Tickets $15-35 +ticketing fees
In-person
Doors: 6:30PM

In this urgent and unflinching project, Keith LaMar testifies through spoken word, live from a Pennsylvania death row, while impassioned Barcelona pianist Albert Marquès performs live on the festival stage. Their stated goal: to seek justice through music and truth. 

Freedom First is a groundbreaking collaboration by Catalan jazz pianist Albert Marquès and Cleveland-born, writer, activist and poet Keith LaMar, who has spent the past 30 years in solitary confinement on death row in Ohio for a crime he didn’t commit. At each Freedom First concert, LaMar performs live by phone from the Ohio State Penitentiary, melding his electrifying spoken word poetry with contemporary jazz played by a stellar group of international musicians.

Marquès grew up in a working class town just outside Barcelona. In his youth, he was influenced by the local punk scene, as well as jazz recordings of musicians like Chick Corea, Brad Mehldau, and Herbie Hancock. A self-taught musician, until he attended Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu, Marquès moved to France and played with musicians such as Remi Vignolo and Pierre Perchaud, until moving to New York aged 25. It was here that he was mentored by Arturo O’Farrill. He finally combined his biggest influences: contemporary jazz, flamenco, Afro Cuban music and social justice by creating Freedom First. 

Maquès has released four albums as a band leader. In 2022, Marquès and LaMar released FREEDOM FIRST, the first album in history by an artist on death row. Earlier this year they released Live From Death Row with Keith MaMar.

Albert Marquès and Keith LaMar photo courtesy of the artists