CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Azi Schwartz החזן עזי שוורץ
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City/Place:
New York City
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Country:
United States
Life
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Bio:
Cantor Azi Schwartz is the Senior Cantor of Park Avenue Synagogue in New York, and is a world-renowned vocal performer and recording artist whose music reaches both Jewish and interfaith audiences internationally. His craft of Jewish liturgical music has been described as emotionally moving, spiritually uplifting, and artistically dynamic.
Azi grew up in a traditional community in Israel. His grandfather, also a cantor, inspired Azi to pursue his passion and inclination for singing and music. After graduating from Tel Aviv Cantorial Institute and studying under the top cantors in the world, Azi continued studying music with a Masters in Classical Singing and Conducting from Mannes School of Music.
This journey brought Azi to New York, where he leads Park Avenue Synagogue (PAS), the largest Conservative community in NYC and the flagship of Jewish liturgical music in North America. As PAS Music Center’s Director, Cantor Schwartz creates, records, and publishes new liturgical music, as well as hosts world-class guest artists for concerts and worship.
Passionate to bring Jewish liturgy to the broader world, Azi has performed at Carnegie Hall, the United Nations, Madison Square Garden, the US Capitol Rotunda, and the Israeli Knesset. In 2018, Azi was featured in a PBS special titled, “The New York Cantors,” which brought cantorial music to millions of viewers across the US and in Europe. During Pope Francis’ visit to New York in October 2015, Cantor Schwartz represented the Jewish people at the multi-religious service at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. He plays the cantor’s role in Richard Gere’s movie ‘Norman’, and performs in concerts and interfaith missions around the world. Azi has an astounding online following. He has released nine studio albums containing traditional and newly commissioned jewish liturgical music.
Dedicated to cultivating the next generation of cantors, Azi serves on faculty of all major cantorial schools, and serves as Treasurer for the Cantors’ Assembly, the largest professional organization for cantors. Azi is married to Dr. Noa Schwartz, and they have four children.
Clips (more may be added)
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
⤷ A technological matrix uncoiling from the vast African, Indigenous, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, European and Asian cultural matrix of Bahia and Brazil...
Wolfram Mathematics
⤷ Creators in reach of all humanity via integration into a worldwide "small-world" matrix structure (see Wolfram above)...
⤷ All closer than we imagine.
⤷ All discoverable by all.
In a small world great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
Dear friends & colleagues,
Having arrived in Salvador 13 years earlier, I opened a record shop in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for Bahian musicians, many of them magisterial but unknown.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Bahians and other Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix (people who have passed are not removed), then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Recent access to this matrix and Bahia are from these places (a single marker can denote multiple accesses).
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX