🪩🎶 FIRST FRIDAYS IS BACK FT. CLEO REED 🎶🪩
💫 Join us on Friday, February 6th for the first First Fridays of 2026, featuring the incomparable @cleoforshort! We’re thrilled to welcome Cleo Reed as we kick off this year’s programming on the first Friday in February, coinciding with 100 years of Black History Month.
🗓️ Friday, February 6, 2026
📍 The People’s Forum (320 W 37th St, Manhattan)
⏱️ Doors: 7:00 PM | Show: 7:30 PM
🔗 Tickets available here
ℹ️ About Cleo Reed:
A student of Black underground sound and intention, Cleo Reed (née Ella Josephine Julia Moore) is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice uses participatory art, music composition, instrument-making, bandleading, installation, and fabric arts. Raised in NYC and DC, Reed’s background ranges from classical training at Harlem School of the Arts, to studying sound engineering & design at Berklee College of Music.
Reed’s 2025 LP CUNTRY is a sprawling folk-electronic offering exploring the rage that comes from grappling with the grips of labor — both on the body and in the American workplace. A double LP, Side A pulls influence from the canon of American work songs — blues, soul, folk, and country. Side B, sonically dystopian and electronic forward, references the format with a more rap-centric approach. The dueling sides symbolize the binary, and the opposing forces represented in Reed’s NYC upbringing vs. their family’s southern lineage.
CUNTRY was named a top album of 2025 from Pitchfork, Stereogum, That Good Sh*t, and NPR Music. Reed was included in Dazed magazine’s iconic Dazed 100 list. Reed has performed at the Brooklyn Museum, Lincoln Center, Afropunk, New Orleans Jazz Festival, Le Banlieue Bleues, and more. Reed has supported US, UK & European tour dates with Sudan Archives, Nick Hakim, Armand Hammer, and Annahstasia, amongst others. Reed is a young, visionary artist with a singular voice and an unwavering commitment to honoring those that came before while subverting the status quo.
ℹ️ About opener, Melissa Almaguer:
Melissa Almaguer is a multidisciplinary tap artist from Mexico based in New York City. She uses tap as a percussive instrument, centering her practice on improvisation, sonic exploration, and collaborative composition. She leads improvisation-driven projects including the Melissa Almaguer Trio and collectives such as praesēns and Angel of Water/Angel of Air, presenting original work at venues including The Jazz Gallery, Joe’s Pub and Closeup NYC.
As a performer and collaborator, she has appeared in works presented at Lincoln Center, The Joyce Theater, National Sawdust, and Kaufman Music Center, among others. Her collaborators include Moor Mother, William Parker, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Dormeshia, and Derick K. Grant. A recipient of The Next Jazz Legacy and Mutual Mentorship for Musicians, Melissa is on faculty at Steps On Broadway and teaches at Harlem School of the Arts.
