Songs of Resistance presents
Building Belonging: A Benefit Show for CAAAV
Songs of Resistance, in partnership with Keepsake House, is thrilled to present a benefit show for CAAAV on May 15th, 7:30 pm! Tickets are $15-20, and all funds will go to CAAAV. Please support The LOCAL Hostel with a $10 minimum beverage purchase at their bar/cafe. Featuring artists who will share their songs of resistance about building belonging and navigating the Asian American experience, and inform us how we can take action with CAAAV. Visual artwork by Shruthi Thyagarajan will be showcased.
Doors: 7:00pm ET
Tickets: $15-20 donation
Songs of Resistance, in partnership with Keepsake House, is thrilled to present a benefit show for CAAAV on May 15th, 7:30 pm! Tickets are $15-20, and all funds will go to CAAAV. Please support The LOCAL Hostel with a $10 minimum beverage purchase at their bar/cafe. Featuring artists who will share their songs of resistance about building belonging and navigating the Asian American experience, and inform us how we can take action with CAAAV. Visual artwork by Shruthi Thyagarajan will be showcased.
CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities organizes working-class Asian immigrants and youth across New York City neighborhoods on the frontlines of gentrification and predatory speculation. Through intergenerational and multi-ethnic organizing, CAAAV develops Asian immigrant leaders to take back control over their homes and to steer the broader fight for a working-class New York.
Songs of Resistance is a semi-monthly concert series led by Jae Carelli that organizes artists to ignite real change.
ARTISTS
Blue Jay
Justin Gerstle (who performs under the Blue Jay moniker) is a songwriter, poet, and transracial adoptee based in New York City. His folk-style tunes often explore themes of identity and belonging, using song to process loss and celebrate the ways in which lives intersect.
Justin serves on Keepsake House's 2026 Artist Advisory Board, and Blue Jay has previously performed in the Keepsake House show, The Writers Room at Meadowlark Festival (2025).
Cindy Lan
Cindy Lan is a violist, composer, and songwriter from Queens, NY. Since 2019, she has explored her inner emotional world through the interplay of voice, strings, and electronics in her project ‘Breath & Bow Meditations’. She is a 2025 recipient of the Queens Art Fund New Work grant for the development of a forthcoming interdisciplinary dance piece, “Sadness isn’t any louder than joy”. She is a 2025 Marble House Project Artist-in-Residence. Cindy performs with Isogram and is a contributing performer for “Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia” by Sugar Vendil, which premiered at Pioneers Go East Collective’s Out-FRONT! Fest. in January 2026. Her string quartet, Ondine Quartet, is a 2024 Chamber Music America Ensemble Forward grantee. She performed as a soloist with Orchestra Northern Arizona in 2021 and 2023. She is the Executive Director of the Greenwich Village Orchestra and holds an MM in Viola Performance from the Eastman School of Music.
JAE.CI
Jae Carelli (who performs under the JAE.CI moniker) is a vocalist, musician, songwriter, and voice pedagogue whose work examines duality and identity through voice and sound. Jae navigates the space across binaries to explore the capabilities of voice as one of the key markers of identity, which guides their artistic expression as a transracial adoptee and their research with trans/gender non-conforming singers in their Master’s program with the Voice Study Centre. They released a concept album, American Doll, and premiered their solo show, Homeward Bound, about the 7 core issues of adoption in 2025.
Jae is the Founder and Director of Songs of Resistance, serves on Keepsake House's 2026 Artist Advisory Board, and JAE.CI has previously performed in the Keepsake House show, House for the Holidays.
katrina sotera
katrina sotera is a Filipinx & Costa Rican-American alternative R&B singer-songwriter from Queens, NY. With a unique blend of heart-wrenching lyricism and flowy melodies, katrina's music uses storytelling and radical honesty to transmute pain into power. katrina's recent release, "Don't Cry," was an homage to all the bold, brazen baddies who continue to love themselves despite romantic transgressions, and gained placement on the Tidal Future Soul Playlist. Their music video for the single, "Beauty" was selected for the 2026 DisOrient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon, in the "Beautifully Bizarre" Shorts Program. The DisOrient Film Festival also features katrina's single "Songs for the People and the Land" in the 2026 Film Festival Trailer. Coming from a background in local and international grassroots organizing, katrina sotera loves to connect with fellow artists whose art is grounded in empowerment and anti-imperialism.
katrina has previously performed in the Keepsake House show, Women of the House.
Sonia Bird
Sonia Bird is a singer-songwriter based in NYC whose passion is to connect with people through music. She has been writing music for 15 years, and many of her songs center around themes of growth. Sonia released her debut single, “Emily,” this year.