Join us for our annual inter-generational celebration of Black Girls and Black Women through music, food, poetry, interactive creative booths, giveaways, and literary arts.

Performances by Elena Pinderhughes Ensemble, & Music by DJ Niara Sterling

Hosted by Kara Jackson (National Youth Poet Laureate 2019)

Curated by Mahogany L. Browne

Date: Tues, March 10, 2020, 6:30pm - 9:00pm

Location: The Dumbo Loft

Attire: It's a ball! Cocktail wear, prom-wear, however you define regal or magic. For inspiration, check out the Black Girl Magic Ball Official Instagram!

Elena Pinderhughes:

Nineteen-year-old flutist and vocalist Elena Pinderhughes brings a stellar group of young artists to Jazz at Lincoln Center, playing original music showcasing her sensibilities as a leader and composer. The music reflects her life paths from the Bay Area to Cuba to New York City, incorporating influences from hip-hop to Latin music to jazz.

Elena’s interest in music started at an early age. She began singing and playing the flute at age 7. By age 9 she was performing and recording with local bands and recorded her first CD, Catch 22. At 11, she was featured in an HBO special on young musicians entitled The Music in Me. Versatile in many styles, Elena has won numerous awards for “best soloist” at jazz festivals and from Downbeat magazine. A 2013 Young Arts Gold Award recipient and U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, she was a member of the Grammy Band and Choir, San Francisco Youth Symphony Orchestra, and Young Musicians Program.

Elena has performed in numerous venues, including: Carnegie Hall, the White House, the Kennedy Center, SF Jazz Center, Yoshi’s Jazz Club, Davies Symphony Hall, The Jazz Standard, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, and jazz festivals and clubs throughout North America, Europe, Japan, and South America. Elena has performed with Hubert Laws, Herbie Hancock, Esperanza Spalding, Ambrose Akinmusire, Vijay Iyer, Christian Scott, Carlos Santana, Josh Groban, and others.

Most recently, Elena returned from European tour with Herbie Hancock and recorded on Ambrose Akinmusire’s latest Blue Note album, The Imagined Savior is Far Easier to Paint, Wayne Wallace’s Grammy nominated album Latin Jazz, Jazz Latin, and performed in the premier of Vijay Iyer’s work, Open City. Elena has been cited as “the most exciting jazz flautist to have emerged in years” by The Guardian.

Resident DJ: DJ Niara Sterling

Niara Sterling definitely “keeps it funky”. Hailing from Washington D.C. she has taken well to the New York City DJ scene. She has recently become a member of the Top 40 tea

About Urban Word NYC

Urban Word NYC serves aspiring young writers from across New York City’s five boroughs. It’s target population reflects the makeup of the public institutions from which they are largely drawn (40% African American, 20% Latino, 18% Asian/Pacific Islander, 15% White, 5% Middle Eastern and 2% Other), over 95% of which attend Title I schools (free or reduced lunch). In addition, UW also serves youth in homeless shelters or alternative incarceration facilities and hosts events for young people in a range of community centers, religious spaces and commercial venues across the city.

Kara Jackson is a poet, prison abolitionist, and jazz vocalist that uses her voice, activism, and multidisciplinary art to document her lineage of divine womanhood in a country that demands its erasure. She is the 2018 Chicago Youth Poet Laureate, the Midwest Regional Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador, and now the third National Youth Poet Laureate. Kara is a recipient of The Louder Than a Bomb Literary Award, Frontier Poetry’s Award for New Poets, and the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award. Her writing has been featured in numerous publications including POETRY magazine, Blavity, “The End of Chiraq,” Frontier Poetry, and the Nimrod Literary Journal among many others. Her performances have been featured at The Library of Congress, WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, WGN Radio, and a Tedx Talk for Tedx Oak Park Women. Kara couples her literary skill with critical activism to create equitable communities and emancipatory arts leadership.

"Being a Youth Poet Laureate is an honor and a privilege to me. I am grateful for the opportunity to use my poems as catalysts for changes much larger than poetry," says Kara.