About the Show
Don your fabulous space suits! Heartbeat Opera presents its third annual Benefit Drag Extravaganza for one spectacular night of eye-popping fashion, divalicious coloraturas, and galactic Halloween revelries. Praised as “radical,” “fiery,” and “boisterous” by The New Yorker, Heartbeat brings opera into the twenty-first century – creating new adaptations and orchestrations and designing visceral encounters between artists and audiences. Join us in interstellar-baroque costumes and expect a mind-blowing journey through outer space … with Mozart!
Opera programming at NS is supported in part by a generous gift from Alberto Cribiore.
Food and drink will be available
Other Fall Highlights
A ‘Winterreise’ for the 21st Century Showcase
December 14, 2016 - 7:00pm Original texts by Wilhelm Müller – just as Schubert used. New music by Dutch composer Boudewijn Tarenskeen (who received the most prestigious Dutch Composers’ Prize Matthijs Vermeulen Prijs in 2009)
Theo Bleckmann & Shai Maestro: All Souls in the Dark
November 03, 2016 - 7:00pm Vocalist Theo Bleckmann and pianist Shai Maestro are performing “All Souls in the Dark”: turn off your cell phones, lay down, close your eyes and immerse yourself in the sounds, melodies and landscapes of these two master musicians in complete darkness. This is a refuge from the hectic and overstimulation we live in daily; a musical meditation of sorts. Pillows will be provided.
Birdman Live Scoring
November 5, 2016 - 7:00pm Experience the explosive Oscar winning FILM BIRDMAN, accompanied LIVE by composer Antonio Sanchez with his Grammy Award winning score that provides the heartbeat of the film. The Oscar winner for Best Picture by maverick director Alejandro Inarritu stars Michael Keaton as a washed-up action star trying to reinvent his career as a credible actor and director on the Broadway stage. For this special performance, the film will be accompanied live by renowned jazz drummer Antonio Sanchez playing his electric, GRAMMY winning score.
Birdman Live Scoring
November 5, 2016 - 10:00pm Experience the explosive Oscar winning FILM BIRDMAN, accompanied LIVE by composer Antonio Sanchez with his Grammy Award winning score that provides the heartbeat of the film. The Oscar winner for Best Picture by maverick director Alejandro Inarritu stars Michael Keaton as a washed-up action star trying to reinvent his career as a credible actor and director on the Broadway stage. For this special performance, the film will be accompanied live by renowned jazz drummer Antonio Sanchez playing his electric, GRAMMY winning score.
R.B. Schlather Presents: Ariodante Workshop Performance
December 21, 2016 - 7:00pm Open workshop of Handel’s Ariodante. Directed R.B. Schlather; Conducted by Geoffrey McDonald. Composed in 1734 by George Frideric Handel.
AdHoc Presents: Xylouris White
November 18, 2016 - 10:00pm When Xylouris White recorded their second album, this most intuitive and inquisitive of duos did what comes naturally to them: expanded their horizons. For George Xylouris, the Cretan lute player who partners here with the Dirty Three’s preternaturally fluent Australian drummer Jim White, one aim was to extend a core metaphor of their ruggedly visionary debut album, 2014’s Goats. “Like goats walking in the mountain” is Xylouris’ poetic analogy for their approach: “They may not know the place, but they can walk easily and take risks and feel comfortable. Really, the goats inspired us.”
NYFOS Next: Christopher Cerrone & Friends
December 8, 2016 - 7:00pm Hailed as "a rising star" by The New Yorker and winner of the 2015 Samual Barber Rome Prize, Christopher Cerrone is a Brooklyn-based composer whose compositional voice is characterized by profoundly expressive lyricism, ringing clarity, and deep literary fluency. His opera Invisible Cities, based on Italo Calvino's classic novel was praised by The Los Angeles Times as "a delicate and beautiful opera...[which] could be, and should be, done anywhere."
NYFOS Next, the "invaluable contemporary-music series" (The New Yorker), offers today's song composers an opportunity to curate a program of their work alongside that of their peers, students, and mentors.
NYFOS Next, the "invaluable contemporary-music series" (The New Yorker), offers today's song composers an opportunity to curate a program of their work alongside that of their peers, students, and mentors.
ECM Records: Sun of Goldfinger
December 3, 2016 - 7:00pm The mercurial trio comprising saxophonist Tim Berne, drummer Ches Smith and guitarist David Torn explores the edges of the genre, infusing it with perspectives ranging from the minimalist to the cinematic to the metallic. The improvisation-based group effortlessly, seamlessly shifts from atmospheres into shattering mayhem to thrilling effect.
National Sawdust and Manhattan School of Music Present: The House Taken Over
October 9, 2016 - 8:00pm An opera based on the 1946 short story by Argentine writer Julio Cortázar featuring a score by composer Vasco Mendonça. It tells the story of a brother and sister living together in their ancestral home which is being "taken over" by unknown entities. Directed by Artist-in-Residence R.B. Schlather, The House Taken Over starts in a realist manner, slowly introducing a scene in which natural laws are distorted within a unique 4-D set.
National Sawdust and Manhattan School of Music Present: The House Taken Over
October 7, 2016 - 8:00pm An opera based on the 1946 short story by Argentine writer Julio Cortázar featuring a score by composer Vasco Mendonça. It tells the story of a brother and sister living together in their ancestral home which is being "taken over" by unknown entities. Directed by Artist-in-Residence R.B. Schlather, The House Taken Over starts in a realist manner, slowly introducing a scene in which natural laws are distorted within a unique 4-D set.
Bresnick@70
November 6, 2016 - 7:00pm A celebration of Martin Bresnick's 70th birthday. Featuring performances from the Red Clay Saxophone Quartet, Taimur Sullivan, Benjamin Verdery, Lisa Moore, New Morse Code and more.
Jeff McErlain Presents: A Night Of The Delta Blues With CeDell Davis And His Band
October 20, 2016 - 7:00pm The blues is one of the great American contributions to world. It reaches down to the heart of the human condition in the most direct way and transcends all boundaries. It is the truth and we know it when we hear it. We are lucky enough to have some of these original blues artist still with us to share the music in it’s purest form. CeDell Davis is one of those artists. At 90 years old he is living history. I am very excited to bring CeDell Davis to National Sawdust for this very special performance.
