National Sawdust Announces Winter 2016 Season at New Home in Williamsburg
By: BWW News Desk Dec. 03, 2015
Composer Paola Prestini, the Creative and Executive Director of the National Sawdust (NS), announces the initial programming for the non-profit's winter 2016 season in its acclaimed new home -- a $16 million, 13,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art chamber hall in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
In its inaugural season, NS presented a boldly diverse program, including festivals dedicated to pioneering composers Terry Riley and John Zorn; concerts by indie darling Majical Cloudz, drone metal guitarist Stephen O'Malley and world-renowned soprano Renee Fleming; and partnerships with classical institutions, including the New York Philharmonic. With its winter 2016 season, NS remains committed to its mission of creating cross-genre and international platforms to introduce new audiences to the venue, as well as discovering and showcasing artists that cross-pollinate within New York's active music community.
The performance and recording venue, designed by Brooklyn-based architecture firm Bureau V in the shell of century-old former sawdust factory, provides composers and musicians a setting in which they can flourish, and a place where they are given commissioning support, mentoring and other critical resources essential to create, and then share, their work. For audiences -- serious fans and casual listeners alike -- the venue is a place to discover genre-spanning music at accessible ticket prices.
Artists lead NS, in addition to benefitting from it. Prestini has assembled a diversity of world-class artists and composers to work with her in curating the space, an idea that Time Out New York says, "could do a lot to shift the balance of power away from old-guard Manhattan institutions." For this daring approach, Prestini has been featured in Microsoft's "Fearless Leader" campaign, a branded content campaign dedicated to individuals who have disrupted an industry, and who work outside of the norm.
Prestini explains, "National Sawdust continues its theme of discovery this season, and dives deeply into our role in helping facilitate new collaborations and connections. We kick off the winter season with a pop-up at The Wolfsonian-FIU + Vanity Fair to celebrate Art Basel at Miami Beach featuring NS curators such as Imogene Strauss, Helga Davis, Magos Herrera, Jeffrey Zeigler and NS Artist in Residence, Glenn Kotche. I am excited to partner with VisionIntoArt's FERUS festival, and continue the journey with the Afripedia series. The richness and diversity in programming is a reflection of the generous and forward looking community that is forming every day at our space."
Programming Highlights
NS continues to draw its programming from a team of curators, who feature artists that excite them. Returning curators this season include Ian Rosenbaum, Anna Clyne, Darren Solomon, David T. Little, Miranda Cuckson, Jeffrey Zeigler, Billy Jones, Imogene Strauss, Michael Leviton, Rinde Eckert, Magos Herrera and Elena Park. New curators joining this season include Andy Akiho, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Ljova, Kai Kight and Martha Redbone.
Cellist Jeffrey Zeigler presents the chamber music ensemble concert:nova with indie rock band The Mitchells on January 5. The composer David T. Little brings art rock ensemble The Knells for a multimedia performance that will also feature software artist Joshue Ott, on January 21. Virtuoso violinist Miranda Cuckson presents the flexibly configured organization NUNC for a night of world premieres on January 24. Grammy-nominated vocalist Theo Bleckmann presents singer-songwriter Jo Lawry and an all-star band, in celebration of Lawry's newest album, on January 29. Composer Kai Knight brings the bowed and fretted string ensemble invoke sounds for a genre-spanning program on January 31. Percussionist Ian Rosenbaum brings the music ensemble HOWL, who will presentan evening-length program titled ARABY, on February 28.
Mexican jazz singer Magos Herrera, along with Theo Bleckmann, will continue to curate a Thursday-night jazz series through the season; and neo-soul singer-songwriter Martha Redbone, along with Aaron Whitby, will curate a series of weekend concerts, beginning with The Descendants, March 11-13.
The winter season features new works commissioned by the venue, including cellist Jeffrey Zeigler performing the world premiere of a work by The National's Bryce Dessner on January 23; as well as the continuation of Alicia Hall Moran's The Five Fans, which combines various musical styles, and will unfold over five evenings, the second of which will be January 11.
The winter season will include several festivals, beginning with VisionIntoArt's third annual Ferus Festival, which showcases and incubates projects in new music, theater and visual arts, January 14-17; the Percussion Music Marathon, a five-hour percussion festival curated by Ian Rosenbaum and Andy Akiho, on February 20; the Mason Jar Music Festival, February 26-27, featuring concerts, screenings, panel discussions and keynotes all on the central question: "How do we evolve?;" and Spring Revolution, a month-long festival that uses Stravinsky's Rite of Spring as a launching pad for new creations, through March. In addition, National Sawdust and the Prototype: Opera/Theatre/Now festival will co-present Beth Morrison Projects' Saga, an opera told through the prism of Belgian indie band Dez Mona, January 9-10.
NS will continue to award residencies to several artists and groups each season, many of which will present works. Alicia Hall Moran continues to develop her National Sawdust-commissioned work The Five Fans in a residency at the venue. Composer Gity Rizaz will present two works, "Songs from the Book of Nightmares" and the world premiere of "Legend of the Sigh," February 19 & 22. Vanessa Vân-Ánh Võ, who fuses Vietnamese musical traditions with fresh new structures and compositions, will perform March 5 & 6. Found Sound Nation will present People's Champs, lead by Grammy Award-winning trombonist/composer Alex Asher, on February 13; and will co-present, with Hear Be Dragons, a concert featuring young people from El Puente Williamsburg Leadership Centre and Cape Town's Nyanga Yethu, on January 28.
Additional artist or groups-in-residence include Brooklyn Rider, Hess Is More, Mason Jar Music and New Amsterdam Records.
NS continues Afripedia on March 19, a film/music series exploring creativity in an evolving Africa, in partnership with The New Museum's NEW INC. and the Dillon Gallery. It will also present the first installment of its new Mentoring Recital Series, which will offer young artists the chance to engage directly with and learn from established artists. The series begins with Leon Fleisher on January 29.
Tickets are available at www.nationalsawdust.org and 646-779-8455.
January 2016 Programming in Detail:
Jeffrey Zeigler Presents: concert:nova + The Mitchells
January 5 at 7pm; $25
Chamber ensemble concert:nova and Cincinnati indie rock band The Mitchells draw inspiration from and re-imagine two song-cycles of Franz Schubert, The Miller's Daughter and Winter Journey, exploring infatuation, obsession and alienation in a thrilling collaboration which crosses stylistic boundaries.
Le Train Bleu
The Light Within
January 6 at 7pm; $25
Internationally acclaimed flutist and composer Ransom Wilson brings his eclectic musical collective, Le Train Bleu, in this NS debut, featuring a program of works by John Luther Adams, Jacob TV, Huang Ruo and Reena Esmail, as well as multimedia by Guillerma Laporta and live painting.
Darren Solomon
Come Wander With Me
January 7 at 7pm; $25
Come Wander With Me is a hybrid DJ set/live instrumental performance piece by NS curator Darren Solomon, featuring choreography by Jennifer McQuiston Lott and video projections by Owen O'Neill. Incorporating the repurposed and transformed music of Charles Ives, Beethoven, Kelly Clarkson and Kanye West, among others, this work sails the waters of improvisation, spoken word, minimalism and electronic ambient music.
Ljova & Dan Tepner
January 7 at 9:30pm; $25
This world premiere will explore and reimagine the music of Johannes Brahms, alongside original compositions, with Ljova drawing from her training in classical music, and Temper his background in jazz.
Jeremy Flower & Carla Kihlstedt
The Real Me
January 8 at 7:30pm; $25
Jeremy Flower's The Real Me is the debut record from the Cambridge, MA composer and multi-instrumentalist. The album is a catalog of realizations made while getting older; like diary entries from someone that finally understands all the axioms preached by an older generation are full of truth. It features the voice of Carla Kihlstedt with a core group of guitar, bass, drums and electronics, which live within a chamber ensemble of winds, brass, and strings.
Beth Morrison Projects Presents: Sága (American Premiere)
Co-presented By Prototype: Opera/Theatre/Now
January 9 at 7pm & 10pm and January 10 at 7:00pm; $25
With Prototype: Opera/Theatre/Now, NS co-presents the American premiere of Sága. Sága stands midway between a modern opera and a song cycle, told through the prism of the Belgian indie band Dez Mona in a sparkling collaboration with B.O.X. (Baroque Orchestration X), along with the outstanding vocalist Gregory Frateur, and tells stories of the soul, and goes in search of love for the land, a home and the world in which it lives. The title refers to the well-known epic tales composed in Iceland and Greenland some time between the 12th and 14th centuries, as well as to Sága, the goddess of history and storytelling in Norse mythology.
Alicia Hall Moran
The Five Fans
Commissioned by National Sawdust
January 11 at 8pm; $25
The Five Fans, a new work by NS artist-in-residence Alicia Hall Moran (Porgy and Bess), blends classical, pop, world music and Americana and will unfold over the course of five concerts at the venue. Following the installment Flower Face on October 19, 2015, the series continues here with Black Wall Street, a staged concert depicting a story about money and the lesser-told tale of black American finance in New York City and beyond. Pulling memory from her own childhood with her father, who worked on Wall Street, and adding events drawn from documents on 18th century New York found in The Schomburg Center's The Black New Yorkers; writings on Oklahoma's Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, which plundered the wealthy Black neighborhood known as Black Wall Street, issues of Black Enterprise magazine from the 1980's, books by and about black financiers, and 21st-century articles from the Wall Street Journal, Ms. Moran will re-create "the office" of the past, and perhaps even, the future.
VisionIntoArt
Ferus Festival
January 14-17, 2016
VisionIntoArt is thrilled to present the third annual FERUS Festival in their new home as the development branch of National Sawdust. Designed to showcase and incubate new projects over a four-day extravaganza of new music, theater, and visuals, FERUS features discoveries from innovative international and local artists, including:
- January 14 at 7pm; $25
Named by The New York Times as one of Europe's most accomplished and internationally successful contemporary classical composers and vocalists, this evening pairs Polish vocalist/composer Agata Zubel with a special guest choreographer.
- January 14 at 9:30pm; $25
An evening of new sounds and improvisation, featuring a premiere by saxophonist/theorist Hafez Modirzadeh that features the composer on saxophone with Leo Genovese on re-tuned piano. Resonance IVI is inspired from Modirzadeh's recent stint in Ankara, absorbing fellow composer/theorist Ertugrul Bayraktar's original harmonic approach to Turkish makam.
- January 16 at 8pm; $25
Zimbabwean award-winning choreographer Nora Chipaumire curates and works with choreographer Shamar Watt in a new pairing with music by a recent discovery, the cellist/composer Kelsey Lu..
- January 17 at 12pm; $25
A 60-minute audio-visual performance, Home Within is the newest project of Syrian composer and clarinetist, Kinan Azmeh, and Syrian-Armenian visual artist, Kevork Mourad. In this work, art and music develop in counterpoint to each other, creating an impressionistic reflection on the Syrian revolution and its aftermath. Rather than following a narrative, the artists document specific moments in Syria's recent history and reach into their emotional content in a semi-abstract way. The corner stone of the project was the single sound-image piece, "a sad morning, every morning," released in March 2012. - January 17 at 3pm; $25
Clarinetist David Krakauer with pianist Kathleen Tagg performing music of South Africa.
Wet Ink Ensemble
January 20 at 9:30pm; $25
The next installment of Wet Ink's ongoing Portrait Concerts series will celebrate the work of Anthony Braxton, a major figure of American music, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The program will showcase the extraordinary breadth and scope of Braxton's output, from the early Stockhausen-influenced chamber works to mid-career quartet works, and the development of his "Ghost Trance Music" series. The Wet Ink Large Ensemble brings together an incredible lineup of interpreters and improvisers in celebration of an artist that exists beyond categorization.
David T. Little Presents: The Knells
January 21 at 8:00pm; $25
Through lushly arranged electric art song and swirling computer graphic animation, The Knells and software artist Joshue Ott explore the personal and eternal questions that confound the human search for meaning and significance in the universe. In service of this overarching theme, the artists confront such specific ideas as one's perception of the passage of time, the illusive nature of progress, the power of perspective in deriving meaning from one's own life experience, and the circular and ultimately transcendental - if frequently violent - beauty of nature.
Jeffrey Zeigler Solo
Co-commissioned by National Sawdust and Cork Opera House
January 23 at 8pm; $25
Jeffrey Zeigler returns to National Sawdust with a program of new works for solo cello, which includes two world premiers by Brooklyn based composers Jim Thirlwell and The National's Bryce Dessner. Zeigler will also perform the New York Premiere of Tangled in Plastic Currents by Derek Charke.
Miranda Cuckson Presents: NUNC
January 24 at 8pm; $25
The flexibly configured organization NUNC (Miranda Cuckson, director) performs an evening of dynamic and vividly juxtaposed chamber works, including two world premieres: a sextet by Argentinean composer Diego Tedesco (for the unusual instrumentation of violin, bass, oboe, bassoon, harp and mandolin) and a work for voice and string trio by Jonathan Dawe, featuring soprano Mary Mackenzie. Also featured will be the New York premiere of an octet for strings by David Fulmer, Elliott Carter's "Four Lauds" played by Miranda Cuckson, and Michael Jarrell's "Eco III" for soprano and harp. The program will conclude with Iannis Xenakis' "Aroura" for 12 strings (1971), featuring a team-up of brilliant New York musicians and adventurous students from Juilliard and Mannes.
Hear Be Dragons & Found Sound Nation
January 28 at 7pm; $25
NYC-based Found Sound Nation and South Africa-based Hear Be Dragons will lead young people from El Puente Williamsburg Leadership Centre and Cape Town's Nyanga Yethu in a sound based exploration of New York City. On this night, a final concert of original music and storytelling explores the common threads of gentrification, urbanization and neighborhood identity across two seemingly disparate communities, featuring New York based musicians and the youth involved in the project.
Adam Abeshouse Presents: Mentoring Recital Series with Leon Fleisher
January 29 at 7pm; $25
The "Mentoring Recital Series" at National Sawdust gives established artists the chance to share their talent and experience with a younger artist of their choosing. By presenting them in a format that also includes a discussion with the artists, we break down the wall between audience and performers, while enhancing the experience on many levels. The young artist gains prestige by being associated with the "Named Recognized" artist, and the audience gets insight to the music and performance technique. The series begins with Leon Fleisher, a consummate artist, educator and performer, with legendary wit and knowledge.
Theo Bleckmann Presents: Jo Lawry
January 29 at 10pm; $25
Singer-songwriter Jo Lawry brings an all-star band to National Sawdust, in celebration of her newest album, Taking Pictures. Heartbreak meets humor in Jo's sparkling original songs, and for this performance she will be joined by Alan Hampton (bass/vocals), Shai Maestro (piano), Will Vinson (saxophone/keyboards) and Nate Wood (vocals/drums). In praise of Taking Pictures, The New York Times called Jo a "singer of dazzling self-possession", The Sydney Morning Herald described her as "effervescent and riveting" and Time Out New York called her "one of [their] favorite discoveries of the past year."
Kai Kight with Patrick Belaga
January 30 at 8pm; $25
As a classical violinist turned innovative composer, Kai Kight uses music as a metaphor to inspire individuals and organizations across the world to compose paths of imagination and fulfillment. A product of Stanford University's design and engineering program, the d. School, Kai remains fascinated by the leaders, artists, and companies who dare to be different. As both a Mayfield Fellow and Kleiner Perkins Design Fellow, Kai has proven himself as a leader of the next generation of innovative and entrepreneurial talent. His mesmerizing and original violin performance beautifully becomes a sonic metaphor for the core of his message: to inspire people to compose unique ideas in a world that celebrates conformity. He joins forces with cellist Patrick Belaga in an evening of original works with a taste for improvisations.
Kai Kight Presents: invoke sound
January 31 at 7pm; $25
Described once as "not classical...but not not classical," the bowed and fretted string quartet invoke sound continue to successfully dodge even the most valiant attempts at genre classification. The multi-instrumental band's other not-nots encompass traditions from across America, including bluegrass, Appalachian fiddle tunes, jazz and minimalism. invoke weaves all of these traditions together to create truly unique contemporary string quartet repertoire, written by and for the group.
February 2016 Programming Highlights:
Found Sound Nation: People's Champs
February 13 at 8pm; Free
Known for his Grammy-award winning work with Beyoncé Knowles, as well as his indefatigable presence at the forefront of the Brooklyn music scene, trombonist/composer Alex Asher is quickly making a name for himself in New York City. Alex leads People's Champs, a seven-piece band mixing experimental rock with African and Latin beats. As part of Found Sound Nation's residency at National Sawdust, Alex Asher, will be leading a Young Producers Project focusing on instrument lessons, improvisation, song-writing, and live recording techniques that will culminate this evening with a final performance featuring work by the students and People's Champs.
Gity Razaz
February 19 & 22 at 7pm; $25
Hailed by The New York Times as "ravishing and engulfing", NS artist-in-residence Gity Razaz's music ranges from concert solo pieces to large symphonic works. On each of these two evenings, Razaz will present two works. The first is "Songs from the Book of Nightmares," a dramatic cycle, illuminating the mystical, otherworldly and mysterious union of man and woman in the context of a distorted love poem. The second is "Legend of Sigh," a world premiere featuring cellist Inbal Segev, which explores the themes of birth, transformation and death through re-telling an old Azerbaijani folk tale about a mysterious being, who appears every time someone lets out a heartfelt sigh, unknowingly calling him to the rescue.
Percussion Music Marathon
February 20 at 5pm; $35
NS Curators and percussionists Ian Rosenbaum and Andy Akiho curate a five-hour percussion festival, featuring percussive sounds from contemporary classical to improvisation to jazz by musicians who are furthering the percussion field. Special Guests to be announced at a later date.
Mason Jar Music Festival
February 26 at 7:30pm and February 27 at 4pm & 8pm; $25 per set or $60 festival pass
Mason Jar Music will hosts it's first annual multi-media arts festival. Part SXSW, part TED, the collective will feature its extensive network of filmmakers, musicians, and influencers, each creatively addressing the question: "How do we evolve?" The program will feature concerts, screenings, panel discussions, keynotes, and more.
Founded in 2010 by Dan Knobler & Jon Seale, Mason Jar Music is a Brooklyn-based creative collective responsible for a host of records, music videos, films, concerts and tours. Following their collaboration with Grammy-winning artist Feist in 2012, MJM was named the world's 6th most innovative music company by Fast Company Magazine. Together with their sister organization NMDQ, they've travelled the world chronicling issues such as transgender asylum in Mexico, tribal rites of passage in Brazil, and rhino extinction in Kenya. Their work has been featured on NPR, CNN, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Paste, Billboard, TIME, Variety, Village Voice, Huffington Post and other major media outlets.
Ian Rosenbaum Presents: HOWL
February 28 at 7pm; $25
HOWL redefines what it means to be a performing musician by making the musicians' bodies and voices instruments of artistic expression. HOWL's evening-length ARABY is the groups' newest production that seamlessly integrates new and existing musical works, performed poetry, and James Joyce's short story of the same name, new music, movement, and lighting to evoke Dublin's bazaar as well as the frustrated life of the young narrator. The production features new music for cello and voice featuring Hai-Ting Chinn, mezzo-soprano with world premieres by Tonia Ko, Matthew Schickele, and Amy Beth Kirsten. Co-created by Mary Ellen Stebbins, lighting design and Amy Beth Kirsten, staging.
March 2016 Sneak Peek:
Vanessa Vân-Ánh Võ
March 5 at 8pm and March 6 at 12pm; $25
Vanessa Vân-Ánh Võ is one of the world's finest performers of Vietnamese traditional instruments and a rapidly emerging composer. She dedicates her life to creating music by blending the wonderfully unique sounds of Vietnamese instruments with other music genres, and fusing deeply rooted Vietnamese musical traditions with fresh new structures and compositions. On March 6, she and her trio will present a special family program, exploring the rich sounds and instruments from Vietnam.
Anderson & Roe Piano Duo
March 9 at 7pm; $25
The balletic interplay of four hands on a single keyboard is showcased in this program of stylistic, choreographic and sonic variety. In this powerhouse performance of Stravinsky's own four-hand arrangement of The Rite of Spring, the Anderson & Roe Piano Duo are intertwined in visceral struggle and communion (reflective of the work's radical dance origins), while dances by Christoph Willibald Gluck and Astor Piazzolla (in Anderson & Roe's own imaginative arrangements, inflected with extended techniques) reveal the intimacy and eroticism of duet playing. The performance is part of National Sawdust's Spring Revolution festival, which will run through March. Additional performances will be announced soon.
Martha Redbone Presents: The Descendants
March 11 at 8pm, March 12 at 8pm and March 13 at 7 pm; $25
The first in a series of weekends curated by songwriting team Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby, the Descendants will present music by musicians with deeply anchored roots, visceral connections to the past in their music and a forward thinking approach to creating art. Confirmed artists to be announced at a later date.
The Dillon Gallery with New Inc. and National Sawdust Present
Afripedia
March 19 at 7pm; $25
Two short films and live musicians exploring contemporary culture from countries such as Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Kenya, and Angola, presented by the Dillon Gallery with special thanks to New Inc.
Anthony Roth Costanzo Presents: Orphic Moments
March 23 & 24 at 7pm; Ticket Price TBC
An immersive and interdisciplinary evening presented by National Sawdust and Manhattan School of Music, Orphic Moments is a pioneering collaboration that will be one of the largest performance events at National Sawdust to date. Conductor and composer Matthew Aucoin joins forces with director Douglas Fitch, choreographer Zack Winokur, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, soprano Kiera Duffy, violinist Keir GoGwilt, filmmaker Pix Talarico and the orchestra and chorus of Manhattan School of Music to stage the New York premiere of Aucoin's Orphic Moment, a surreal banquet by Fitch and James Beard award-winning chef Patrick Connolly, and a full-scale presentation of C.W. Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice.
About National Sawdust - Located in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the non-profit National Sawdust is a dynamic home for artists and new music of all kinds. It is a place for exploration and discovery-where emerging and established artists can share their music with serious music fans and casual listeners alike. In a city teeming with venues, National Sawdust is a singular space founded with an expansive vision: to provide composers and musicians across genres with a setting in which they can flourish, and a place where they are given unprecedented support and critical resources essential to create, and then share, their work. A diversity of world-class artists, arts organizations, and institutions are collaborating with National Sawdust's Creative and Executive Director, the composer Paola Prestini, as curators.
In addition to hosting rehearsals, performances, recordings and broadcasts in state-of-the art facilities, National Sawdust commissions new works and arranges workshops and residencies. It aims to be a resource not only for the community of musicians, but also for audiences in search of remarkable musical experiences at accessible ticket prices. For the local community, National Sawdust creates progressive public programs and educational initiatives. Other offerings include talks, publications and mentorship programs for composers and musicians, and for related fields.
Designed by Brooklyn's Bureau V, National Sawdust is constructed within the existing shell of a century-old sawdust factory, preserving the authenticity of Williamsburg's industrial past while providing a refined and intimate setting for the exploration of new music. At the venue's core is a flexible chamber hall, acoustically designed by renowned engineering firm Arup to provide the highest-quality experience of both unamplified and amplified music. For more information, visit nationalsawdust.org.
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