Jazz Poetry 2025: Stephanie Chou Quintet, Jan Beatty, Olena Boryshpolets, Mubanga Kalimamukwento

The second week of City of Asylum’s annual Jazz Poetry festival introduces another jam-packed night of international poetry and musical performances from some of the world’s most talented artists. Each Jazz Poetry program begins with a full set from a live jazz band, followed by a collaboration with local and international poets. In these collaborations, poets share their work alongside the musicians, the two art forms melding to create that signature Jazz Poetry improvisational style that offers something exciting, new, and unique with each individual performance. 

New York City–based composer, saxophonist, and singer Stephanie Chou takes to the jazz poetry stage for the first time. Stephanie blends Chinese musical influences with Western jazz and pop to create a unique and vibrant musical world. Pairing with Stephanie and her quintet are renowned poets Jan Beatty, whose eighth book, Dragstripping, takes readers to dragstrip (in all its forms) where the ecstatic is rescripted; Olena Boryshpolets, a Ukrainian poet (and City of Asylum Writer-in-Residence) who recently released her moving and beloved collection Orpheus and Eurydice in New York; and Zambian writer and winner of the 2024 Drue Heinz Prize Mubanga Kalimamukwento, who returns to Pittsburgh to share her debut poetry collection, Another Mother Does Not Come When Yours Dies.

Featured Musicians:

Stephanie Chou: vocals, saxophone, compositions

Tomoko Omura: violin

Hyuna Park: piano

Ike Sturm: bass

Ronen Itzik: drums