Lucy Dhegrae, Brooklyn Rider, Helga Davis and More Announced for Volume 16 Of National Sawdust's Streaming Digital Discovery Festival

It takes a special artist to push past the boundaries of their chosen genre and expand their mastery of craft and concept in unique directions. Volume 16 of National Sawdust's Digital Discovery Festival is devoted to these Trailblazers, performers and composers who force us to rethink our assumptions about what music can or should be, creating a new way forward for artists and audiences alike.

Due to COVID closure, our Season Five Artist-in-Residence Lucy Dhegrae was unable to present the live performance of the last acts of her epic project, The Processing Series - a song cycle for voice that deals with trauma recovery - at National Sawdust in 2020, but she'll be joining our streaming Festival on August 25. Dhegrae will present a new concert featuring music by Kate Soper and Meredith Monk with her musical support from her quarantined collaborator, Nathaniel LaNasa.

The celebrated Brooklyn Rider string quartet are known for their stellar musicianship and a wholehearted openness to collaboration, most recently on display with past shows at National Sawdust alongside Magos Herrera, Gabriel Kahane and the Silk Road Ensemble. For this August 27 recital, the group will share music and ruminations on the challenges and freedoms of forced artistic isolation.

Immediately prior to National Sawdust's 2015 opening, vocalist Helga Davis and guitarist Taylor Levine (both longtime friends of the venue) collaborated on a cover of the seminal Lou Reed song, "Perfect Day." This archival recording, intended to evoke the innovation and excellence that National Sawdust has come to embody, is a work of languorous exploration and longing for closure.

While Volume 16 will mark the final week of the first installment of National Sawdust's Digital Discovery Festival, the program will return later this fall with more original programming to be announced shortly. The fifty-plus new performances, archival concerts, Masterclass conversations, recitations and dance events previously premiered over the past four months will remain available for ongoing streaming at National Sawdust's newly-constructed Live@NationalSawdust website, as well as on Facebook Live, entirely free of charge.