VENUES: Kennedy Center (DC), Skirball Cultural Center (LA), Nuyorican Poets Cafe & Rockwood Music Hall (NYC), Noize Fabrik (Berlin), The Jazz Museum (New Orleans) | FESTIVALS: French Quarter Fest, SisterSpace, Fern Fest | RADIO: NPR, WWOZ, Jazz.fm, Pacifica, College Radio | INTERVIEWS: Voyage LA, Canvas Rebel | REVIEWS: Tinnitist, Tinnitist, Stage Right Secrets, Tinnitist, Fusicology | HONOREE: Virginia Giordono Memorial Fund

IN CONCERT

IN CONCERT

NEWEST ALBUM

From the idealist and artsy hillsides of Woodstock NY and with roots in the multicultural metropolis of New York City, Sariyah Idan is a dynamic performer, powerful songwriter, and nuanced acoustic soul bandleader based in the funky swamps of New Orleans. Whether performing solo on Spanish acoustic & jazz electric guitars while dancing percussion on an 808 drumpad & foot tambourine, or directing her full band of stellar musicians, Sariyah captivates with both passion and compassion. She inspires deep connection, dignity, and a just society through her performances & workshops. Her sets are predominantly originals with a few soul, jazz, and world music covers.

Sariyah has toured internationally as an independent music artist, theater artist, music producer, poet, and educator. She is Jazz and folk trained, hip-hop educated, and influenced by both Latinx sounds and her Jewish roots, Ms Idan has an "ability to seamlessly combine a wide variety of disparate styles and sonics into a memorable sound all her own", (Tinnitist). For her honoring the sounds of both influences and ancestors is a form of cultural activism. Her lyrics weave "powerful, soulful, spirited songs filled with stories of struggle, love and social justice" (Fusicology). Her 17 track debut LP Breaking Shadows  (2019) addresses love, power, and shifting of toxic patriarchy from #MeToo to solidarity with Black Lives Matter; recorded in Los Angeles, Berlin, and Lisbon. Her follow up album, Glitter & Blood (2023) is her first project recorded in New Orleans. Her forthcoming album Solo Live In Berlin will be out spring 2025 with a few of both originals and covers releasing in winter.

Sariyah has shared stages with legends Pete Seeger, Lee “Scratch” Perry, and Yusef Lateef. As a regular street performer in New Orleans she is known among locals as “the most hauntingly beautiful voice of New Orleans’ streets.”

Committed to both creative and social justice community, Sariyah is the producer and host of the Songs For The People series in New Orleans. It features four original artists in the round and benefits a different local community organization each month. She developed this with support from Music To Life’s Musician Changemaker Academy.

Along with performances, Sariyah can facilitate writing, performance and singing workshops that cultivate authentic individual voice, and community dialogue. She holds an MFA in Creative Inquiry from CIIS in San Francisco and a BA in Arts and Social Change from Hampshire college in Amherst Massachusetts.

SOLO LIVE (Electro-Acoustic)

MUSIC VIDEO (single from “Glitter & Blood” 2023)

DEBUT LP “Breaking Shadows”

CONCERT + WORKSHOP PACKAGES

Both virtual & in person packages are available

In conjunction with an evening length concert, Sariyah can facilitate a separate writing-performance workshop customized for your community. Sariyah's facilitation sits at the intersection of creative craft, personal transformation, social justice, and alchemy. As a workshop facilitator Sariyah holds a dynamic space for artists, activists, and the creatively curious. Her Poetry to Performance methods plunge participants into authentic verbal expression, embodiment, and community dialogue by leading them to generate work that will launch meaningful conversation. These packages are appropriate for colleges, art centers, festivals, organizations, spiritual centers.  Each package includes a 45-60min concert, and a 3hr writing/performance workshop; both will focus on one of the themes listed below. These programs will be customized to fit the specific needs of the group or organization hosting. Workshops cultivate personal development, writing-performance craft, and deep community conversation. Send a booking inquiry to customize a package for your community. Download the 2 page PDF description to share with your team.

• Self Discovery: knowledge of self, nurturing creativity, radical self-care, performance as both personal affirmation & community building.

• Women’s Experiences & Community: nourishing intuition, healing personal & ancestral wounds, sisterhood, intersectional feminism, airing out the competition beef, knowledge of self, radical self-care.

• Social Justice: building community through personal stories, intersectionality, fierce conversations, connect to what brought us to social justice work, solidarity with liberation movements, radical self-care.

Workshop Culmination

Each participant leaves the workshop with a complete piece of writing for page, performances, or other personal use. At the end of the workshop period is a time for participants to perform for each other. If desired by the group, Sariyah will composes improvised vocal music for participants to perform over. This music is inspired by the themes of the workshop and material generated. This performance moment facilitates a feeling of accomplishment, catharsis, playfulness, and collaboration. It may be videotaped by the participants for their own uses.