2020 Chinatown Music Festival & Block Party

CCC is proud to be part of Walkway Weekends to provide music while visitors safely enjoy outdoor dining and shopping on Grant Ave with social distancing and masks.

Chinatown Music Weekend 2020
Date: Saturday & Sunday, October 17-28, 2020
Time: 12 – 5 PM
Location: 700 block of Grant Ave, between Sacramento and Commercial
Free

2020 Performers & Lineup

Saturday:

Ralph Granich
Anna Wong
The Genie
Future Twin
Tony Lee and Yerba Buena

Sunday:

Gregory Yee
DuoXL
Jon Jang
San Francisco Kulintang Project
David Byrd & Byrds of a Feather

More about the Artists

Ralph Granich is a professional percussionist with The Temple Hill Symphony Orchestra. He is also a professional drummer and has played in punk to jazz bands throughout his career. This will be Ralph’s solo piano debut.

Anna Wong is a guzheng player and a member of the San Francisco Guzheng Music Society. She has performed at many events all throughout the Bay Area and hopes to preserve and promote the history, art and culture of the guzheng which is a traditional Chinese stringed instrument dating from the Qin dynasty.

The Genie is an avant-garde guitarist, performing artist and looping innovator from San Francisco. He is the creator of the unique “scratch guitar” method and a live looping and remixing style he calls “G-Mixing”. For this performance, The Genie will be playing the Spanish Guitar.

Future Twin is the moniker for generative musician and multi-media artist Jean Jeanie aka Sara Jean Yaste. She is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, singer and dancer. She describes her sound as avant pop. On stage and in the studio, Jean Jeanie performs rogue/solo, navigating vocals and multiple electronic and traditional instruments; other times she activates a cadre of musician collaborators.

She currently performs most often on the West Coast with Kelyn, a luminary professional guitarist from Texas, currently residing in San Francisco. She has performed and toured with La Femme, the Black Lips, Black Angels, Heartless Bastards, Thee Oh Sees, Lightning Bolt and Two Gallants.

Tony Lee (more commonly known as Tony Martinez but is honoring his Chinese Grandmother for this event) is a professional Jazz musician who has around the world. He will be performing with his bandmates, who collectively are known as the Tony Martinez Trio.” For this festival, Tony will be performing with his band, Yerba Buena.

Gregory Yee, a classically trained pianist and self-taught guitarist, with his best friend and bandmate Aleesha, make up the singer-songwriter duo known as The Complements. They have toured throughout the US and Canada with an aim to spread positive messages through their music.

Giulio Xavier and Kai Lyons, aka DuoXL, are professional freelancing musicians residing in the culturally rich and diverse Excelsior District in San Francisco. Both students of jazz and an eclectic mix of other genres of music, from funk to hip-hop to Blue Grass to Brazilian Samba and Bossa to R&B, their style has a modern yet classical flavor as a jazz duo.

Jon Jang is an award-winning Jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader. Of Chinese ancestry, he is active in the Asian American jazz movement. Also co-founder of the Asian Improv Records label, Jon has helped revitalize the jazz music scene in the San Francisco’s Bay Area since the late ’80s. For nearly four decades, a body of Jon Jang’s music works represents a chronology of Chinese American history.

He is the recipient of several ASCAP awards and has served on panels for Arts International and the NEA, as artistic advisor for cultural series, and as visiting lecturer at UCal-Irvine and Berkeley. His bands have included such acclaimed musicians as James Newton, David Murray, Max Roach and Chen Jiebing. His ensembles have appeared at jazz festivals and major concert halls in North America, Europe, China and South Africa. He has also performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Ensemble and the Kronos Quartet. As a composer, Kronos Quartet, the NEA, Cal Performances, Rockefeller Foundation and more have commissioned Jon. He has also composed scores for theater and film.

San Francisco Kulintang Project is the successor and exists as a continuing legacy to the Palabuniyan Kulintang Ensemble, founded in 1988 by the late kulintang master Danongan “Danny” Kalanduyan. Kulintangan is an ancient form of orchestra music that predates the influences of Islam, Christianity or the West in the Philippine Islands.

Preserved for more than 1700 years by the indigenous, Islamized ethno linguistic groups in Mindanao, kulintang is a living testament to the rich cultural history of the Philippines. Compositions are passed down orally from generation to generation. The beauty of the music of kulintang lies in the collective artistry of all the members of the ensemble.

David Byrd and Byrds of a Feather are all-star musicians who have forged a unique and authentic sound over 30 years and six CD releases. They have carved out this unique sound by building a meaningful bridge between jazz and reggae with conscious words and wicked rhythm that make the peoples body move.