Meredith Monk News

Alarm Will Sounda?"'one of the most vital and original ensembles on the American music scene' (The New York Times)a?"continues to revitalize music-making during the COVID-19 pandemic with VIDEO CHAT VARIATIONS, a new series of remote performances that respond to the quirks of video chat platforms.

National Sawdust's physical doors are still closed but, thanks to a generous grant from the Alphadyne Foundation, the mission of providing artists the resources and support they need to create and present new work continues with the Digital Discovery Festival, featuring over 100 artists from May through August. All past and present Digital Discovery Festival events are accessible on the newly-constructed Live@NationalSawdust website, as well as on Facebook Live, entirely free of charge.

With over sixty total events featuring more than 100 artists over a four month span, National Sawdust's ongoing Digital Discovery Festival is the rarest sort of story in NYC's post-COVID live music world: an unalloyed success.

The Musicians Foundation is honored to announce that it has been granted a generous Art Works award of $25,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts. 

National Sawdust's physical doors are still closed but, thanks to a generous grant from the Alphadyne Foundation, the mission of providing artists the resources and support they need to create and present new work continues with the Digital Discovery Festival, featuring over 100 artists from May through August.

While acknowledging that the landscape for future performing arts events is currently uncertain, Long Beach Opera is forging ahead with plans for its 2021 a?oeSeason of Solidaritya?? beginning in January. Both LBO and Interim Artistic Advisor Yuval Sharon believe that collaboration and creative thinking will be the key to returning to performing arts activities, and understand that adaptability may be necessary to return to the important work of connecting individuals and communities through live, in-person artistic expression.

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Announces SEGAL TALKS Week Four

Bang on a Can will present an ALL LIVE Bang on a Can Marathon on Sunday, May 3, 2020 from 3pm-9pm ET. The Marathon will be streamed online at marathon2020.bangonacan.org, featuring 26 LIVE performances from musicians' homes in NYC and around the country.

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center has announced the third weekly line-up of its new global series, SEGAL TALKS. New York, US, and international theatre artists, curators, researchers and academics will talk daily for one hour with Segal Center's director, Frank Hentschker, about life and art in the Time of Corona.

A coalition of national arts grantmakers, consisting of Academy of American Poets, Artadia, Creative Capital, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, MAP Fund, National YoungArts Foundation, and United States Artists, has announced the launch of Artist Relief, which will provide rapid, unrestricted $5,000 relief grants to assist artists.

A coalition of national arts grantmakers, consisting of Academy of American Poets, Artadia, Creative Capital, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, MAP Fund, National YoungArts Foundation, and United States Artists, announces the launch of Artist Relief, which will provide rapid, unrestricted $5,000 relief grants.

 The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center has announced the first weekly line-up of its new global series SEGAL TALKS.

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center has announced the first weekly line-up of its new global series SEGAL TALKS.

National Sawdust, the non-profit arts institution based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, will launch Live@NationalSawdust, a free digital platform that will release weekly videos of concerts from the past five seasons, as well as professional development programming, and will include fundraising efforts for the institution and the artists involved.

Bang on a Can has announced that it will postpone its inaugural LONG PLAY festival, scheduled for May 1-3, 2020, due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Cantaloupe Music will release Meredith Monk's new album MEMORY GAME, featuring Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble and the Bang on a Can All-Stars, on March 27, 2020. The first track from the album, “Downfall,” is available today, exclusively from Apple Music. Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble and the Bang on a Can All-Stars will perform MEMORY GAME at the Big Ears Festival (March 26-29, 2020; Knoxville, TN) and Bang on a Can's inaugural Long Play Festival (May 1-3, 2020; Brooklyn, NY).

From January through May 2020, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) presents three concerts celebrating the group's 15th anniversary, in a series called ACME: 15 Years, at the Tenri Cultural Institute (43A W. 13th St.) a?" the location of the ensemble's inaugural concert season in 2004-2005. Described as a?oevital,a?? a?oebrilliant,a?? and a?oeelectrifying,a?? by The New York Times, ACME is a force for new music led by Artistic Director Clarice Jensen and is dedicated to the outstanding performance of music of the 20th and 21st centuries.

This September, Founder Diane Jacobowitz will step off as Executive Director of Dancewave, a leading, socially conscious nonprofit organization known for empowering youth through dance opportunities across New York City and beyond. Jacobowitz will be honored for her Lifetime Achievement during Dancewave's upcoming gala taking place on Wednesday, April 22nd at 501 Union in Brooklyn, NY. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Dancewave reflects on its humble start in a small office at the YWCA on Atlantic Avenue, its persistence shaping the dance education field in Brooklyn, and the 35,000 students, teachers, artists, parents and audience members it has touched since its founding in 1995.

See what's on the schedule at National Sawdust in March! Kimbra, Little Kruta, JACK Quartet, Metropolis Ensemble and more...

La MaMa in association with Allied Productions Inc. presents GENERATOR: Pestilence Part 1, the first of a three-part cycle and the most ambitious live art creation in the 35-year partnership of Jack Waters and Peter Cramer. Known for their challenging and innovative interventions in art and politics, GENERATOR is a homecoming, a return to Waters' and Cramer's theatrical roots at La MaMa where two of their earliest performance works premiered in 1987.