Past Events

A conversation with Maria Popova and composer Paola Prestini, lensed through the music manuscripts of Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn.

On October 31, November 1, 2 and 3, 2024, the season will launch with Paola Prestini and Royce Vavrek's "Silent Light" in Kilbourn Hall, sung in English with supertitles.

Paola's newest operatic work "Silent Light" receives its world premiere at National Sawdust, as part of the venue's 10th anniversary season.

The world premiere of "Mother Moon Songs," including music by Karol Szymanowski and Johannes Brahms. Featuring Soyeon Kate Lee on the piano.

The live album release performance of Paola Prestini's new album - Ancient City.

The first of two evenings of innovative, genre-bending music by improvisational singer, avant-garde composer and bestselling author Tanya Tagaq (Ikaluktutiak, Cambridge Bay, Nunavut). A member of the Order of Canada, Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Award winner, Tagaq curates a special program of compositions performed by and with a number of long-time collaborators including Christine Duncan (improvisational singer and conductor), Jean Martin (drummer and electronic artist), Paola Prestini (classical music composer), and Jeffrey Zeigler (cello)

A new series co-produced by National Sawdust and The Metropolitan Opera that Navigates Questions of What Qualifies as Opera and Who Opera Is For Through Explorations of Modern Works

The Old Man and the Sea is a new multi-lingual opera from composer Paola Prestini, librettist Royce Vavrek and director Karmina Šilec based on and further inspired by the novel by Ernest Hemingway.

Montclair State University’s John J Cali School of Music showcases the music of their year long Artist in Residence and award-winning multimedia composer, Paola Prestini. The concert will be a retrospective portrait of her chamber and vocal work, alongside world premieres of new pieces by Cali School composers mentored by Prestini through a partnership with National Sawdust.

Keynote by composer Paola Prestini – Jan 18 01:00PM-02:00PM EST Plus Paola in conversation with ACF Executive Director Vanessa Rose and CMA President & CEO Kevin Kwan Loucks

SENSORIUM is a multi-modal arts project exploring fundamental questions of what it means to have voice,and the nature of voice beyond language.

The Old Man and the Sea is a new multi-lingual opera from composer Paola Prestini, librettist Royce Vavrek and director Karmina Šilec based on and further inspired by the novel by Ernest Hemingway.

Paola Prestini’s House of Zodiac will be performed by Jeffrey Zeigler at the annual LOUD Weekend with films by Murat Eyuboglu, Tarta Relena, and more! This event is presented by Bang on a Can and MASS MoCA.

The Sensorium Ex workshops at the Shed will focus on music as well as choreographer/stage direction for the lead characters Mem (mother) and Kitsune (child). Sensorium Ex is commissioned by VisionIntoArt and Beth Morrison Projects with support by the Ford Foundation. For more information, contact Ras at ras@visionintoart.com.

The Sensorium Ex workshops at the Shed will focus on music as well as choreographer/stage direction for the lead characters Mem (mother) and Kitsune (child). Sensorium Ex is commissioned by VisionIntoArt and Beth Morrison Projects with support by the Ford Foundation. For more information, contact Ras at ras@visionintoart.com.

VisionIntoArt and Beth Morrison Projects will be hosting a showing in progress at the Performance Space for Paola's opera Sensorium Ex, with libretto by Brenda Shaughnessy. Sensorium Ex is commissioned by VisionIntoArt and Beth Morrison Projects with support by the Ford Foundation. Please RSVP by reaching out to Paige at paige@visionintoart.com by May 22.

The Colorado, narrated by Mark Rylance, takes us on a journey through the prehistoric settlements of the region, European exploration, the dam-building era, modern industrial agriculture, and the impact of climate change. The Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, and composer-percussionist Glenn Kotche perform the film’s exhilarating score. The Colorado includes John Luther Adams, William Brittelle, Paola Prestini, Sarah Kirkland Snider and Shara Worden as composers.

A conversation with Murat Eyuboglu and composer Paola Prestini about their 5-year project on the Amazon; moderated by author William deBuys.

A spirited conversation between raconteur Paul Holdengräber and André Aciman– another Alexandria-born writer— will give insight into their years-long fascination with Cavafy, and why so many artists share this passionate interest in his work. This event is presented by McNally Jackson Bookstores.

Inspired by C. P. Cavafy’s poem “Ionic,” multidisciplinary genius Juliana Huxtable concludes the festival at National Sawdust with a “visual rave” in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Joe Heffernan and her band Tongue in the Mind. Music, spoken-word, visuals, and a nod to Greek legendary composer Lena Platonos will create a perfect paean to the performative nature of Cavafy’s work, and what is known as his “in-between” quality and essence. The evening will crescendo into a dance-party led by the Jamaican sonic disruptor DJ SHYBOI who recently sold out shows at MoMA PS1 and the Guggenheim.

The Onassis Foundation has commissioned a series of visual poems entitled Visual Cavafy, exploring the cinematic power of Cavafy’s language. Featured artists will include Taylor Mac; Julianne Moore; Carl Hancock Rux with Daniel Bernard Roumain, Bora Yoon, and Jeffrey Ziegler. Visual Cavafy showcases the work of directors Evi Kalogeropoulou, Elena Park, and Christos Sarris in collaboration with incarcerated individuals in Greece; creators Jad Abumrad and Mac Premo; and filmmakers/editors such as Justin Ervin, Steven E. Mallorca, and Pete Scalzitti. These films, which include works created both in New York, conceived and produced by Elena Park/Lumahai Productions, and in Greece by Onassis Stegi, will be shown in a public screening at the New Museum.

In Archive of Desire, Robin Coste Lewis, Julie Mehretu, Vijay Iyer, Jeffrey Zeigler, and Charlotte Brathwaite meditate collaboratively on the sensuality of C. P. Cavafy, diaspora, and the liminal spaces present everywhere in his work. The evening draws inspiration from Cavafy’s archive, processing the sonic, visual, and cultural tones found in his poetry through recitation, live music, electronics, and new visual work.

In Archive of Desire, Robin Coste Lewis, Julie Mehretu, Vijay Iyer, Jeffrey Zeigler, and Charlotte Brathwaite meditate collaboratively on the sensuality of C. P. Cavafy, diaspora, and the liminal spaces present everywhere in his work. The evening draws inspiration from Cavafy’s archive, processing the sonic, visual, and cultural tones found in his poetry through recitation, live music, electronics, and new visual work.

Death of Classical and The Alexander S. Onassis Benefit Foundation present Waiting for the Barbarians, a sprawling, one-night-only exploration of love, loss, lust, and longing centered around the timeless poetry of C.P. Cavafy, set to brand-new music by luminaries like Rufus Wainwright & Missy Mazzoli, Laurie Anderson, Helga Davis & Petros Klampanis, Nico Muhly, Paola Prestini, and more, accompanied by The Knights and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.

A symposium for poets from New York, Egypt and Greece will be held at Columbia University and led by professors Stathis Gourgouris (Columbia) and Karen Emmerich (Princeton), both members of the Cavafy Academic Committee that advised on the digitization of Cavafy’s archive. The title, Days of 2023, references Cavafy’s many works named “Days of,” with the year of their writing, or a date of reflection. Featured poets include Orfeas Apergis, Yiannis Doukas, Phoebe Giannisi, Katerina Iliopoulou (Greece); Haytham al-Wardani, Iman Mersal (Egypt); Janlori Goldman, Robin Coste Lewis, Brenda Shaughnessy (US). That evening, in the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, a free event will feature the poets performing either Cavafy poems in Greek and/or Arabic or new writing prepared for the occasion, paired with music by Sofía Avramidou, Marcos Balter, Zosha di Castri, Stylianos Dimou, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Lena Platonos, and Georgios Poniridis.

The Poetry Project will present of the neighborhood that I behold: a Cavafy Marathon. A five-hour event, titled by a line of text in the poem “In The Same Space,” will include readings by notable poets, writers, actors, activists, civic and community leaders and performances featuring music, dance and other interpretations. Celebrating the breadth of Cavafy’s work – his complex questions and reflections on diaspora, queerness, time, history, and memory through his exploration of the City in contrast to the State, this marathon format will serve as a many-voiced tapestry, weaving together narrative and civic identity; considering what we do within evolving communities through our inherited and shifting mythologies; and questioning what modes and methods of authorship shape our sense of place, origin, and future.

Lit, 2023 is a newly commissioned mural co-created by Nick Cave & Bob Faust for an exterior wall of Brooklyn’s National Sawdust. A billboard-scale expression of radical joy intended to refuel us on our way toward that more perfect society, the mural will make use of the cumulative powers of its visual components: Cavafy’s prescient words, an image of a Nick Cave soundsuit, and the facade of National Sawdust itself.

“Archive of Desire": A Festival Inspired by the Poet C.P. Cavafy will officially open at National Sawdust with the premiere of a performance by artist Sister Sylvester and musical artist Nadah El Shazly. Sister Sylvester will create handmade art-books to be read communally by the audience, inside of a live-score by El Shazly. The work is inspired by the blank and torn out pages in “Constantinopoliad, an Epic”, the journal Cavafy began when he and his family fled Alexandria to sail to Constantinople when the poet was just 18 years old, and by the poet’s erotic poems, where he meets with ghosts across time.

Curated by Paola, the festival assembles multi-genre events that engage with Cavafy’s poetry.

Walls is an interactive, audiovisual installation by artist Ali Santana that reimagines C. P. Cavafy's poem of the same title as an immersive, experimental Hip Hop experience. In this installation, participants must work together to solve an interactive rhythm poem. By activating a sequence of beats, rhythms and stanzas that combine key elements of Cavafy’s original poem, the installation is transformed into a wholly unique and expansive fractal world.

Ekphrasis is a video work and artistic research project devised by Matthew Niederhauser and Marc Da Costa that explores how poetry can illuminate the algorithmic systems that form the backdrop of our lives and, increasingly, shape what we feel and imagine. In the work, C. P. Cavafy's poetry becomes a filter and prompt to interrogate the visuality of today’s machine learning tools. These technologies are the magic sorcerers of the moment, spooking and exciting us, yet drawing their material not from a supernatural world beyond, but instead from the zeitgeist of images and text that live online.

Celebrated Cavafy scholar and a noted translator of his work Daniel Mendelsohn will engage in conversation with acclaimed poet Jana Prikryl on Cavafy’s stature as a “poet of the world,” which will consider the poet’s biography, the global influences on his work, as well as the art of translation, and the process of bringing his work into another place and time. This event is presented by McNally Jackson Bookstores.

This conversation, curated in partnership with the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, a historically queer space, welcomes poet Richie Hofmann and the museum’s Director of Curatorial Programs Stamatina Gregory to explore Cavafy’s identity as a gay writer, and his influence on generations of LGTBQIA+ writers, artists and thinkers. This event is presented by McNally Jackson Bookstores.

The cornerstone of National Sawdust's mentorship program, the Hildegard Commission is its program for emerging composers who are women or of other traditionally marginalized genders. This year's cohort of composers -- Andrea Guterres, Hannah Ishizaki, Yaz Lancaster, DM R, Kelley Sheehan and Foteini Tryferopoulou -- were given the works of the poet C.P. Cavafy to use as a source of inspiration for their commissions, and the resulting works will be available as a sonic installation for the month of April in a rink-level public space of Rockefeller Center. The soundscape features recordings of the new works by the National Sawdust Ensemble.

Composer and National Sawdust co-founder, Paola Prestini returns to MASS MoCA with a work-in-progress preview of her new opera Old Man and the Sea, created with Royce Vavrek and Karmina Šilec, that interweaves Hemingway’s classic fable with original portraits of quotidian life to create a look at aging, legacy, and our relationship to oceans. The evening will include an excerpt of the new work, followed by a conversation on stage with the principal creative team.

The one-of-a-kind performance, produced by VisionIntoArt and presented by Death of Classical in partnership with Carnegie Hall, will take place in the United Nations Headquarters, and will feature original works by Prestini and Herrera alongside classic songs from the Mexican and Jazz songbook.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, ALL ARTS showcases a myriad of leading female voices from an array of musical genres in its Women of Music Broadcast Marathon on ALL ARTS TV. This seven-hour event, which includes Paola Prestini's 'Jarful of Bees', is an eclectic celebration of women’s vast contributions to music.

Houses of Zodiac brings word, movement, music, and image together to illuminate from within the verses of four poets: Pablo Neruda, Brenda Shaughnessy, Natasha Trethewey and Anaïs Nin. Former Kronos Quartet member Jeffrey Zeigler performs the music of Paola Prestini, to which New City Ballet soloist “Rogue Ballerina” Georgina Pazcoguin and Butoh dancer and Sankai Juku member Dai Matsuoka bring their own choreographies. The latency of the poems is refracted through music, dance, and in some instances archival images.These multiple perspectives are curated into a cinematic experience by Murat Eyuboglu while the composite work draws inspiration from sources as diverse as the choreography of Samuel Beckett, the conceptual art of Sol LeWitt, the natural world and more. Created under the challenges of Covid-19 restrictions, Houses of Zodiac takes the form of a dialogue between the paradigmatically different traditions of butoh and ballet, presenting them first in their own spheres in Océano and Ophelia, then bringing them into conversation and counterpoint in the culminating Houses of Zodiac. Taking its cues from close readings of poetry, the choreography reflects on the themes of being, becoming, solitude, communion, and freedom.

Violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim presents an evening of contemporary pieces for solo violin that share a connection to dance at the University of Washington. The program includes the world premiere of Paola Prestini's 'A Jarful of Bees'.

The Swedish premiere of Paola Prestini's 'Barcarola', conducted by Speranza Scappucci. February 23 performance to be livestreamed.

Awadagin Pratt, winner of the Naumberg International Piano Competition and one of the country’s most accomplished pianists, is known for his powerful interpretations and engaging stage presence. His Southern Exposure program includes new works by pathbreaking composer Alvin Singleton, Philip Glass, Paola Prestini, Francois Couperin and Latvian composer Peteris Vasks

New Orleans Chamber Players is devoted to inspiring and enriching the lives of Gulf Coast audiences through the professional performance of exceptional small chamber music repertoire and conducted chamber ensemble. This program includes works by Paola Prestini, Stacy Garrop, Ezra Laderman, Pierre Jalbert, and Aaron Jay Kernis.

Sphinx Organization, the largest and longest-standing convening dedicated to diversity and inclusion in classical music, celebrates its 25th anniversary this season, anchored by its annual convening, SphinxConnect: Impact, and the Sphinx Competition in Detroit, MI, January 26-28, 2023.

Adding to the momentum of the January 2022 convening, advocates and architects of This Is A Movement share findings and offer perspectives on the continued work towards offsetting over 100 years of patriarchy in our jazz community. Featuring musicians Roxy Coss, Michele Rosewoman, Shanta Nurullah, Paola Prestini, and moderated by Niama Safia-Sandy.

Houses of Zodiac brings word, movement, music, and image together to illuminate from within the verses of four poets: Pablo Neruda, Brenda Shaughnessy, Natasha Trethewey and Anaïs Nin. Former Kronos Quartet member Jeffrey Zeigler performs the music of Paola Prestini, to which New City Ballet soloist “Rogue Ballerina” Georgina Pazcoguin and Butoh dancer and Sankai Juku member Dai Matsuoka bring their own choreographies. The latency of the poems is refracted through music, dance, and in some instances archival images.These multiple perspectives are curated into a cinematic experience by Murat Eyuboglu while the composite work draws inspiration from sources as diverse as the choreography of Samuel Beckett, the conceptual art of Sol LeWitt, the natural world and more.Created under the challenges of Covid-19 restrictions, Houses of Zodiac takes the form of a dialogue between the paradigmatically different traditions of butoh and ballet, presenting them first in their own spheres in Océano and Ophelia, then bringing them into conversation and counterpoint in the culminating Houses of Zodiac. Taking its cues from close readings of poetry, the choreography reflects on the themes of being, becoming, solitude, communion, and freedom.

Sensorium Ex has partnered with the Artscape Artsability Festival to bring a collaborative performance to the stage, where artists are able to share with intrigued audiences the magic of expression through the use of technology. The team is working with Artscape to identify performers from the local disability sector to fulfil some of the roles, including that of Kitsune and the Chorus.

Paola Prestini presents her multimedia project Houses of Zodiac: Poems for Cello , an immersive live / installation in which music, word, movement and image are combined to explore the intersection between mind body and nature. Alongside cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, filmmaker Murat Eyuboglu, New York City Ballet soloist Georgina Pazcoguin and Butoh dancer Dai Matsuoka, Prestini combines texts by Anaïs Nin, Pablo Neruda, Brenda Shaughnessy and Natasha Trethewey, unites the most disparate worlds and imaginaries and reflects on the themes of being, becoming, solitude, communion and freedom.

Rescheduled from January 2022, Voices of Ascension and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City perform The Glass Box, Paola Prestini’s gripping oratorio from 2018 about young refugees in Sweden afflicted by a coma-like condition. Voices will also give the world premiere of James Bassi’s Protect, a reflection on humanity’s collective struggles during the COVID-19 pandemic. The evening culminates in brilliance and victory with Haydn’s magnificent “Lord Nelson” Mass.

Anna Clyne, the Philharmonia’s Featured Composer, curates a free evening of chamber music by some of the most engaging composers working today. Paola Prestini’s 'G-force', dedicated to the memory of a friend and “a life fully lived”, combines the traditional textures of a string quartet with the otherworldly sound of the vibraphone.

Biking Through Time is a work written for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus inspired by Maria Popova's Brain Pickings. In this specific post, she compiled writings about the many things women could not do throughout time.

Paola Prestini, The Hotel That Time Forgot; Max Bruch, Violin Concerto featuring Concerto Competition winner Liyuan Xie; Robert Schumann, Symphony No.3

Edward Tulane is a toy rabbit who thinks of himself as quite exceptional. Content in his easy life, his world is upturned when he is separated from his loving family. Based on the best-seller by local author Kate DiCamillo. With Minnesota Opera and Mark Campbell.

Opera Philadelphia will present short film submissions, paired for their viewpoints on contemporary life, as part of their 'Shorts: Like, Share, Follow' program at Festival O22.

Join Death of Classical and pianist Inna Faliks for an evening of hundred-year-old music and how those works have inspired and fired the imaginations of three of today’s leading composers.

Inna Faliks breaks ground with the first full performance of nine social responses she commissioned on Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Op. 126 Bagatelles plus the original masterpieces.

Kicking off the season with a free concert at Iroquois Amphitheater, the Louisville Orchestra celebrates with a colorful program of symphonic music.

Boosting Stephen Sondheim’s legacy as a composer for all time, Anthony de Mare brings that songbook to solo piano with 50 inspirations at his fingertips, created by the likes of Jon Batiste, Steve Reich, Paola Prestini, and more.

Paola Prestini’s piano concerto Let Me See the Sun, which features trailblazing pianist Lara Downes. The concerto is about the human impulse to remain hopeful, and what it means to struggle towards clarity and light. The work is structured as a dialogue between piano and orchestra, at times contentious and at times unified.

Masterclass/seminar with Paola Prestini whose new work is part of the Stillpoint project. Young Artists from the Art of the Piano program will be playing for Paola and asking her questions. The public is invited to attend and listen.

Awadagin Pratt, celebrated pianist and conductor, explores the truth and beauty found within T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets through its sibling universe in music. Joined by composers Tyshawn Sorey, Paola Prestini, Peteris Vasks, Jessie Montgomery, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Alvin Singleton and Judd Greenstein, out-of-the-voice-box, super-group Roomful of Teeth and armed with seven newly composed works, Pratt embraces Eliot in a concert-length narrative that expresses an elemental truth…”at the still point of the turning world…there the dance is…and there is only the dance.”

Continuing the tradition of midday concerts established by Gian Carlo Menotti, the musicians of the Budapest Orchestra deliver a series of chamber performances at the Teatro Caio Melisso Spazio Carla Fendi. The programme of the morning concerts is a tribute to Gian Carlo Menotti, with a new transcription for voice and ensemble of the Canti della lontananza and pieces by contemporary composers.

Simone Dinnerstein joins forces with pianist-activist Lara Downes for a celebration of trailblazing American artists called “Variations on a Dream,” performed June 22. The concert includes the world premiere of the Oregon Bach Festival commission, “Let Me See the Sun,” from Paola Prestini.

This collaboration between composer Paola Prestini, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, Sankai Juku dancer Dai Matsuoka, New York City Ballet dancer Georgina Pazcoguin, and filmmaker Murat Eyuboglu explore the intersection of mind, body, and nature—themes mirrored in the recent artworks of Takashi Murakami which express his interests in spirituality and ecological and human-made disasters. Houses of Zodiac is a series of live cello solos and dance, with lush filmic visuals and poetic interludes by Pablo Neruda, Anaïs Nin, Brenda Shaughnessy, and Natasha Tretheway underscored by Zeigler along with musicians such as Nels Cline and Tanya Tagaq.

Monarch Brass will perform Paola's original composition 'Wave' at the International Trumpet Guild.

The European premiere of Paola Prestini's 'Barcarola', conducted by Speranza Scappucci.

This sweeping and inspiring new multi-media operatic work employs video projection, shadow puppetry, and cutting-edge stage craft to tell the story of Harold (Rinde Eckert); a man on his vibrant last adventure as he explores the allegory of time, youth and the peculiar magic of ordinary life.

In its west coast premiere, Aging Magician is a hauntingly beautiful hybrid of opera and theatre that combines opera, choral music, and puppetry, composed by Paola Prestini and produced by Beth Morrison Projects.

Under the direction of their founder Dianne Berkun Menaker the Brooklyn Youth Chorus has become one of the most inspiring, ambitious, and polished ensembles in the city. Singing music by Nathalie Joachim, Tania León, Paola Prestini, Olga Bell and Gity Razaz.

Orchestre Métropolitain performs Paola Prestini's 'Barcarola' alongside works by Debussy and Alma Mahler.

Magos Herrera and Paola Prestini will present the live Con Alma concert, which includes original works and selections from the Mexican and jazz songbook. The concert celebrates a groundbreaking journey from creating a digital work viewed by audiences around the world, to a live theatrical version.

Pianist Anthony de Mare performs a new work by Paola Prestini as part of the landmark commissioning and concert project Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano.

Magos Herrera and Paola Prestini will present the live Con Alma concert, which includes original works and selections from the Mexican and jazz songbook, at Palacio de Bellas Artes on March 26th. The concert celebrates a groundbreaking journey from creating a digital work viewed by audiences around the world, to a live theatrical version in Mexico City’s cultural center.

World premiere of 'Let the Wind Speak for Choir, Percussion and Cello' at Peabody Conservatory.

Pianist Inna Faliks performs new works from her album 'Reimagine: Beethoven and Ravel,' including Paola Prestini's 'Variations on a Spell'

AloneTogether comprises spoken word, poetry, sculpture, video art, music, and film and features 500 YPC choristers, 15 composers and songwriters, seven poets, three choreographers, and two filmmakers. Featuring a newly-commissioned work by Paola Prestini.

Beth Morrison Projects and National Sawdust present an audience-interactive and sensorial iteration of 21c Liederabend, featuring new works by Paola Prestini and others.

Halted by the pandemic, Minnesota Opera’s premiere of Edward Tulane was put on hold. Tune in for a virtual concert featuring choral highlights from Paola Prestini's opera based on the best-selling novel by Kate DiCamillo. Streaming begins December 13.

The Cramer Quartet premieres the Seven Last Words Project, featuring Paola Prestini's "It is finished," at the 5 Boroughs Music Festival.

The Cramer Quartet premieres the Seven Last Words Project, featuring Paola Prestini's "It is finished," at the 5 Boroughs Music Festival.

Paola Prestini will be joined by Copenhagen’s Enactlab to discuss their interdisciplinary arts, research, and community project centered around Prestini’s opera, Sensorium Ex, a multi-sensory narrative woven together at the intersections of disability and artificial intelligence.

Acclaimed Leipzig-based vocal sextet Sjaella performs Paola Prestini's 'A Triptych for Our Time'‍

World premiere with Tanya Tagaq from her new album with Saul Williams

Protestra performs Thrush Song by Paola Prestini

Acclaimed Leipzig-based vocal sextet Sjaella performs Paola Prestini's 'A Triptych for Our Time'‍

Acclaimed Leipzig-based vocal sextet Sjaella performs Paola Prestini's 'A Triptych for Our Time'‍

World premiere of "What the Silence Said," written by Marie Howe, composed by Paola Prestini, and performed by Nels Cline, Yuka C. Honda, and Jeffrey Zeigler.

"Thrush Song" with words by Maria Popova, performed in Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival's Series Concert Five, with Benjamin Rous, conductor; Rachel Calloway, soprano; Soovin Kim, violin; Aki Saulière, violin; Timothy Summers, viola; Raphael Bell, cello; I-Jen Fang, percussion.

Acclaimed Leipzig-based vocal sextet Sjaella performs Paola Prestini's 'A Triptych for Our Time'‍

World premiere of Allison Loggins-Hull's commissioning project Diametrically Composed, with mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran and pianist Gabriela Martinez, featuring works by Prestini and others

Acclaimed Leipzig-based vocal sextet Sjaella performs Paola Prestini's 'A Triptych for Our Time'

Presented by Death of Classical, the pre-release event for Houses of Zodiac: Poems for Cello (out September 10 on National Sawdust Tracks) includes a reception and spirits tasting, performances by Jeffrey Zeigler, readings of the poetry featured on the album, and an exclusive preview of the film and immersive video projections by Murat Eyuboglu, featuring dancers Georgina Pazcoguin and Dai Matsuoka.

This panel will explore the future of creative expression in the context of rapidly evolving technologies and economic, political, and social change.

America/Beautiful is a project by pianist and arts advocate Min Kwon, in which she has commissioned a diverse group of more than 70 of today’s leading American composers to each compose a variation on “America the Beautiful.” The series culminates in two live programs at Green-Wood Cemetery on July 8 and 9.

Paola Prestini and Beth Morrison present 21c Liederabend, Op. Worldwide (digital), the first installment of Contemplations from National Sawdust celebrating the institution's 5th anniversary

Episode 5 of the #ActiveHopePodcast discusses feminism and social justice, as well as beauty and aesthetics in partnership with the Apollo Theater and the Kennedy Center.

Episode 4 of the #ActiveHopePodcast discusses futurism in partnership with the Apollo Theater and the Kennedy Center.

Paola Prestini will be joined by composer Kamala Sankaram and sound artists Mendi and Keith Obadike to discuss online programming and classical music in the digital age. American Composers Orchestra president Melissa Ngan will moderate.

Influential opera director Yuval Sharon will join Paola Prestini to discuss arts leadership in times of change, the future of performance and the operatic form, collaborating with artists and creating safe spaces for all.

Performance by the Thalea Quartet

Episode 3 of the #ActiveHopePodcast discusses borders live in partnership with the Apollo Theater and the Kennedy Center.