La Maison Française of NYU, under Director Francois Noudelmann, will celebrate its past successes and look to the future with a Gala Benefit at the headquarters of Villa Albertine (972 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.) on Tuesday, October 3, at 6:30 pm in honor of pioneering jazz saxophonist Jacques Schwarz-Bart. Schwarz-Bart's father, André, a Holocaust survivor and recipient of the Goncourt award, and his mother, Simone, a descendant of slavery who holds a revered position in Caribbean literature, constantly feed the honoree’s soul as an artist.
Known affectionately as “Brother Jacques,” Jacques Schwarz-Bart’s music reflects a range of influences. His first instrument was the Gwoka drum, an instrument featured prominently in Guadoloupean music. Decades later, Jacques developed not only the Gwoka Jazz Project, but also the integration of voodoo ritual music into his repertoire, while playing as a session musician for a diverse range of musicians from Erykah Badu to David Gilmore of Pink Floyd. This fusion of African, American, European and voodoo tonalities expresses contemporary creolization at the heart of music.
This gala will be the first for the new composition of La Maison Française of NYU’s advisory board. The board’s chair is writer and Editor-at-Large of France-Amérique Guy Sorman. Its members reflect a diverse array of industry leaders, artists, and thinkers from throughout the Francophone world. Together they steward large cultural and intellectual projects that lie at the heart of contemporary issues. It will support the humanities, the sciences and the arts, and cement La Maison Française’s identity as a cultural forum in service to the Francophone world. The full list of board members can be viewed here.
Invitation to the gala can be viewed here and tickets purchased here.
For further information, please contact Kourtney Rutherford 917-502-1904, [email protected].
About La Maison Française of NYU:
For over sixty years, La Maison Française of New York University has served as a major forum for cultural exchange between the French-speaking world and the United States. Its rich program of lectures, symposia, concerts, screenings, exhibitions, and festivals provides an invaluable resource to the university community, as well as the general public. One of the most active French centers on an American campus, La Maison Française of NYU is recognized as a Center of Excellence by the French Embassy in the United States.
