolivia, Indonesia, and Mexico. Ms. Gendron has served as guest chamber music coach for the Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program and at the Longy School of Music; as violin specialist for student composers at Juilliard’s Evening Division, NYU, and Fordham University; and as a chamber music and contemporary music coach and performer at the annual Brandeis Composers Conference.
Ms. Gendron’s extensively varied international appearances have included recitals in Sweden and at the Louvre in Paris; festivals in Russia, Finland, Indonesia, South Korea, and Jordan; and major venues across the Americas, Europe, and Asia, in collaboration with such artists as Teddy Abrams, Rachel Barton Pine, Bruno Canino, Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, Anthony McGill, Edgar Meyer, Shlomo Mintz, Anthony Newman, Samuel Rhodes, Marcy Rosen, Gil Shaham, and Jörg Widmann, among many others. Her performances have been broadcast over radio and television in the U.S., U.K., Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, Japan, and South Korea. She is a past winner of the Stulberg String Competition and took 2nd Prize and the Audience Prize at the Sion-Valais (formerly Tibor Varga) International Violin Competition.
Born in the U.S. to Japanese and French-Canadian parents, and a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, Ms. Gendron began her violin studies at age 4 with Carl Shugart and Carol Sykes. Her subsequent training at the Juilliard School was overseen by teachers Dorothy DeLay, Won-Bin Yim, Hyo Kang, David Chan, and Axel Strauss. Ms. Gendron holds the distinction of being the first person in Juilliard’s history to be accepted simultaneously to its two most selective courses of study, both the Doctor of Musical Arts and the Artist Diploma. She holds a B.A. in Classics (magna cum laude and with Phi Beta Kappa honors) from Columbia University, and a Master of Music degree and the coveted Artist Diploma from Juilliard.
emilieannegendron.com
Taiwanese born violist and erhuist (Chinese violin) ANDY WEIYAN LIN is recognized as one of the most promising and the only active performers who specialized in both western and eastern instruments.
“The great Molto adagio…..elicited some of the night’s most sensitive work, especially from Wei-Yang Andy Lin on viola.” — Strad Magazine
“Taiwanese-born violist Wei-Yang Andy Lin…..is also a virtuoso on the erhu, and he gave a brilliant performance.” — New York Times
Andy is the artistic director and co-founder of the New Asia Chamber Music Society. He holds his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School and received his Doctor’s degree in Musical Arts from SUNY Stony Brook. He has won numerous competitions including Taiwan National Viola Competition and First Prize in the 2008 Juilliard Viola Concerto Competition. He has also appeared as a viola and/or erhu soloist with orchestras such as the Busan Metropolitan Traditional Music Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Children’s Orchestra Society, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, Incheon Philharmonic, the Juilliard Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, New York Classical Players, Orford Academy Orchestra, Solisti Ensemble and Yonkers Philharmonic Orchestra. Andy is also a founding member of the award winning string quartet, the Amphion String Quartet, and a member of the Musicians of Lenox Hill and serves as principal violist of the New York Classical Players and the Solisti Ensemble. He has been invited to perform chamber music with Itzhak Perlman where The New York Times described “Mr. Perlman, playing first violin… answered in kind by the violist Wei-Yang Andy Lin.” He has also been invited by the Metropolitan Museum to give recitals at their Gallery Concert Series and Patrons Lounge Concert, as well as a recital at the Caramoor Center for the Music and the Arts. Andy plays on a viola made by one of his best friends Jacob Ho.
andylinviola.com
Winner of the 2019 GRAMMY Award for Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance, violinist KEIKO TOKUNAGA spends most of her days touring and performing globally as a soloist and chamber musician. Keiko has performed, toured and recorded extensively with the internationally acclaimed Attacca Quartet from 2005 to 2019, and has been praised by the Strings Magazine for possessing a sound “with probing quality that is supple and airborne” and for her “pure, pellucid bow strokes”. She has soloed with various orchestras including the Spanish National Orchestra, Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya and Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Orchestra.
In 2021, Keiko founded an online concert series, Jukebox Concerts, in order to provide artistic outlets for musicians who lost their engagements due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The performances were made available not only to the subscribers, but also to residents of nursing homes, hospitals and assisted living facilities across the country. Later in the year, she created INTERWOVEN, a multi-cultural ensemble whose mission is to eliminate discrimination against the AAAPI (Asians, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) community by integrating the musical traditions of the East and West.
While Keiko played the Attacca Quartet, the ensemble won numerous prestigious awards including the GRAMMY Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance, First Prize of the 7th Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in 2011; the Third Prize and the Australian Broadcast Corporation Classic FM Listener’s Choice Award of the 6th Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition in 2011. The Attacca Quartet served as the Graduate String Quartet in Residence at The Juilliard School from 2011 till 2013, and as artist-in-residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the 2014-15 season.
When she is not on the road, Keiko enjoys her career as an educator. She is currently on faculty at Fordham University. In the past, she taught at The Juilliard School Pre-College Division; the Hunter College of New York; New York University; the Port Townsend Chamber Music Festival; and Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute.
interwovenmusic.org
Cellist NAN-CHENG CHEN’s performance was described as “personable and smile-inducing” and “fine playing” by the Washington Post and “Beautiful Tone” by New York Concert Reviews. A chamber music enthusiast, Nan-Cheng is the executive director and co-founder of the New Asia Chamber Music Society and was a member of Sonic Escape trio. As a soloist, Nan-Cheng has collaborated with Simon Bolivar Orchestra, Queens Symphony Orchestra, Metro-West Symphony, Quincy Symphony and Symphony Pro Musica, and has toured North American, South America, Europe and Asia. His recent highlight include debuts with National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan and Taipei Symphony Orchestra. Nan-Cheng’s festival participations includes Banff Centre Residency, Sarasota Music Festival, Heifetz Institute, Encore School for Strings, and Kneisel Hall. He was a guest-performing artist at Chautauqua Summer Music Festival, a Kaplan Fellow at the Bowdoin International Music Festival and served as a teaching artist at the Annual Music Festival of Walnut Hill. As a music educator, Nan-Cheng has given cello masterclasses at Penn State University, University of Wisconsin, University of Calgary as well as universities in Panama, Colombia and Taiwan. Nan-Cheng holds a B.M. and M.M. from The Juilliard School, and is enrolled as a doctoral candidate at CUNY Graduate Center. He taught at CUNY Queens College and now serves as a full-time college music faculty in New York.
newasiacms.org/nancheng-chen
YOKO REIKANO KIMURA is a distinguished virtuoso of Japanese koto, shamisen performer and singer in both traditional and contemporary music. Kimura has concertized in about 20 countries around the world based in New York and Japan. Following her studies at the Tokyo University of the Arts, she studied at Institute of Traditional Japanese Music, an affiliate of Senzoku Gakuen College of Music in Japan. Kimura was awarded a scholarship from the Agency of Cultural Affairs of Japan. Her teachers include Kono Kameyama, Akiko Nishigata and Senko Yamabiko, a Living National Treasure. Awards include the First prize at the prestigious 10th Kenjun Memorial National Koto Competition and the First prize at the 4th Great Wall International Music Competition. Kimura performed at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo, accompanying Danjuro Ichikawa XII. Her performances have been broadcasted on NHK-FM’s Hogaku no Hitotoki, NPR’s Performance Today and WKCR. As a koto soloist, Kimura has performed Daron Hagen’s Koto Concerto: Genji with the Wintergreen Music Festival Orchestra conducted by Mei-Ann Chen and several string quartets. As a shamisen soloist, she performed Kin’ichi Nakanoshima’s Shamisen Concerto at the National Olympic Memorial Youth Center.
Her performances have been featured at many opera and theater works, such as Michi Wiancko’s Murasaki’s Moon at Metropolitan Museum, Piestro Mascagni’s Iris by American Symphony Orchestra, Basil Twist’s Dogugaeshi, Yasuko Yokoshi’s Bell and many others.
Kimura is a founder of Duo YUMENO, with cellist Hikaru Tamaki. The duo received the Kyoto Aoyama Barock Saal Award in 2015, and featured at Chamber Music America’s 2016 National Conference, and performed at the John F. Kennedy Center in 2017. In 2019, the duo had its ten-year anniversary recital at Carnegie Hall.
yokoreikanokimura.com | duoyumeno.com
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world. Currently, CRS is a multi-year sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions.
crsny.org

A Course in Miracles Class with Yasuko Kasaki (on Zoom)
2023-03-15 19:00 - 20:00 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
Tuesdays (except this week) from 7 – 8 pm from Jan 10 – March 28, 2023
Preceded by Guided Meditation from 6:30 – 7 pm (same Zoom link)
Together, let’s come to rest and remember true peace. Each class usually contains some lecture on concepts from A Course in Miracles, some discussion and Q&A, and a meditation, creative visualization and/or spiritual reading practice in order to experience mind change.
Our primary goal in these classes is for each student to learn to listen to the guidance of Holy Spirit and live his/her life with certainty and peace. Slowly, you will re-train your eyes to see the world around you without judgment. You will learn to communicate with your holy spirit. Students of all experience levels and backgrounds are welcome!
Zoom Meeting Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81541160040
Call-in info:
Meeting ID: 815 4116 0040
One tap mobile: 1-929-436-2866
Suggested donation $20 via PayPal to https://www.paypal.me/crsny
(no one turned away due to lack of funds)
You can find the text of A Course in Miracles (ACIM) online here (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Course_in_Miracles), among other places.
Yasuko Kasaki is an internationally beloved spiritual writer, counselor, healer, lecturer and translator from Tokyo. She is widely recognized as the person most responsible for the spread of A Course in Miracles throughout Japan. In 2004 she founded CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), the first and only spiritual center devoted to the teaching and practice of A Course in Miracles in New York City. She has taught and worked with thousands of people from around the world to help resolve their mental and physical issues and witness miracles. She presents at the CMC’s annual ACIM Conferences in the U.S., and several times a year she gives large seminars throughout Japan. She has also been presented internationally at ACIM conferences and workshops in the U.K., Spain, Germany, and Israel.
Yasuko is the author of The Scales Fell from My Eyes: An Illustrated Course in Miracles and 17 books in Japanese about the Course, as well as numerous novels, short stories, essays and collections of photographs. Her translations of the ACIM Workbook and of books by Course teachers Jon Mundy, Gabrielle Bernstein and David Hoffmeister have also been published in Japan. Yasuko’s spiritual writing and lectures are celebrated for their clearly stated explanations of complex concepts illustrated by captivating personal stories of struggle and triumph, drawn from her long career as a writer, motorcyclist, and spiritual counselor. Meditation and communication with Holy Spirit form the foundation of her practice.
You can listen to a sampling of Yasuko’s recent guided meditations here:
http://crsny.podbean.com

CRS Presents SACO & As It Is: Gratitude to Spring Concert
2023-03-26 17:00 - 18:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents “Gratitude to Spring” with SACO & As It Is and special guest Kevin Nathanial (mbira). Let’s appreciate and embrace the nurturing energy of spring and celebrate it together with singing and dancing!
An eleven-piece, cross-genre music ensemble, SACO & As It Is creates uplifting and soothing sound experiences that unite people spontaneously.
Tickets are $20 and are available via Eventbrite and at the door (cash only). Seating is limited and advanced ticket purchase is highly recommended. Proof of vaccination is not required but you are strongly encouraged to wear a mask.
Saco Myoji: Vocal, Keyboard, Mbira, Kalimba
Sakurako Kataoka: Spoken-word
Michael T.A. Thompson: Percussion
ONE NOTE ONE SPIRIT Choir: Chieko Palenberg, Kashimi Asai, Miyoko Satoh, Motoi Urano, Senko Nishimura, Takemi Kitamura, Tomomi Kawai
Special guest Kevin Nathaniel: Mbira
The multi-instrumentalist, Saco Myoji (aka Saco Yasuma)’s musical experiences are broad; Blues, Funk, Rock, Bossa Nova, Salsa, Jazz, and Free Improvisational music. She blends all together with her native Japan’s melodies and sensibility to express love and gratitude to nature and the Universe and her music uplifts audience’s spirit. Saco appears in clubs, galleries, festivals, and healing/wellness events in Japan and U.S., mostly in the New York City area, including the Celebrating Women Composer Festival, the Vision Festival, the WHAM Festival, and other venues and events. Saco offers various configurations of the ensemble; solo, duo, trio, and often brings the choir, extra percussionists and dancers, depending on the size and occasion of the event. She released the album “AS IT IS is Beautiful” in summer 2018. It features songs in Japanese and English. Saco is a co-founder of One Note One Spirit, the unique sound community for everyone and ATOWA, the piano duo with the celestial sound creator; composer, pianist and crystal singing bowl player, Naoe Moriya who lives in Yokohama, Japan.
Kevin Nathaniel is a visionary musician who, with voice and ancient African instruments, channels sound as a universal healing force. Together, breathing rhythms to the beat of our synchronized hearts, Kevin Nathaniel resonates songs of unity and the “big picture” of love in beautiful ways. A celebrated composer of healing music; a long-time practitioner of the healing arts of mbira, kalimba, circle song, shekere, dance, meditation, and yoga; a world-traveled music healer and performer, sharing the medicine of the ancient, the now, and the beyond, Kevin Nathaniel brings a fresh, deep experience of the beauty of sound.
Kevin Nathaniel’s music is an invitation for us to come together, to share in song, laughter, positivity, movement, and prayer.
Kevin Nathaniel is a Scholar of the House of Yale University. Following Yale, Kevin intuitively devoted himself to the healing music of Africa, especially mbira music. He began constructing instruments, transitioning to vocal music, the playing of various instruments of the African world, dances of Africa, and sacred healing music. His journey has led him to today, where he is an innovative force in the development of a new kind of shamanic music, performing music festivals and ceremonies the world over. His recordings have developed a strong following not only among lovers of uplifting dance grooves, but also among the healing and natural medicine world, while healers have verified that his recordings and performances helped heal trauma, sleep disorders, physical pain, depression and anxiety. Kevin has worked with shamans, channels, doctors, healers, mystics, and medicine people from Africa, Asia, South and North America. He has also worked with Alice Walker, Oprah Winfrey, Jonathan Demme, Madonna, Niles Rodgers, Ephat Mujuru, Dumisani Maraire, Bobby McFerrin, Maestro Manuel, Tito La Rosa, Nana Vasconcelos, Carlos Roberto, Miriam Makeba, Thomas Mapfumo, Dr. Mitch Gaynor, Pedro Cruz Garcia, Titos Sompa, Chief Bey, and Omega Institute (where he serves as musician-in-residence).
kevinnathaniel.com/

Four Seasons in NY: Gems of Japanese Music Vol. 27
2023-04-02 16:00 - 17:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
We invite you to celebrate the spring season with us at Four Seasons in New York: Gems of Japanese Music Vol. 27 by the acclaimed vocalist and koto and shamisen player Yoko Reikano Kimura, with special guest composer and shakuhachi player James Nyoraku 如楽 Schlefer, on Sunday, April 2, 2023 at 4pm in the award-winning White Room at CRS. This concert is presented by CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) and Yoko Reikano Kimura and is supported by Hogaku Journal and Mar Creation, Inc.
“James Nyoraku Schlefer occupies a special place in [New York City’s] cultural life, composing and performing music that bridges Western and Japanese styles.” — The New Yorker
Tickets are $30 cash only at the door. To RSVP, email info@yokoreikanokimura.com
* Our top priority is the health and safety of the CRS audiences, artists, and staff. For this concert we ask that you wear a mask. Thank you for your kind understanding and corporation.
“…Yoko Reikano Kimura, playing the shamisen and singing, is superb….” — New York Times
“…Kimura’s voice was rich and full-bodied ….” — KC METROPLIS
About Four Seasons in New York – Gems of Japanese Music
New York’s music scene reflects the diverse and vibrant culture of the city. Kimura, together with CRS (Center for Remembering and Sharing), began this concert series in the fall of 2015. As a Japanese instrumentalist, she hopes to introduce the brilliance of traditional Japanese music, which is still being passed on to future generations after many centuries. Starting with the 2018-19 season, the series has featured contemporary pieces composed by living composers as well. Since the first concert, about 50 works from the classical repertoire have been introduced in the concert series. Please come and experience the sounds of koto and shamisen and enjoy the taste of the four seasons here in New York!
About past performances: https://www.yokoreikanokimura.com/projects/fourseasons/
About the Artists
YOKO REIKANO KIMURA is a distinguished virtuoso of Japanese koto, shamisen performer and singer in both traditional and contemporary music. Kimura has concertized in about 20 countries around the world based in New York and Japan. Following her studies at the Tokyo University of the Arts, she studied at Institute of Traditional Japanese Music, an affiliate of Senzoku Gakuen College of Music in Japan. Kimura was awarded a scholarship from the Agency of Cultural Affairs of Japan. Her teachers include Kono Kameyama, Akiko Nishigata and Senko Yamabiko, a Living National Treasure. Awards include the First prize at the prestigious 10th Kenjun Memorial National Koto Competition and the First prize at the 4th Great Wall International Music Competition. Kimura performed at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo, accompanying Danjuro Ichikawa XII. Her performances have been broadcasted on NHK-FM’s Hogaku no Hitotoki, NPR’s Performance Today and WKCR. As a koto soloist, Kimura has performed Daron Hagen’s Koto Concerto: Genji with the Wintergreen Music Festival Orchestra conducted by Mei-Ann Chen and several string quartets. As a shamisen soloist, she performed Kin’ichi Nakanoshima’s Shamisen Concerto at the National Olympic Memorial Youth Center.
Her performances have been featured at many opera and theater works, such as Michi Wiancko’s Murasaki’s Moon at Metropolitan Museum, Piestro Mascagni’s Iris by American Symphony Orchestra, Basil Twist’s Dogugaeshi, Yasuko Yokoshi’s Bell and many others.
Kimura is a founder of Duo YUMENO, with cellist Hikaru Tamaki. The duo received the Kyoto Aoyama Barock Saal Award in 2015, and featured at Chamber Music America’s 2016 National Conference, and performed at the John F. Kennedy Center in 2017. In 2019, the duo had its ten-year anniversary recital at Carnegie Hall.
yokoreikanokimura.com | duoyumeno.com
James Nyoraku 如楽 Schlefer has been playing the shakuhachi for 40 years. A native New Yorker, he first heard the instrument in 1979, while working towards his Master’s degree in musicology. This was at a musical soirée in New York’s famed Dakota building, hosted by one of the professors at the CUNY Graduate Center. There was a sankyoku ensemble of shakuhachi, koto and shamisen, and following the performance, Schlefer was offered the opportunity to play the bamboo flute. The effort was met with total failure and taking that as a mandate, he began his now four-decade long pursuit.
Schlefer received his Dai-Shi-Han (Grand Master) certificate in 2001, and in 2008, a Shi-Han certificate from Mujuan Dojo, in Kyoto. In Japan Schlefer studied with Yoshio Kurahashi, Reibo Aoki, Katsuya Yokoyama, and Kifu Mitsuhashi. His first teacher was Ronnie Nyogetsu Seldin in New York. He is trained in the Kinko school following the lineage of Jin Nyodo.
Schlefer holds a Master’s degree in Western flute and musicology from Queens College, and currently teaches shakuhachi at Columbia University and music history courses at the City University of New York. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Tanglewood, BAM, the Metropolitan Museum, at colleges and universities throughout the US, and has toured in Japan, Malaysia, Brazil and counties in Europe.
In 2008 Schlefer co-founded Kyo-Shin-An Arts to further his enthusiasm of combining the sounds of Japanese and Western classical music traditions. Since that time KSA has commissioned dozens of new compositions, presented an annual series of concerts in New York, and partnered with classical ensembles throughout the US and in the UK.
Schlefer has four solo recordings, Wind Heart (1996) – which travelled 120,000,000 miles aboard the Space Station MIR – Solstice Spirit (1998), Flare Up (2002), and In The Moment (2008). His music has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and MPR’s Performance Today. Schlefer’s recording Spring Sounds, Spring Seas (2012) on MSR Classics, features his original music for shakuhachi and orchestra.
https://www.nyoraku.com/

Stop Calling Them Dangerous #5: Cinema Has Power
2023-04-08 14:00 - 16:00 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
La MaMa Moves! in partnership with Movement Research
and Pool Shine – “New York Traces”, MOVEMENT ART FILM Festival Berlin

Featuring Yvonne Rainer
Organized by Yoshiko Chuma
Moderated by Wendy Perron
A panel featuring a conversation on cinemas power and a film screening including works by groundbreaking artist Yvonne Rainer. The panel is organized by choreographer and instigator Yoshiko Chuma and will be moderated by choreographer, dance scholar, and author Wendy Perron. There will be surprise dance-filmmakers who will be attending. The screening is co-curated by POOL – Movement Art Film Festival Berlin.
Photo credit: Still of “Trio Film” by Yvonne Rainer, 1968, Camera: Phill Niblock. With the courtesy of Video Data Bank.
Space is limited. RSVP is highly recommended:
https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe.c/11238804

A Course in Miracles Support Group / Class with Christopher Pelham (on Zoom)
2023-05-16 19:00 - 20:00 | Zoom
Tuesday, 5/16 from 7 – 8 pm
Preceded by Guided Meditation from 6:30 – 7 pm (same Zoom link)
Together, let’s come to rest and remember true peace. Each class usually contains some lecture on concepts from A Course in Miracles, some discussion and Q&A, and a meditation, creative visualization and/or spiritual reading practice in order to experience mind change.
Our primary goal in these classes is for each student to learn to listen to the guidance of Holy Spirit and live his/her life with certainty and peace. Slowly, you will re-train your eyes to see the world around you without judgment. You will learn to communicate with your holy spirit. Students of all experience levels and backgrounds are welcome!
Zoom Meeting Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81541160040
Call-in info:
Meeting ID: 815 4116 0040
One tap mobile: 1-929-436-2866
Suggested donation $20 via PayPal to https://www.paypal.me/crsny
(no one turned away due to lack of funds)
You can find the text of A Course in Miracles (ACIM) online here (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Course_in_Miracles), among other places.

CRS Presents BETA Quartet: Where We Come From
2023-05-21 14:00 - 15:00 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS presents the award-winning contemporary flute ensemble BETA Quartet, who will perform a program featuring the world premiere of “Where We Come From” by Detroit-based saxophonist/composer Marcus Elliot, a piece commissioned by BETA Quartet. “Where We Come From” is a 4-movement work that centers around the Divine Feminine theme and demonstrates the power, beauty, and grace that embodies female energy and Mother Nature.
Described as “chamber music at its finest” by Kenneth Tse and “unique and virtuosic” by Barbara Siesel, BETA Quartet is an award-winning ensemble comprised of flutists Eftihia Arkoudis, Tatiana Cassetta, Alyssa Schwartz, and Meg Brennan.
Tickets are available via eventbrite.com. Tickets are $20 general admission and $10 for students. Some seating may be on blankets on the floor.
If not sold out, tickets will also be available at the door for cash only.
The concert will take place in the award-winning White Room at CRS. Please note that the venue is accessible only via a flight of stairs and is not wheelchair accessible. Proof of vaccination is not required but the wearing of masks is encouraged.
The White Room at CRS is located between 12th & 13th streets, above Think Coffee, in Manhattan. The nearest subway station is 14th St / Union Square (4/5/6, N/R/Q/W, L).
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Marcus Elliot is a saxophonist, composer, improviser, and educator based in Detroit, Michigan. Marcus is a 2020 Kresge Artist Fellow, awarded by Kresge Arts in Detroit. He is the current director of the University of Michigan’s Creative Arts Orchestra. His compositions and improvisations have been described by the New York Times as “convincing and confident, evolved in touch and tone…”, and the Detroit Free Press has said, “Marcus Elliot represents next generation of jazz”. Elliot leads and co-leads many different Detroit based bands including the Marcus EllioTickt Quartet, Clockwork, Balance, Beyond Rebellious, and Lanula. Elliot performs in the Shigeto Live Ensemble. He is a Fellow of the Geri Allen Gathering Orchestra. He co-founded the nonprofit Polyfold Musical Arts Collective. Elliot is the director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Civic Jazz Ensembles. Elliot received his master’s degree in improvisation from the University of Michigan.
https://www.marcuselliotmusic.com
BETA Quartet is dedicated to exploring and promoting the cutting edge of modern flute music by premiering and performing works by living composers from around the world. The ensemble is actively engaged through concerts, masterclasses, and educational outreach across the country and abroad.
As strong competitors, BETA has won First Prize at France Music Competition 2° (2020) and West Virginia Music Teachers National Association Chamber Music Competition (2016), First Prize at the Flute Society of Kentucky Quartet Competition (2017), and advanced to the semi-finals of the prestigious Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition (2017). The group has performed and presented workshops at the National Flute Association Convention, Florida Flute Association Convention, the Mid-Atlantic Flute Convention, the Flute Society of Greater Philadelphia, and the WVU International Flute Symposium.
BETA’s activities have been partially funded by grants from The Friends of Flutes Foundation and West Virginia University, and their recognition within the flute community resulted in sponsorship by Flute Specialists, Inc. (Clawson, MI). As of 2019, BETA Quartet is also a Trevor James Low Flutes Ensemble.
Following the release of their self-titled debut album (2017), BETA commissioned Detroit based composer Marcus Elliott to write a work celebrating the feminine divine (2019) and recorded the world premiere of Nuraghi Warriors Dance (Ples Bojevnikov Nuraghi) composed by Anže Rozman and dedicated to the group (2020). Both albums are released with Merandi Records and are available through Spotify, iTunes, YouTube and www.betaquartet.com.
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world. Currently, CRS is a multi-year sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions.
https://crsny.org

DIVINE at DOCK 11, commissioned by CRS
2023-05-25 13:00 - 14:30 | Dock 11, Saal 3, Kastanienallee 79, Berlin, 10437, Germany
CRS is thrilled to invite you to Berlin for the world premiere of DIVINE, inspired by tragic tales of wronged and resilient women such as ballet’s “Giselle” and the classic Japanese Kaidan ghost story “Oiwa.”
Supported by a commission from CRS, Berlin-based butoh dance artist Yuko Kaseki and ballet artist Megumi Eda created and perform the work to an original sound score composed by Reiko Yamada.
Performances will take place May 25 – 28, 2023 at 7pm at DOCK 11. Following the May 26 performance, there will be a Q&A with the audience in collaboration with Theaterscoutings.
Tickets are 10/15 € and are available through DOCK 11.
These two dancers are like oil and water, moon and turtle, the North and South Pole, a crane in rubbish…. By exchanging their polar opposite approaches to movement and performance, they assume characters plagued with the discomfort and instability of unfamiliar, distorted bodies. These two figures with different space/time/ dimensions meet where the eye of the corona appears to have passed, which they cross in sympathy but filled with confusion and dissonance from wildly different types of existences. Their suffering and persistence echo the paths of Giselle and Oiwa and countless other women whose divine spirits have endured objectification, coercion, violence, and imprisonment in images and lives not of their own choosing or making.
“Beautiful ballerinas are often caught in their own beauty. They definitely don’t know how to mug. But Megumi can morph in a flash from small boy to impossibly regal diva to a small squirrel chewing on a nut.” – Laurie Anderson
This is only the second commission by CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) and the first production we have supported outside the United States. We became connected to Yuko Kaseki through the work of past CRS visiting instructor and performer Shinichi Momo Koga and through Yuko’s work with CAVE Art Space and Japan Society. We developed a relationship with Megumi when her daughter performed in ballet recitals at CRS under the direction of Rie Fukuzawa and through Megumi’s work with Yoshiko Chuma & the School of Hard Knocks. At Yoshiko’s suggestion, CRS presented Megumi’s talk and documentary video art at CRS, which grew out of Megumi’s work with Yoshiko. This project was, in fact, hatched at a School of Hard Kocks performance last October at Ki Smith Gallery, and we are grateful for Yoshiko’s support and encouragement.
Megumi Eda was born in Nagano, Japan and had her professional debut with the Matsuyama Ballet Company at age 14 in Tokyo where she appeared in many of the ballet classics in repertoire. After appearing successfully in the Prix de Lausanne Competition, she was invited to the Hamburg Ballet School and for the next 15 years, as a member of the Hamburg Ballet, the Dutch National Balletand the Rambert Dance Company, she worked with many choreographers including John Neumeier, Christopher Bruce, Jiri Kylian, Lindsey Kemp, William Forsythe, Hans van Manen, Twyla Tharp and David Dawson. In 2004, she moved to New York as a founding member of Armitage Gone! Dance and has continued a close collaboration with Karole Armitage to this day. In addition to her work with Armitage she has begun to incorporate other art forms including sculpture and video into her own installations and performances. In New York, she has developed her passion as a video editor and a director. She has been collaborating with Yoshiko Chuma since 2014 as a Performer/Filmmaker. She won a Bessie Award (NYC Dance & Performance Awards) in 2004. Megumi was named one of Dance Magazine’s BEST PERFORMERS 2015. Since 2018 she has lived in Berlin and has recently presented her solo choreography in Venice and Berlin.
megumieda.com
Yuko Kaseki is a director, choreographer, teacher and Butoh dancer who has lived in Berlin long and short enough. She has been searching for a way to penetrate the space between physical and spiritual expression. Every day she trains her perception to find the moment of extraordinary in the ordinary.She studied Butoh dance and Performing Art in HBK Braunschweig with Anzu Furukawa and danced in her company Dance Butter Tokio and Verwandlungsamt in 1989-2000.
in 1995, Yuko Kaseki and Marc Ates founded the dance company cokaseki. cokaseki is as an ensemble for performative research around dance, visual arts and experimental music in live events and improvisations at theater, gallery, site specific space, and film… Since then various members have been part of the group in different roles and changing creative responsibilities. Collaborations have been taking place in numerous international projects with performers such as Christine Bonansea, Sherwood Chen, Shinichi Iova Koga, 4RUDE, Minako Seki, Lisa Stertz, Valentin Tszin, Teo Vlad, musicians such as Antonis Anissegos, Kriton Beyer, Audrey Chen, Contagious, Kirikoo Des, Axel Dörner, Echo Ho, Emilio Gordoa, miu, Nguyễn + Transitory, Yasumune Morishige, Olaf Rupp, Tot Onyx, Sasha Pushkin, SEQUOIA, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Xenon, and visual artists such as, Nikhil Chopra, Morvarid K, Sarane Lecompte, Arata Mori, Justin Palermo, Chiharu Shiota, Peter Zach, and more.
Solo and ensemble performances, collaborations, and improvisations are performed throughout Europe, Finland, Norway, Georgia, Turkey, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Burkina Faso, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Australia, and the USA.
These works are accumulations of poetic and vivid images that incorporate the spirit of Butoh, and her performance aims to reflect the outsider’s existence.
Her strong interest about breaking border of physical expression, leads to projects with artists with mixed ability such as Theater Thikwa (Berlin), Roland Walter (Berlin), Sung Kuk Kang (Seoul), Zan-Chen Liao (Taipei).
Yuko Kaseki performs and organizes improvisation series “AMMO-NITE GIG” (Vol.1- 48 and on going) with international performers and musicians since 2004.
Various collaboration, AmaTerraz and quantsquat with Teo Vlad (Berlin), inkBoat (San Francisco), CAVE (New York), Tableau Stations (San Francisco), improvisation duo with Antonis Anissegos (Berlin), ITAKO with Kazuhisa Uchihashi (Berlin), Poema Theater (Moscow), Theater Salad (Seoul) and many others.
cokaseki.com
Reiko Yamada is a composer and sound artist, originally from Hiroshima, Japan. She composes concert works, creates sound art installations and works with interdisciplinary collaborators. Her work explores the aesthetic concept of imperfection in a variety of contexts.
Yamada holds a D.Mus in composition from McGill University, and is a recipient of numerous prestigious awards and fellowship. She was a 2015-16 Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study of Harvard University, the 2016-17 artist-in-residence at IEM (Institut für Elektronische Musik und Akustik), the 2018 Innovator-in-Residence at Colorado College, and 2020-21 S+T+ARTS resident artist. Her various projects have been commissioned and/or funded by New Music USA, the Canada Council for the Arts, IRCAM (the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music), CIRMMT (the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology), the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Armitage Gone! Dance, the Zentrum für Orgelforschung der Kunstuniversität Graz and the European Commission among others. Her works have been presented in venues such as The Metropolitan Museum Breuer (New York), and Sónar Festival (Barcelona). She is currently a postdoctral researcher at ICFO (Institute for Photonic Sciences) and composer-in-residency at Phonos Foundation in Barcelona.
https://www.reikoyamada.com/

CRS Presents Find Your Zen | Science of Meditation
2023-06-04 13:00 - 18:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS invites you to enjoy a cutting edge sound meditation experience from Japan by Zen master Ryūgyō Kurashima and renowned music producer Masahiro Nakawaki (Ryūichi Sakamoto, Perfume, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, etc.). Three sessions will take place on June 4, 2023 at 1 pm, 3 pm and 5 pm in the award-winning White Room at CRS.
In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, we often find it difficult to make time to fully relax and be in tune with ourselves. However, despite our busy schedules, it is possible to practice mindful meditation as a form of self-care.
Using traditional Japanese Zen meditation techniques, the “Zen Mind” method offers a sound meditation session accompanied by a live singing bowl performance and healing music. The program was produced by the two experts in their respective fields – Reverend Ryūgyō Kurashima, the 54th chief priest of the Shitennōji Temple, and Mr. Masahiro Nakawaki, a renowned music producer from Japan.
This program will include an in-person talk by the instructors, followed by the Zen Mind experience. During the talk, guests will learn about the scientifically measurable effects of Zen Mind as a form of mindfulness, before immersing in a live performance led by the experts. The program welcomes seasoned meditators as well as total newcomers, and all will be able to gain a deeper understanding of the benefits of “Zen Mind” meditation and feel transported to a “place” they cannot experience at home.
This program is offered in English and Japanese.
Space is limited so please register for one of the sessions in advance via eventbrite.com:
https://bit.ly/3MdczX3
You can also pay $25 cash at the door if space is available. No credit cards will be accepted at the door except through Eventbrite.com.
Direct inquiries to Yoshiko at aloha88hula@gmail.com
Please note that the venue is accessible only via a flight of stairs and is not wheelchair accessible. Proof of vaccination is not required but the wearing of masks is encouraged. If
PROGRAM
“Zen Mind” Method Introduction (25-30 min)
“Zen Mind” Meditation (20 min)
Intermission + Q&A (15-20 min)
*The full program will run approximately 1 – 1 hour 15 minutes.
**Please wear comfortable clothes to sit on the floor during the experience. Comfortable pants are recommended.
***Chairs are available for guests who prefer not to sit on the floor.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Ryūgyō Kurashima
The 54th Chief Priest at the Shitennōji Temple, Sōtō Section in Tsu, Mie-Prefecture | Former President of All Japan Young Sōtō Zen Buddhist Priest Association | World Fellowship of Buddhist Youth Adviser. After completing his 2-year training at Daihonzan Eiheiji Temple, Kurashima continued his Zen training in Europe. Upon his return to Japan, he began working across religious boundaries to promote interfaith dialogue, and serves as a caretaker at the Ise International Forum for Religions.
Additionally, he has been holding Zen meditation classes for over 20 years for people’s mental wellbeing every Sunday and offers Zen experience courses to the public.
He founded a nursing facility supporting independent living called “Shitennō-an,” where he aims to improve the nursing care system by incorporating not only physical activities but also a Zen meditation method called “Zen Mind.”
Shitennōji is a Zen temple with a history of over 1,000 years, which was founded by the prince Shōtoku Taishi at the order of Empress Suiko.
Masahiro Nakawaki
Mr. Nakawaki began producing commercial jingles in college and has produced many popular songs. After university, he joined the Yamaha Music Foundation as a music education researcher and instructor/trainer. Since then, he has worked as a music producer with various artists, including Perfume, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, CAPSULE, Aoi Teshima, SMAP, and Ryūichi Sakamoto. Using his background in educational psychology study, he has developed his own self-improvement method and given lectures at enterprises and educational institutions. His work includes the joint research project “AI Music Creation” with the Tokyo University, and his lecture “Entertainment Business in Japan” at the University of Southern California.
Lately, he has been researching the effects of music as part of integrated medicine, and collaborated on development of Zen Mind, which amplifies the benefits of meditation using music, with Mr. Kurashima, the Chief Priest of Shitennōji Temple.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world.
Currently, CRS is a multi-year sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions.

CRS Presents Jessica Ackerley, Sarah Manning, and Alma Laprida in Concert
2023-06-18 17:00 - 18:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS is delighted to present M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians)’ Winter Solstice 2021 Cohort member Jessica Ackerley (guitar) with Sarah Manning (saxophone) and Alma Laprida (tromba marina) on June 18, 2023 at 5pm in the award-winning White Room at CRS. An audience Q&A will take place following the concert.
This trio’s music is mostly centered around improvisation with a melding of modern jazz and ambient music. But the ensemble is highly unique with the addition of the string instrument tromba marina, especially in this context because it was originally an instrument for Rennaissance music.
A tromba marina, marine trumpet or nuns’ fiddle, (Fr. trompette marine; Ger. Marientrompete, Trompetengeige, Nonnengeige or Trumscheit, Pol. tubmaryna) is a triangular bowed string instrument used in medieval and Renaissance Europe that was highly popular in the 15th century in England and survived into the 18th century. The tromba marina consists of a body and neck in the shape of a truncated cone resting on a triangular base. It is usually four to seven feet long, and is a monochord (although some versions have sympathetically-vibrating strings). It is played without stopping the string, but playing natural harmonics by lightly touching the string with the thumb at nodal points. Its name comes from its trumpet like sound due to the unusual construction of the bridge, and the resemblance of its contour to the marine speaking-trumpet of the Middle Ages. — from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tickets are $20 general admission and $10 for students and are available in advance on eventbrite.com. If not sold out, tickets will also be available at the door for cash only. Some seating may be on blankets on the floor.
The concert will take place in the award-winning White Room at CRS. Please note that the venue is accessible only via a flight of stairs and is not wheelchair accessible. Proof of vaccination is not required but the wearing of masks is encouraged.
The White Room at CRS is located between 12th & 13th streets, above Think Coffee, in Manhattan. The nearest subway station is 14th St / Union Square (4/5/6, N/R/Q/W, L).
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Sarah Manning is a saxophonist and composer. She has released four critically acclaimed albums. Harmonious Creature (Posi-Tone 2014) received 4 stars in Down Beat Magazine, and was on multiple jazz top ten lists including the Los Angeles Times. She is a recipient of a 2021 NYSCA composer commission and a MAP Fund 2020 and 2021 grantee for We Will Not Be Composed, a new multimedia work with author and activist Soraya Chemaly to challenge perceptions of women’s anger in America. In addition to being a MacDowell Fellow in composition (2012, 2021), she can most recently be heard on William Hooker’s 2021 release Big Moon.
https://www.sarahmanningmusic.com
Alma Laprida explores the territories among composition, improvisation, performance and installation. She works with trumpet marine, field recordings, synthesizers, lyre and other non- conventional instruments and objects. Her work was presented in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Italy, Mexico and the United States.
Alma released three solo albums, two collaboration albums and several pieces in compilations. She’s currently part of Hypnotized Chickens, the Bureau of Sensory Affairs and GEXLAT. After living and working in Buenos Aires for ten years, she’s been based in Maryland, USA, since 2021.
https://almalaprida.wordpress.com
Jessica Ackerley is a Canadian guitarist, improviser and composer based in Hawai’i and a current PhD candidate at University of Hawai’i after a decade of living in New York City. Ackerley continually develops a hybrid musical language drawing on the influences of Black American Music and avant-garde improvisers, as well as the culture of the thriving New York City and Toronto rock and noise scenes. Since 2017, Ackerley has released thirteen albums to much critical acclaim with features in Wire Magazine, Pitchfork, BBC Radio, and Bandcamp. They has been commissioned by Adult Swim, M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians, and New Music USA as well as received funding from Canada Council for the Arts and Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
https://www.jessicaackerley.com
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world.
Currently, CRS is a multi-year sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions.
https://crsny.org

A Rooftop Sufi Solstice Celebration (indoors in case of rain)
2023-06-24 18:30 - 22:00 | NOoSPHERE Arts, 520 Kingsland Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11222, United States
Please join us in celebrating the Summer Solstice with NOoSPHERE Arts as they kick off their WE ARE NATURE: Rising and Falling annual rooftop series. Held in the spectacular, one-of-a-kind setting of wildflower meadows stretching across the roofs of an industrial plant against the iconic backdrop of the NYC skyline, the event will be centered around a Sufi opening ritual honoring nature’s cycles, performed by Whirling Dervish Farima Berenji. Farima—a Sufi Master and Magi from the bloodline of Iranian Zoroastrian Magi—and her sacred dancers will be accompanied by the klezmer music and Sephardic folk melodies of The Shul Band. The ceremony has been designed as a unique blend of Muslim and Jewish elements— epitomizing the possibility of interfaith collaboration. Join us at Sunset to mark this special occasion!
The main event will involve solo acts, duets and a whirling performance in which several participants— including Cyr wheelers—will interpret the movements of individual planets around a star. The show will also feature poetry readings and storytelling by Master Farima and be accompanied by the live music of the Shul Band. Following the whirlers’ performances, The Shul Band will continue playing against the darkening night sky.
*Update: We have a Rain Plan in place with an indoor option for the performances, with view of the skyline!
CRS is one of the sponsors of the event. The following members of our community will be whirling at the event under the direction of Farima: Fanny Pérez, Juliet Rania, Naeema Butt, Oihana Garde, Veronica Santiago, and Wendi Weng, as well as visiting artists Bani and Jeff from Farima’s Simorgh Dance Collective in CA.
Tickets are available via Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rooftop-season-opening-event-an-ecstatic-solstice-celebration-tickets-640904210747
A Sema Gathering (free) and two Whirling workshops (Basic and advanced Whirling practices) will be offered on the day following the event (Sun, Jun 25: Beginner: 12-1:30 pm, Advanced: 2-3:30 pm).
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/soul-of-the-sema-whirling-workshops-tickets-638797419277
Farima Berenji is an internationally acclaimed dance artist, ethnologist, choreographer, instructor, and archaeologist specializing in ancient, sacred, classical, and folk dances spanning the millenniums of Persian civilization, the Silk Road, and the Near East.
http://farimadance.com/
The Shul Band, led by Adam Feder, plays music rooted in Jewish folk music but drawing on the musical wellsprings of New York City and of the whole world. It is equally prayerful and raucous, meditative and joyful. The band has performed at major venues such as Carnegie Hall.
https://www.theshulband.com/
This is the fourth iteration of the NOoSPHERE Art’s annual rooftop series. Each season’s theme references an aspect of systems thinking, an approach to environmental sustainability spearheaded by leading thinker Fritjof Capra, a longtime NOoSPHERE Arts collaborator. This view considers all the major problems of our time—including energy, economics, climate change, and inequality—as interconnected and interdependent. In 2023, the summer series explores the theme of Nature’s Cycles. A cycle is an interval of time during which a characteristic event occurs, often repeated regularly or in a sequence of events. There are cycles in everything—seasons, circadian rhythms, cellular life, planetary systems, politics, and economics—and cycles in one realm affect cycles in others. Thinking about cycles can help us to discern structure, order, and patterns in the world around us, and to realize that everything in life will ebb and flow—an encouraging thought in times of darkness.
NOoSPHERE Arts is a 501c3 organization and cultural center led by a team of international creatives whose backgrounds blend the arts and sciences. Its freewheeling, multidisciplinary approach engages diverse audiences and builds community through a range of vibrant public events in its indoor-outdoor home in Brooklyn, NYC. The only multidisciplinary arts center in the Greenpoint neighborhood, it is a welcoming platform where resident and migrant artists alike connect with locals. Uniting music, dance, visual arts, theater, film, poetry & prose, its collaborative productions at the nexus of art and eco-awareness harness the power of art to drive action towards green living, fair play, and oneness.
https://www.noosphere-arts.nyc/

Sufi Dance Workshop & Sema with Visiting Sufi Master Farima Berenji, Ph.D.
2023-06-25 12:00 - 16:30 | Last Frontier NYC, 520 Kingsland Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11222, United States
Join world renowned scholar and Master of Yarsani Order, Dr. Farima Berenji for an afternoon of sacred gathering to learn the Sufi traditions of Greater Khorasan, Qaderi, and Yarsani order or Iran. We will take on the path of the mystics, a journey of discovery, in space and time, reconnecting with our ancient ancestors. We will sing, dance in prayer, and immerse ourselves in the Soul of the Sema.
Register here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/soul-of-the-sema-whirling-workshops-tickets-638797419277
Beginning Level | 12-1:30pm | $45
Basics of Whirling practices, technique, knowledge, and respect. Learn the basic technique of whirling. Farima’s teachings are based on ancient ritual techniques, science of whirling, and the sacred geometry of whirling. We will learn essential techniques of preparation, maintaining balance and posture, controlling dizziness, self-focus during turning, breath work, and more. We begin with Farima’s unique 4 Element breathing meditation and relaxation of body and mind, connecting with the 4 sacred directions and manifesting the 4 elements. We will progress into our whirling rituals, create inner and outer circles, progress into movement mediation, while listening to sacred poetry, sound of drums, and the natural sounds around us, and end with sacred movement rituals, Gwati (ancient Iranian medicine dance, and Zikr (Sufi Prayers). Farima will also teach the 4 basic path of Sufism in this class (Respect, Knowledge, the Path, the Truth).
Beginners Level only. No experience required and open to all. This workshop will help people of all experience levels to whirl for a sustained period with ease.
Advanced Level | 2 – 3:30pm | $45
This workshop requires prior experience in whirling and knowledge of the 4 basic paths. The Workshop will include: -Khorasan Sema -Qaderi Sema -Yarsani Sema -Shamse Sema (Whirling of the Sun)
**Workshop will progress to Sema Gathering in the afternoon
Love is Calling – Sema Gathering | 4 pm (free and open to all/ by donation)
We will create a sacred, supportive space where we can all release whatever energy no longer serves us, relax and open our heart, body, and mind. We will discover the power and mystery of ancient Persian and Sufi dance and rituals – a gateway for self-growth and spiritual transformation–through prayers, whirling, music, and love. Be moved by beautiful Sufi rituals, sacred music, songs, chanting, poetry, and dance in prayers! Love is Calling!
Our gathering will include:
● Sema and Semah
● Erfa (ancient Persian Poetry circle)
● Zikr (Yarsani and Qaderi Rituals)
● The power of the sharing circle and acts of kindness and love toward self and others.
● Sohbet (Spiritual talk by Master Farima)

CRS Presents Paradise Laboratory: Hell in Paradise — Li-Chin Li & Jeonghyeon Joo
2023-06-25 20:00 - 21:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) invites you to the next installment of its Paradise Laboratory concert series, Hell in Paradise, featuring music that that blurs the lines between traditional and experimental performed by Asian Cultural Council 2023 Winter Fellow Li-Chin Li (Chinese sheng and electronics) with special guest California Institute of the Arts faculty member Jeonghyeon Joo (Korean haegeum). The concert will take place on June 25, 2023 at 8 pm in the award-winning White Room at CRS.
The program will include the US premieres of three compositions for sheng performed solo with electronics, composed by Francisco Uberto, Heng Chen, and Jialin Liu and first performed in Li-Chin’s “Rencontre autour du Sheng à Paris” concert in 2022 at the Italian Cultural Centre in Paris, as well as a solo by Jeonghyeon and an improvised duet.
Tickets are $10 for students/seniors and $20 general admission and are available through eventbrite.com and at the door for cash only, if not sold out.
TICKET LINK:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/paradise-laboratory-hell-in-paradise-li-chin-li-jeonghyeon-joo-tickets-655914185987

VENUE LOCATION:
The White Room at CRS
123 4th Ave FL3
New York, NY 10003
212-677-8621
DIRECTIONS:
CRS is located on the 3rd floor of a walk-up building above Think Coffee, between 12th & 13th streets, one block east of The Strand Bookstore. There is no elevator or wheelchair access.
NEAREST SUBWAY STATIONS:
4/5/6, N/R/Q, L trains to 14th St / Union Square
PARADISE LABORATORY is a playground for sonic and visual experimentation. Conceived of during the pandemic by the renowned Korean traditional multi-instrumentalist, curator, and scholar gamin, Paradise Laboratory provides musical artists with opportunities to rehearse, record, film, and perform with other musical, visual, and dance artists in an experimental, process-oriented, and artist-centered fashion.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Born in Taichung, Taiwan, Li-Chin Li is a Sheng soloist, composer, and performer. Majored in Chinese Music at the Tainan National University of the Arts, Li-Chin received solid training in traditional music education. After graduation, she worked for the most selective and prestige Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra as a Sheng performer. Li-chin soon figured a nine-to-five job doesn’t’ suit her for making her own music and performing. Li-chin is known for her ability to apply Sheng to various art forms and music genres. Through her work, she is committed to exploring musicians’ subjectivity and diversity of roles in the performing arts.
In October 2021, Li-Chin took part in a six-month residency program at the esteemed Cité internationale des arts in Paris. Handpicked by the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan, she seized this opportunity to collaborate with a diverse group of talented composers and musicians residing in France, culminating with her performance in the concert “Rencontre autour du Sheng à Paris” co-presented by the Italian Cultural Centre and Taiwan Cultiral Centre in Paris at the end of her residency there. The concert garnered praise from the French national radio program, “Journal de la Création,” making a significant impact on the exchange of contemporary music between Taiwan and France, as well as elevating Taiwan’s sheng music to an international stage.
Recently, she has been selected as a member of IRCAM concert de l’atelier d’improvisation, ManiFeste-2022, and she has been guested with Ensemble LINEA and Ensemble CAIRN in 2022. Last but not least, she is a grantee of Asian Culture Council in New York 2023.
https://lichinli.art/
Jeonghyeon Joo is an award-winning haegeum performer, composer, improviser, and researcher who is an ardent advocate for new and experimental music. Joo’s work explores the somatic, corporeal relationship between musical instrument and body, frequently collaborating with composers, performers, visual artists, choreographers, film directors, and dancers. Her recent projects have been supported by Arts Council Korea and Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture. She is currently pursuing a DMA at the California Institute of the Arts and is on faculty at the California Institute of the Arts and Seoul Institute of the Arts.
https://www.joowork.com
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world. Currently, CRS is a multi-year sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions.
https://crsny.org

A Course in Miracles Class with Yasuko Kasaki (on Zoom)
2023-06-27 19:00 - 20:00 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
Tuesdays from 7 – 8 pm
June 27, July 11, July 25, August 15, August 29, 2023
Preceded by Guided Meditation from 6:30 – 7 pm (same Zoom link)
Together, let’s come to rest and remember true peace. Each class usually contains some lecture on concepts from A Course in Miracles, some discussion and Q&A, and a meditation, creative visualization and/or spiritual reading practice in order to experience mind change.
Our primary goal in these classes is for each student to learn to listen to the guidance of Holy Spirit and live his/her life with certainty and peace. Slowly, you will re-train your eyes to see the world around you without judgment. You will learn to communicate with your holy spirit. Students of all experience levels and backgrounds are welcome!
Zoom Meeting Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81541160040
Call-in info:
Meeting ID: 815 4116 0040
One tap mobile: 1-929-436-2866
Suggested donation $20 via PayPal to https://www.paypal.me/crsny
(no one turned away due to lack of funds)
You can find the text of A Course in Miracles (ACIM) online here (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Course_in_Miracles), among other places.
Yasuko Kasaki is an internationally beloved spiritual writer, counselor, healer, lecturer and translator from Tokyo. She is widely recognized as the person most responsible for the spread of A Course in Miracles throughout Japan. In 2004 she founded CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), the first and only spiritual center devoted to the teaching and practice of A Course in Miracles in New York City. She has taught and worked with thousands of people from around the world to help resolve their mental and physical issues and witness miracles. She presents at the CMC’s annual ACIM Conferences in the U.S., and several times a year she gives large seminars throughout Japan. She has also been presented internationally at ACIM conferences and workshops in the U.K., Spain, Germany, and Israel.
Yasuko is the author of The Scales Fell from My Eyes: An Illustrated Course in Miracles and 17 books in Japanese about the Course, as well as numerous novels, short stories, essays and collections of photographs. Her translations of the ACIM Workbook and of books by Course teachers Jon Mundy, Gabrielle Bernstein and David Hoffmeister have also been published in Japan. Yasuko’s spiritual writing and lectures are celebrated for their clearly stated explanations of complex concepts illustrated by captivating personal stories of struggle and triumph, drawn from her long career as a writer, motorcyclist, and spiritual counselor. Meditation and communication with Holy Spirit form the foundation of her practice.
You can listen to a sampling of Yasuko’s recent guided meditations here:
http://crsny.podbean.com

CRS Presents Paradise Laboratory: Sonic Cartography — Adam Robinson, Devon & gamin
2023-07-02 17:00 - 18:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) invites you to the next installment of its Paradise Laboratory concert series, Sonic Cartography, featuring music that, as usual, blurs the lines between traditional and experimental performed by Adam Robinson (shakuhachi flute), Devon (shakuhachi flute), and gamin (Korean piri flute), with visual art by Caitlin Cawley and Qixin Zhang.
The program includes

Braids for piri & shakuhachi by Devon Osamu Tipp
Translucid/Opaque by Vicente Alexim
Object score by Caitlin Cawley (NY premiere)
Inkling by Devon Osamu Tipp and Qixin Zhang
visual art by Caitlin Cawley and Qixin Zhang

Tickets are $10 for students/seniors and $20 general admission and are available through eventbrite.com and at the door for cash only, if not sold out.
TICKET LINK:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/crs-presents-paradise-laboratory-sonic-cartography-gamin-and-devon-tickets-661765728107

VENUE LOCATION:
The White Room at CRS
123 4th Ave FL3
New York, NY 10003
212-677-8621
DIRECTIONS:
CRS is located on the 3rd floor of a walk-up building above Think Coffee, between 12th & 13th streets, one block east of The Strand Bookstore. There is no elevator or wheelchair access.
NEAREST SUBWAY STATIONS:
4/5/6, N/R/Q, L trains to 14th St / Union Square
PARADISE LABORATORY is a playground for sonic and visual experimentation. Conceived of during the pandemic by the renowned Korean traditional multi-instrumentalist, curator, and scholar gamin, Paradise Laboratory provides musical artists with opportunities to rehearse, record, film, and perform with other musical, visual, and dance artists in an experimental, process-oriented, and artist-centered fashion.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Adam Robinson is a shakuhachi player based in New York City. He has studied shakuhachi with Ralph Samuelson continuously since 2012 and has taken lessons in Japan with Tokumaru Jumei and Yamato Shudo. To supplement his shakuhachi life he studies Japanese ensemble music with acclaimed koto and shamisen players Sumie Kaneko (Yamada School) and Yoko Hiraoka (Ikuta School). Adam attended The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music where he studied jazz improvisation and tenor saxophone. Post-grad experience in Conceptual Harmony was undertaken from 2013-2020 with La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela and Jung Hee Choi. He was a an original member of Gamin’s Unforgotten Song project in 2019. He currently performs with the Columbia University Gagaku Ensemble, The Hudson Valley Shakuhachi Choir, leads the Brooklyn Shakuhachi Club, and gives performances in the New York metropolitan area. Adam sends a monthly email report with updates about shakuhachi performances and writings about the study of traditional Japanese culture. You can sign up at www.adamrobinsonmusic.com
Devon is in no particular order: a queer non-binary Pittsburgh based NY born shakuhachi player, composer, improviser, cat lover, electronics lover, failed orchestral bassoonist, partner to Kanoko, amateur cook, and bad artist. Their music draws influence from their Japanese roots, experiences as a jeweler and painter, improvisations with plants, and their studies of gagaku and hogaku in Japan and the US. Their work focuses on rhythmic and timbral transmutation of cyclical materials. Their compositions have been performed in the US, Europe, Australia, China and Japan. In their spare time, they enjoy painting, cooking, and playing with their cat.
They have received commissions from ensembles such as Kamratōn (Pittsburgh, PA), the Thin Edge New Music Collective (Toronto Canada), and the Oh My Ears! Festival (Phoenix, AZ). They have been an artist in residence at Leveld Kunstnartun (Ål, Norway), Listhús AiR (Olafsfjördur, Iceland), and La Pantographe (Moutier, Switzerland). Their flute repertoire is published by Tetractys Publishing in the UK.
Their compositions have been featured at the 2021 International Shakuhachi Festival Prague, Pittsburgh’s 2020 and 2018 BEYOND Microtonal Music Festivals, and Pittsburgh’s Music on the Edge new music series. They have presented their research on intercultural collaboration at venues such as Harvard University, Columbia University, the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA, and the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden Germany. Their research has been published by Ziva Hubda: the Review for Living Music in the Czech Republic.
greengiraffemusic.info
gamin is a distinguished soloist who tours the world performing both traditional Korean music and cross-disciplinary collaborations. Gamin plays 3 traditional winds, and is a designated Yisuja, official holder of Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 46 for Court and Royal Military music. Re-inventing new sonorities from ancient, somewhat restrictive, musical systems, gamin has received several cultural exchange program grants, including Artist-in-Residence (2014) at the Asian Cultural Council, and Ministry of Culture, Republic of Korea (2012). Gamin has collaborated in cross-cultural improvisation with world-acclaimed musician presenting premieres at Roulette Theater, New School, and Metropolitan Museum. Gamin was featured artist at the Silkroad concert, Seoul, 2018, performing on-stage with Yo-Yo Ma. Gamin’s scheduled Carnegie Hall début for 2019, as featured soloist, with the Nangye Gugak Orchestra, was postponed due to covid.
Since 2018, gamin has curated performances at the Center for Remembering and Sharing. gamin finished her artist-in-residency (2020-2023) at the HERE Arts Center, NYC and released her 4th album, “Nong” in 2020.
The Jerome Foundation awarded gamin their prestigious 2-year (2021-2023) Fellowship. gamin teaches music courses as Adjunct Faculty at ethnomusicology department at the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA.
gaminmusic.com
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world. Currently, CRS is a multi-year sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions.
crsny.org

Healing Relationships with Yasuko Kasaki
2023-07-08 11:00 - 13:00 | online
Yasuko will give her next talk to the UCDM- COLOMBIA A
Course in Miracles community, on the topic of Healing Relationships, this Saturday, July 8 at 11am EST. You can tune in via YouTube Live here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqLSQTiFlxw

CRS Presents SACO & As It Is: Resonance of Water Summer Concert
2023-07-16 17:00 - 18:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents “Resonance of Water” with SACO & As It Is. Mother Earth is a water planet, and we are mostly water. Let’s flow together to celebrate this season communing with water. It would be wonderful to feel each other’s “water” with music!
An eleven-piece, cross-genre music ensemble, SACO & As It Is creates an uplifting and soothing sound experience that unites people spontaneously. Improvisational movements and Whirling Prayer add a visual experience to this music.
Saco Myoji: Vocal, Keyboard, Mbira
Sakurako Kataoka: Spoken-word
Michael T.A. Thompson: Percussion
ONE NOTE ONE SPIRIT Choir: Chieko Palenberg, Fusako Miyaji, Kashimi Asai, Miyoko Satoh, Motoi Urano, Senko Nishimura, Takemi Kitamura, Tomomi Kawai
Tickets are $20 and are available via Eventbrite and at the door. Seating is limited and advanced ticket purchase is highly recommended.
TICKET LINK:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/crs-presents-saco-as-it-is-resonance-of-water-summer-concert-tickets-665754498627

VENUE LOCATION:
The White Room at CRS
123 4th Ave FL3
New York, NY 10003
212-677-8621
DIRECTIONS:
CRS is located on the 3rd floor of a walk-up building above Think Coffee, between 12th & 13th streets, one block east of The Strand Bookstore. There is no elevator or wheelchair access.
NEAREST SUBWAY STATIONS:
4/5/6, N/R/Q, L trains to 14th St / Union Square
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
The multi-instrumentalist, Saco Myoji (aka Saco Yasuma)’s musical experiences are broad; Blues, Funk, Rock, Bossa Nova, Salsa, Jazz, and Free Improvisational music. She blends all together with her native Japan’s melodies and sensibility to express love and gratitude to nature and the Universe and her music uplifts audience’s spirit. Saco appears in clubs, galleries, festivals, and healing/wellness events in Japan and U.S., mostly in the New York City area, including the Celebrating Women Composer Festival, the Vision Festival, the WHAM Festival, and other venues and events. Saco offers various configurations of the ensemble; solo, duo, trio, and often brings the choir, extra percussionists and dancers, depending on the size and occasion of the event. She released the album “AS IT IS is Beautiful” in summer 2018. It features songs in Japanese and English. Saco is a co-founder of One Note One Spirit, the unique sound community for everyone and ATOWA, the piano duo with the celestial sound creator; composer, pianist and crystal singing bowl player, Naoe Moriya who lives in Yokohama, Japan.

Four Seasons in NY: Gems of Japanese Music Vol. 28
2023-08-05 16:00 - 17:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
We invite you to celebrate the summer season with us at Four Seasons in New York: Gems of Japanese Music Vol. 28 by the acclaimed vocalist and koto and shamisen player Yoko Reikano Kimura, with special guest visual artist Hiroko Ohno, on Saturday, August 5, 2023 at 4pm in the award-winning White Room at CRS. This concert is presented by CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) and Yoko Reikano Kimura and is supported by Hogaku Journal and Mar Creation, Inc.
Program
Niijio – New Wave – (by Kin’ichi Nakanoshima)
Sarashi (by Kitazawa-koto, Fukakusa-kengyo) and more

Tickets $30 cash only.
Tickets reservation is available on the following form:
https://www.yokoreikanokimura.com/contact/
*Please include your name and the numbers of tickets you wish to purchase)
*Payment will be at Center for Remembering and Sharing. (Cash only)
“…Yoko Reikano Kimura, playing the shamisen and singing, is superb….” — New York Times
“…Kimura’s voice was rich and full-bodied ….” — KC METROPLIS
About Four Seasons in New York – Gems of Japanese Music
New York’s music scene reflects the diverse and vibrant culture of the city. Kimura, together with CRS (Center for Remembering and Sharing), began this concert series in the fall of 2015. As a Japanese instrumentalist, she hopes to introduce the brilliance of traditional Japanese music, which is still being passed on to future generations after many centuries. Starting with the 2018-19 season, the series has featured contemporary pieces composed by living composers as well. Since the first concert, about 50 works from the classical repertoire have been introduced in the concert series. Please come and experience the sounds of koto and shamisen and enjoy the taste of the four seasons here in New York!
About past performances: https://www.yokoreikanokimura.com/projects/fourseasons/
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
YOKO REIKANO KIMURA is a distinguished virtuoso of Japanese koto, shamisen performer and singer in both traditional and contemporary music. Kimura has concertized in about 20 countries around the world based in New York and Japan. Following her studies at the Tokyo University of the Arts, she studied at Institute of Traditional Japanese Music, an affiliate of Senzoku Gakuen College of Music in Japan. Kimura was awarded a scholarship from the Agency of Cultural Affairs of Japan. Her teachers include Kono Kameyama, Akiko Nishigata and Senko Yamabiko, a Living National Treasure. Awards include the First prize at the prestigious 10th Kenjun Memorial National Koto Competition and the First prize at the 4th Great Wall International Music Competition. Kimura performed at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo, accompanying Danjuro Ichikawa XII. Her performances have been broadcasted on NHK-FM’s Hogaku no Hitotoki, NPR’s Performance Today and WKCR. As a koto soloist, Kimura has performed Daron Hagen’s Koto Concerto: Genji with the Wintergreen Music Festival Orchestra conducted by Mei-Ann Chen and several string quartets. As a shamisen soloist, she performed Kin’ichi Nakanoshima’s Shamisen Concerto at the National Olympic Memorial Youth Center.
Her performances have been featured at many opera and theater works, such as Michi Wiancko’s Murasaki’s Moon at Metropolitan Museum, Piestro Mascagni’s Iris by American Symphony Orchestra, Basil Twist’s Dogugaeshi, Yasuko Yokoshi’s Bell and many others.
Kimura is a founder of Duo YUMENO, with cellist Hikaru Tamaki. The duo received the Kyoto Aoyama Barock Saal Award in 2015, and featured at Chamber Music America’s 2016 National Conference, and performed at the John F. Kennedy Center in 2017. In 2019, the duo had its ten-year anniversary recital at Carnegie Hall.
yokoreikanokimura.com | duoyumeno.com
HIROKO OHNO is a Brooklyn-based visual artist born in Tokyo. she has exhibited on an international scale with solo exhibitions at Sanagi Fine Arts (Tokyo) Radio House Gallery (NY) Homma Museum, and Takashimaya. Select group exhibitions include Lichtundfire gallery, NYFA50 Anniversary, Lite-Haus Galerie (Berlin), El Taller Latino, UBS Art Gallery, Silvermine Art Gallery, Susan Eley fine art, Asian contemporary art fair NY, Bridge art fair Miam, Hiratsuka Museum of Art and Asia Week San Francisco Bay Area. She is a recipient of Artist Summer Institute Lmcc/creative capital, Vermont Studio Center, and the NYFA Mentoring Program for Immigrant Artists. She received an MFA and a BFA, from Musashino Art University in Tokyo.
hirokoohno.com

CRS Presents Paradise Laboratory: Ayumi Ishito, Rema Hasumi & Yuko Togami, with Special Guest Tamio Shiraishi
2023-09-10 17:00 - 18:30 | CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing), 41 E 11th St 11th Fl, New York, NY, 10003, United States
CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) presents the next installment of its Paradise Laboratory concert series, featuring ambient, atmospheric, improvised music by trio Ayumi Ishito (tenor saxophone and electronics), Rema Hasumi (synthesizer) & Yuko Togami (drums), with special guest the legendary Tamio Shiraishi (alto sax, electronics) who is known for his frenetic bursts of high-pitched sounds at the very extreme of what the alto can produce.
PARADISE LABORATORY is a playground for sonic and visual experimentation. Conceived of during the pandemic by the renowned Korean traditional multi-instrumentalist, curator, and scholar gamin, Paradise Laboratory provides musical artists with opportunities to rehearse, record, film, and perform with other musical, visual, and/or dance artists in an experimental, process-oriented, and artist-centered fashion.
Tickets are $10 for students/seniors and $20 general admission and are available by credit card through eventbrite.com and at the door for cash only, if not sold out.
TICKET LINK:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/crs-presents-ayumi-ishito-rema-hasumi-yuko-togami-with-tamio-shiraishi-tickets-672718859217

VENUE LOCATION:
The White Room at CRS
123 4th Ave FL3
New York, NY 10003
212-677-8621
DIRECTIONS:
CRS is located on the 3rd floor of a walk-up building above Think Coffee, between 12th & 13th streets, one block east of The Strand Bookstore. There is no elevator or wheelchair access.
NEAREST SUBWAY STATIONS:
4/5/6, N/R/Q, L trains to 14th St / Union Square
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Tamio Shiraishi is, along with Keiji Haino, a founding member of the Japanese avant garde group Fushitsusha in the 1970s. His involvement with Fushitsusha was however transient and the experience and connections formed through it led him to choose the saxophone as his main instrument. In 1990 Shiraishi moved to New York where he now plays solo material at NYC subway stops and collaborative projects at other venues. At 74 years of age Tamio Shiraishi has experienced a lot and, regardless of the lack of formal education in music, has honed his unique approach to the alto saxophone to a high level of mastery. His style may be characterized as a microtonal exploration of the altissimo-range, somewhat reminiscent of traditional Japanese Enka music. While exploring the limits of common aesthetic conceptions, Shiraishi’s performances in New York subway stops have attracted a small following and aroused conversations about the meaning of this form of expression.
http://www.shiraishitamio.info
Ayumi Ishito was born and raised in Ishikawa, Japan. At the age of 19, she began playing tenor saxophone in a college big band at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. In 2007, Ayumi received a scholarship to attend Berkee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. She spent three years there studying performance and composition. After graduating from Berklee, Ayumi moved to New York in 2010. Ayumi has been playing with many different groups. One of her recent projects Open Question received 4 stars review in DownBeat magazine in 2022. Also her another project The Spacemen was selected for the Best Jazz of 2021 in Bandcamp. As a composer, Ayumi has been leading her quintet since 2011 and performing her compositions. The band released two albums, “View From A Little Cave” in 2016 and “Midnite Cinema” in 2019.
https://www.ayumiishito.com
Rema Hasumi is an experimental pianist, vocalist, producer and writer who is based out of Brooklyn, NY. Hasumi was born in 1983 in Fukuoka, Japan, and moved to the United States in 2002 to pursue her passion for music, which was nurtured through more than ten years of classical piano study and the listening experiences of her audiophile parent’s record collection. Hasumi has performed at venues across NY, the United States and Asia. In 2009 she performed at the Kennedy Center as one of the four finalists of Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Pianist Competition. In 2014, upon invitation by acclaimed vocalist Jen Shyu, Hasumi presented her solo work “The Patterns of Duplicity” at a series of “Solo Rites” concerts by Ms. Shyu. The piece featured the poetry “Spring and Asura” (1925) by Kenji Miyazawa interpreted in multiple languages, exploring the possibilities of musical ideas unique and inherent to each language. Hasumi has also worked extensively as both pianist and vocalist in many other projects, including a series of collaborations with the saxophonist Darius Jones in which they performed the music of Alice Coltrane. She has also worked as the vocalist in the guitarist Todd Neufeld’s new two-drummer group. Hasumi’s new trio premiered in June 2015 in two nights of concerts in NYC. It featured compositions she wrote for piano and voice, performed alongside the great Randy Peterson and Masa Kamaguchi. Her first record “UTAZATA” was released in May 2015 from Ruweh Records, which she runs as a co-founder. It features the highly sympathetic cast of Todd Neufeld (guitar), Thomas Morgan (bass), Billy Mintz (drums), and fiery guest musicians Ben Gerstein (trombone) and Sergio Krakowski (pandeiro). The group interprets the themes of Japanese Gagaku and ritual music. This record was made as a result of mindful searching on femininity, mythology and rituals in Japanese performing arts. In 2016, Hasumi released a trio recording “Billows of Blue” featuring Randy Peterson and Masa Kamaguchi. Her most recent album and a solo recording, called “Abiding Dawn”, reveals Hasumi’s sound world all alone, layering and unlayering voice, piano and analog synthesizers in a seamless journey of eight gorgeous tracks. The word and the wordless, the pitched and the unpitched all meet in Hasumi’s voice, while her piano honors the influences of Alice Coltrane and Masabumi Kikuchi, met squarely on her own honest terms. The use of synthesizer, a vintage Korg Delta DL-50, serves to encompass and meld the sonic meal.
https://remahasumi.bandcamp.com
Yuko Togami is a drummer and composer currently based in New York City, originally from Saitama, Japan. She was exposed to music from a very early age as she was always watching her mother teach piano and Eurhythmics. She started taking Eurhythmics classes and playing piano when she was about 5. Later on, she also started playing marimba and studied classical music until she graduated from high school. While she was in high school, she got attracted to drums and began taking drum lessons. A couple years later, she started performing as a drummer based in Tokyo. In 2013, she moved to New York City to pursue further musical studies at the City College of New York. She received a scholarship from The Kaye Scholars Program, and studied privately with Adam Cruz, Nasheet Waits, and Ben Street. She graduated with her BFA degree in jazz performance and The Pro Musica Award from City College, and has performed with many different musicians and projects including Steve Wilson, Mike Holober, Scott Reeves, Ben Paterson, Mark Wade, Jakob Dreyer, Takaaki Otomo, Nori Naraoka, Berta Moreno, Maksim Perepelica, Latvian Concert Choir, Musicsnake, Kijima Sound System. Her debut album “Dawn” was released in April 2018, and has won a Silver Medal at the 2018 Global Music Awards for Outstanding Achievement.
https://www.yukotogami.com/
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
CRS (CENTER FOR REMEMBERING & SHARING) is a spiritual healing and art center founded in 2004 by the writer/lecturer/spiritual counselor Yasuko Kasaki and artist Christopher Pelham. Our mission is guided by A Course in Miracles (ACIM). ACIM says that recognizing that you and your brother are actually one is the only way to experience peace. The mission of CRS is to promote the awareness that limitless creativity lives within each of us. We train minds to recognize the light in themselves and others and provide them opportunities to share their inner vision through the healing and creative arts. Since its founding CRS has provided numerous residencies and performance and exhibition opportunities to artists from all over the world. Currently, CRS is an ongoing sponsor of M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize and give visibility to women, non-binary musicians and those of other historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions.
https://crsny.org
