First Monday Jazz with Shanta Nurullah

329 East Garfield Boulevard,Chicago IL 60637

04 April, 2022

Description

This April’s First Monday Jazz featured artist is Shanta Nurullah, storyteller, musician, and teaching artist. For the past nine years, Arts + Public Life (APL) has hosted the monthly jazz performance series First Monday Jazz (FMJ) featuring an impressive roster of established and emerging Chicago artists. APL is excited to welcome guests back to the Green Line Performing Arts Center for live, in-person performances. This April’s First Monday Jazz featured artist is Shanta Nurullah. Shanta Nurullah is a storyteller, musician, and teaching artist. Her career spans over four decades of promoting African and African-American folklore, spoken word performance, children's and improvisational music. Shanta has performed across the U.S. and abroad and has received numerous awards, fellowships, and grants. As a storyteller, Shanta presents programs of stories with music for youth and adults in schools, arts and community centers, libraries, museums, parks, colleges, churches, prisons, and festivals. Her repertoire includes traditional folktales, personal stories, historical lore and inspirational material. Shanta has told stories at the National Storytelling Festival, the National Festival of Black Storytelling, National Geographic, and the Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, Las Vegas, and Yukon Storytelling Festivals. In 2014 she received the Zora Neale Hurston Award - the highest honor given by the National Association of Black Storytellers. As a musician, Shanta Nurullah has distinguished herself as an improviser on sitar, bass, and mbira. A member of the legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Shanta co-founded the all women's bands Sojourner and Samana. In addition, she has played with Nicole Mitchell, Dee Alexander, Junius Paul, David Boykin, Tomeka Reid, Saalik Ziyad, and the AACM Great Black Music Ensemble. Shanta owns the independent label, Storywiz Records, which released Sitar Black (2017), the debut album by Sitarsys, her current band. This music, categorized as Spiritual Jazz, is available on this website, and on iTunes, amazon, Apple Music, and Spotify. _____________________ Important COVID safety event info and University of Chicago policies: All visitors aged 5+ attending public events with fixed audience seating inside of a University of Chicago building must provide proof of vaccination, or a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of event, or a positive COVID-19 test within 14-90 days of event and affirm no symptoms. UChicago faculty, students, and staff may present their UCID as proof. This convening is open to all invitees who are compliant with UChicago vaccination requirements and, because of ongoing health risks, particularly to the unvaccinated, participants are expected to adopt the risk mitigation measures (masking and social distancing, etc.) appropriate to their vaccination status as advised by public health officials or to their individual vulnerabilities as advised by a medical professional. Public convening may not be safe for all and carries a risk for contracting COVID-19, particularly for those unvaccinated. Participants will not know the vaccination status of others and should follow appropriate risk mitigation measures. Detailed information on the University of Chicago health and safety guidelines are outlined at https://goforward.uchicago.edu.