VIDEO
Please check out videos about our lectures, programs, performances and history.
In case you missed it, we are happy to share the presentation of “Music as Movement” to the UC Berkeley Class on "On Identity, Community, and Civil Rights: The Historical and Contemporary Experiences of Japanese Americans," as well as the Japanese American Studies Advisory Committee (JASAC). We invite you to view Dr. Brown’s presentation recorded on April 15, 2021.
Down By the Riverside
On April 4, 1967, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr delivered his most controversial speech, “Beyond Vietnam—A Time to Break Silence” at the Riverside Church in New York City. Dr. King declared a strong antiwar stance questioning the nation’s military role and morality in Vietnam. This was deemed unpatriotic, he was vilified in the media and by mainstream America, and fellow civil rights leaders turned against him. One year later to the day, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Conceived and composed by Dr. Anthony Brown for the Asian American Orchestra and Voices Of A Dream Gospel ensemble, “DOWN BY THE RIVERSIDE Requiem for a King” features original spoken word by activist and scholar Dr. Angela Davis in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his assassination. “DOWN BY THE RIVERSIDE Requiem for a King” premiered on May 26th at the 2018 San Francisco International Arts Festival. www.fifthstreammusic.org
GO FOR BROKE! by Anthony Brown's Asian American Orchestra with Janice Mirikitani
GO FOR BROKE! is the 2018 CD release from Anthony Brown’s Asian American Orchestra. The multi-movement work blends Jazz with traditional Japanese instruments to honor the Nisei (2nd generation Japanese in America) veterans who fought in World War II while their families were incarcerated. Two of the five movements feature spoken word containing poems, stories and letters from and about people on both sides of the Japanese internment camps' barbed wire by San Francisco's second Poet Laureate, Janice Mirikitani. GO FOR BROKE! premiered in November 2017 at the Presidio, San Francisco, where President Roosevelt’s internment order, Executive Order 9066 (E.O. 9066), was effectuated by the Presidio’s commanding officer, General DeWitt in 1942 forcing over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry into desolate concentration camps until the end of the war.
DON’T LOSE YOUR SOUL
Don't Lose Your Soul is a tribute to the pioneering work of Mark Izu and Anthony Brown, co-founders of the Asian American Jazz movement which, like the Latin Jazz movement before it, was a brilliant melding of cultural traditions with the freedom and power of jazz. The film is both an intimate portrait of their 30+ year partnership in close-up, featuring interviews with the artists along with archival photographs and footage of their rich musical history, as well as wide angle celebration, culminating in one night at Yoshi's jazz club in San Francisco's legendary Fillmore district.
10th Anniversary Celebration
"Bridging Japantown and the Fillmore with Jazz"
Yoshi's San Francisco, 2008
Three excerpts from the concert: Rhymes (For Children) (Anthony Brown), Little Rootie Tootie (Thelonious Monk), and Rhapsody In Blue/American Rhapsodies (Finale) (George Gershwin)
Celebrating Coltrane's Birthday
From San Francisco, Lonny Shavelson takes you inside a rehearsal of The Asian American Orchestra. The group is rehearsing for tonight's concert, which will be an international homage to jazz giant John Coltrane. Today would have been Trane's 83rd birthday, September 2010.
It's Our Neighborhood
Jazz Walk Tour with 4th graders of Rosa Parks Elementary School in San Francisco. Featuring Dr. Anthony Brown, Clairdee and Ken French, May 31, 2013.
Moratorium Project with Youth Uprising, East Oakland School of the Arts 9th graders, and the Asian American Orchestra performing original poetry at Youth UpRising!, written during a Jazz Languages residency with Anthony Brown's Asian American Orchestra and SF Poet Laureate emerita devorah major (standing, middle photo below) on June 11, 2010.
Voices of a Dream Ensemble, Freight & Salvage, Berkeley, CA, October 13, 2013 featuring Terrie Odabi, Amikaeyla, Sharon D. Henderson, Deborah Tisdale, Kristina Plott, James "JB" Brooks, and Kenneth Kozi Arrington