City Fragments perform in NYC April 23rd

banner 1Sara Serpa & City Fragments will perform in New York on Saturday April 23rd, at the Cell Theatre, 7.30pm.

The Cell Theatre is located at 338 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011.Reservations at: 646-861-2253.

Led by the composer and vocalist Sara Serpa, the ensemble City Fragments has been flexible in its formation in the past,but it features now three vocalists and three instrumentalists (guitar, cello and drums). This project was born from a desire to bring together jazz vocalists, who typically perform as solo artists, and to create a communal relationship between their voices and the instruments. The primary objective of this ensemble is to explore and establish a platform in which vocalists and instrumentalists can contribute to the performance in equal roles, as improvisers and interpreters. City Fragments will perform “The Breathing Suite”, a 7 movement composition written by Serpa, inspired by Luce Irigaray’s words on breath and nature, bringing a unique combination of sounds and influences. 

The three womens’ gentle bell-tone harmonies often gave way to mysterious, almost inaudible, fragmentary segues, Matos’s stiletto guitar often joining as a fourth voice in the choir, building to an unexpected, knifes-edge, sometimes darkly bluesy apprehension as it went on. Serpa’s spoken-word segments contemplated the human race’s alienation from nature, and a possible return to it, imbuing the work with a defiant, mid-80s punk-jazz edge.” New York Music Daily
Watch a video about this project here