Press Features

December 20, 2020

Q & A: Paola Prestini & Magos Herrera on Recording ‘Con Alma’

On Dec. 4, Paola Prestini and Magos Herrera released “Con Alma,” an album recorded remotely between March and October 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OperaWire
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December 11, 2020

Making Music In - And About - Pandemic Isolation

Most of us have experienced some sense of isolation during the pandemic, and that shared hardship inspired two New York based artists to create an album.

WNYC
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December 9, 2020

To create art about a pandemic, these musicians teamed up from afar

Composer Paola Prestini, based in New York, and singer-songwriter Magos Herrera, currently in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, created the album, titled Con Alma, while separated due to virus-related restrictions.

Fast Company
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December 8, 2020

Paola Prestini and Magos Herrera create music, community in isolation

When friends Paola Prestini and Magos Herrera came together to create the album “Con Alma,” the two composers closed the geographical gap between them by drawing on their 15-year-long friendship.

WNET All Arts
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December 7, 2020

Stopping by with Paola Prestini

Paola Prestini has collaborated with poets, filmmakers, and scientists in large-scale multimedia works that chart her interest in extra-musical themes ranging from the cosmos to the environment.

Poetry Society of America
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November 26, 2020

Paola Prestini on musical collaboration in isolation

Ahead of the premiere of her new work Con Alma, Paola talks about the joy of exploring and combining styles. Pandemic or no pandemic, New York retains a remarkable cadre of composers...but chief among these is the singular figure of Paola Prestini.

Financial Times
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November 7, 2020

Composer Paola Prestini believes in ‘connecting through music’

Some composers hold full-time teaching posts. Others, like Thomas Adès or Esa-Pekka Salonen, maintain major conducting careers. But Paola Prestini offers a third model that seems very much of our time: along with being an award-winning composer, she has developed an equally significant career as an arts entrepreneur.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
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September 30, 2020

Paola Prestini And The Birth of Classical Music’s New Way Forward

Her music is proof against anyone who says that classical music has nowhere left to go, nothing left to say, and nobody left to engage. She produces music which seamlessly mixes genres in support of the telling of stories that classical music has not traditionally given voice to.

Women You Should Know
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August 18, 2020

What Does the 19th Amendment Mean to You? (Part 1)

The 19th Amendment is the beginning of a conversation surrounding equity, something that we are still fighting for today. Over the past twenty years of my career, I’ve tried to be part of the progress in our field, and as a composer, I work to define my life as one that is composed of music, service, and action.

I Care If You Listen
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August 3, 2020

Paola featured in The Met Guild podcast 'Opera in the New Millennium'

As part of Metropolitan Opera Guild's 'Opera in the New Millennium' podcast, Paola joined lecturers Naomi Barrettara and Elspeth Davis and composers Missy Mazzoli and Kevin Puts to learn more about their work as contemporary opera composers from a live panel discussion originally recorded in 2017.

Performance Today
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July 22, 2020

National Sawdust's Paola Prestini on the Process of building space and community

As National Sawdust began construction to build its warehouse home in Williamsburg, it also embarked on establishing a community of artists and music lovers.

All Arts
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June 15, 2020

Artist As Leader: Paola Prestini

While studying composition at the Juilliard School, Paola Prestini was eager to create the kind of boundary-blurring, collaborative pieces that didn’t have a place on the noted conservatory’s curriculum.

Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts
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June 9, 2020

Paola Prestini Is Forming a Piece of the Solution

How do artists work within the parameters of the pandemic and how can organizations support artists in this moment of crisis? These are the questions that composer and National Sawdust’s artistic director, Paola Prestini, is asking. Prestini joined Classical Post for an interview on May 19 to discuss.

Classical Post
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May 27, 2020

Thrush Song: A Stunning Harmonic Tribute to Rachel Carson’s Courage by Composer Paola Prestini and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City

Paola reimagined “Thrush Song” as a wondrous harmonic serenade to Carson’s courage, working with a constellation of young women from the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, rehearsing and performing remotely in a world stilled and stunned by a global pandemic — a poignant meta-testament to Carson’s legacy.

Brain Pickings
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May 26, 2020

The Art Of Recovery: How Artists Are Grappling With The Covid-19 Pandemic

When concerts, performances, shows and events ground to a halt this spring, the dust that arose enveloped the art world in uncertainty.

All Arts
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