8 p.m. ET Friday, Sept. 23, 2022

This Is America – Johnny Gandelsman & Kinan Azmeh

In-person at The Annex @ AANM or via livestream

Purchase Tickets
$10 Museum Members
$12 Students/Seniors
$15 General Public

Purchase Tickets for Livestream ($5)

Celebrating a 20-year friendship, violinist Johnny Gandelsman and clarinetist & composer Kinan Azmeh explore the sounds of their adopted home through music written by American and U.S.-based composers.

Meet Kinan and Johnny at artist-in-residence Amanda Ekery’s workshop, Songwriting: History, Memory and Understanding, taking place 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 22, the day before the concert! Musicians and workshop participants will be writing original music from prompts that require inquiry into their personal history under the guidance of Amanda. Free with RSVP; click here for more info!

Grammy award-winning violinist and producer Johnny Gandelsman‘s musical voice reflects the artistic collaborations he has been a part of since moving to the United States in 1995. As a founding member of Brooklyn Rider and a former member of the Silkroad Ensemble, Gandelsman worked with many luminaries. Gandelsman integrates a wide range of creative sensibilities into a unique style amongst today’s violinists. Gandelsman has been producing records since starting his label, In a Circle Records, in 2008. In addition to “This Is America,” recent credits include Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein’s PBS documentary “The US and the Holocaust,” Silkroad Ensemble’s “Falling out of Time,” as well as Brooklyn Rider’s Grammy-nominated “Healing Modes” & “Spontaneous Symbols” (In a Circle Records). Photo credit: Marco Giannavola

Syrian-born, Brooklyn-based genre-bending composer and clarinetist Kinan Azmeh has been touring the globe with great acclaim as a soloist, composer and improviser. He is a Silkroad ensemble artist with whom he won a Grammy in 2016. Azmeh is a graduate of The Juilliard School, the Damascus High Institute of Music, and Damascus University’s School of Electrical Engineering, Azmeh holds a doctorate in music from the City University of New York. He is currently working on his first opera, Songs For Days To Come which will be premiered in June 2022 at The Osnabruck Theater, Germany. Photo credit: Liudmila Jeremies www.kinanazmeh.com

All AANM guests are required to remain masked and fill out a health screening form upon check-in in order to attend this event.

For questions, e-mail Kathryn Grabowski at [email protected].

Presented in partnership with

This project is funded in part by Michigan Humanities, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Also made possible in part by