Pride at National Sawdust Presents Jamie Barton, Adam Tendler and More

Though much of the celebration and NYC's annual parade has been postponed by the ongoing pandemic, National Sawdust is proud to support Pride in June by commemorating the history and future of our city's vibrant community and by celebrating artists who are creating music and theater with an explicitly LGBT+ perspective.

Trendsetting countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim will present a program of opera and classical songs from gay composers and poets on June 23, including an aria from M. Butterfly, the premiere of which was cancelled at Santa Fe Opera due to the global pandemic. Pianist, memoirist and gay advocate Adam Tendler has risen to prominence in the contemporary classical community with his nuanced renditions of the oeuvres of Aaron Copeland, John Cage and Philip Glass; he'll perform an original composition "Texas Letters" and "How Now" by Glass for the Digital Discovery Festival on June 25. Pride Week concludes with a Masterclass conversation-performance between vocalist Helga Davis, composer and National Sawdust co-founder Paola Prestini and the Beverly Sills Award-winning mezzo-soprano and outspoken gay rights and body-positivity activist Jamie Barton on June 26 who will perform selections from Gustav Mahler, Amy Beach and Henri Duparc.

Three newly-released shows from the National Sawdust archives emphasize the excellence and diversity of the LGBT+ artistic community. The queer electropop artist Madame Gandhi came to prominence as a drummer for M.I.A., but she's proven herself to be a provocative performance artist and a fast-rising star following this buzzy headliner performance at National Sawdust in 2018. NationalSawdust+'s Beyond Butterfly and the Don from January 2020 features Kangmin Justin Kim and female baritone and trans advocate Lucia Lucas performing opera scenes and songs, followed by a conversation with Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer. Sonic and her collective Womxyn Amplify's Seasons - An Experimental Voyage Through Sound, performed recently in March 2020, is a mixed-media piece investigating the very nature of sound itself.

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.

National Sawdust's Digital Discovery Festival

Volume 7: Pride

Tuesday, June 23 at 6pm: Kangmin Justin Kim (Discovery Concert)

Wednesday, June 24: Madame Gandhi (Archival Release from September 2018)

Wednesday, June 24: NationalSawdust+ presents: Beyond Butterfly and the Don (Archival Concert from January 2019)

Wednesday, June 24: Sonic x Womyn Amplify: Seasons - An Experiential Voyage Through Sound (Archival Concert from March 2020)

Thursday, June 25 at 6pm: Adam Tendler (Discovery Concert)

Friday, June 26 at 1pm: Jamie Barton (Masterclass)

Tuesday, June 23 - First Airing at 6PM

KANGMIN JUSTIN KIM

Stream at Live@NationalSawdust

Join us for a Digital Discovery performance by the Korean-born Kangman Justin Kim, one of the most sought-after countertenors of his generation. This 30-minute performance will feature music by gay composers and poets, as well as an aria from composer Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, the premiere of which was cancelled at Santa Fe Opera this Spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Korean-American countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim has earned accolades in roles of the Baroque repertoire, contemporary music and in Mozart's trouser parts at the most prestigious opera theatres and festivals such as the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Staatsoper Berlin, the Salzburg Festival and Glyndebourne. Performances of the 2019/20 season include his house debut at the Theater an der Wien as Annio in a new staging of La clemenza di Tito, a gala concert at the Dallas Opera, his role debut as Ruggiero in a new production of Alcina in Nancy and Dijon, Nerone in L'incoronazione di Poppea for Haymarket Opera in Chicago, Barzane in Arsilda in Dresden and Prague and his return to Cologne as Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus.

Wednesday, June 24

MADAME GANDHI

First Performed at National Sawdust on September 2018

Stream at Live@NationalSawdust

Having toured internationally as the drummer for M.I.A. and Thievery Corporation, Madame Gandhi's "The Future Is Female" shot to the top of the viral charts in the wake of the 2017 Women's March, cementing her reputation as a politically engaged artist fighting for gender equity after her headline-grabbing decision to run the London Marathon while free-bleeding and her consistent, impassioned advocacy for improved access to menstrual products. Hailed as one of Vogue's "stars who continue to shine on a global stage", Madame Gandhi is not an artist to be missed.

Wednesday, June 24

NationalSawdust+ presents Beyond Butterfly and the Don

First Performed at National Sawdust on January 2020

Stream at Live@NationalSawdust

In this NationalSawdust+ program from January 24, Beyond Butterfly and the Don features countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim and female baritone and trans advocate Lucia Lucas, who challenge fixed notions of gender in a traditional art form. With pianist Zalman Kelber, these trailblazers performed an evening of opera scenes and songs, followed by an intimate discussion with Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer.

Wednesday, June 24

SONIC X WOMYN AMPLIFY: Seasons - An Experimental Voyage Through Sound

First Performed at National Sawdust on March 2020

Stream at Live@NationalSawdust

Seasons: An Experiential Voyage Through Sound is a multimedia concert from R&B singer/songwriter Sonic that reflects her unique relationship with sound: she's partially deaf. This performance makes innovative use of National Sawdust's new Constellation and Spacemap audio systems from Meyer Sound to draw audiences into Sonic's singular aural world. Based on songs from her LP of the same name, and made in collaboration with her collective Womxyn Amplify, Seasons immerses audiences in Sonic's journey of self-discovery, acceptance, and self-love by navigating her experiences as a queer, partially deaf womxn of color.

Thursday, June 25 - First Airing at 6PM

ADAM TENDLER

Stream at Live@NationalSawdust

Join us for a 30 minute Digital Discovery performance with the joyful pianist Adam Tendler. Tendler's program will include Texas Letters (2017), a structured, chance-determined improvisation centering on an unsent letter Tendler wrote to his first boyfriend in the days after their breakup. This is its first incarnation as a solo, and first performance in a major public forum. The program will close with one of Philip Glass's earliest, seldom performed experiments in large-scale process music, the breathless and electrifying How Now (1968).

A 2019 recipient of the Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists and "remarkable and insightful musician" (LA Times) "joyfully rocking out at his keyboard" (The New York Times), pianist Adam Tendler is a recognized interpreter of living and modern composers. A pioneer of DIY culture in classical music, between 2005 and 2006 Tendler performed in all fifty United States as part of a grassroots recital tour he called America 88x50, which became the subject of his memoir, 88x50, a Kirkus Indie Book of the Month and Lambda Literary Award nominee. A presence in all new music and classical genres as a concert soloist, recording artist, speaker and educator, Tendler has also performed the complete major piano works of Aaron Copland and collaborates with the John Cage Trust and Edition Peters in presenting Cage's work internationally. In 2019 he released the album Robert Palmer: Piano Music on New World Records, and published his second book, tidepools.

Friday, June 26 - First Airing at 1PM

Jamie Barton

Stream at Live@NationalSawdust

Join us for a Masterclass conversation-performance between vocalist Helga Davis, composer and National Sawdust co-founder Paola Prestini and the Beverly Sills Award-winning mezzo-soprano and outspoken gay rights and body-positivity activist Jamie Barton. Barton will be performing selections from Gustav Mahler, Amy Beach and Henri Duparc.

Critically acclaimed by virtually every major outlet covering classical music, American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton is increasingly recognized for how she uses her powerful instrument offstage - lifting up women, queer people, and other marginalized communities. Her lively social media presence on Instagram and Twitter serves as a hub for conversations about body positivity, diet culture, social justice issues, and LGBT+ rights. She is proud to volunteer with Turn The Spotlight, an organization working to identify, nurture, and empower leaders among women and people of color - and in turn, to illuminate the path to a more equitable future in the arts. Winner of the Beverly Sills Artist Award and Richard Tucker Award, both Main and Song Prizes at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and a Grammy nominee, Barton has been described by The Guardian as "a great artist, no question, with an imperturbable steadiness of tone, and a nobility of utterance that invites comparison not so much with her contemporaries as with mid-20th century greats such as Kirsten Flagstad."

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