Diaspora Duos is back! Join BIYA BIYA at the Color Club for a lively music series where artists from disparate cultures are commissioned to collaborate! Steeped in diverse traditions, each specially curated Duo will present a world premiere set that showcases the two performers’ cultural backgrounds. ***Featured Duos:*** **C Mikhail** is an Assyrian-German-American musician & audio engineer born and raised in Chicago. They specialize in the Arab music tradition of maqam and are a coveted bassist in ensembles across the city. **Caroline Jesalva** is a Chicago-based musician, improviser, multidisciplinary artist, & curator. Her practice centers contemporary, improvised and experimental music in composition and performance. **Chad Kouri** is a Chicago-based working artist, musician, & storyteller interested in the healing powers of color, sound, and abstraction. **Izaki Metropoulos** is a multi-instrumentalist, trained traditional and classical vocalist, & specialist in Greek folk music with more than two decades of performance experience. **About the Diaspora Duos Series** BIYA BIYA produces Diaspora Duos with the following tenets: - Performance intertwining two traditions and two local artists in a beautiful evening of sound and storytelling. - Playground for musicians to co-create something new; then inviting the audience to jam and experience it for themselves. - Platform to support Chicago’s local musicians keeping their respective cultures and the cultural richness of Chicago as a whole alive. By offering a guaranteed stipend for each artist’s time, access to free studio rehearsal space, as well as a professional multimedia package, feature on BIYA BIYA’s YouTube series and extensive concert promotion, artists are well positioned after participation in Diaspora Duos to gain a new audiences and market themselves stronger in the future. - Preservation of the evening’s creativity, and the musical tradition each artist brings to the series. By publishing performance videos on YouTube as part of a Diaspora Duos series, the new sounds created will be preserved, celebrated and revisited, while cultivating an audience beyond Chicago.