Winter Season
National Sawdust’s second winter of operation sees the influential new Brooklyn venue brimming over with a full schedule including VIA’s fourth FERUS Festival, opera, new series, and curated performances. Additionally, a month-long Spring Revolution festival explores female empowerment and cultural dialogue, and the calendar is rounded out with world premieres, composer showcases, and guest artists, including an appearance by Russian feminist group Pussy Riot.
The New American Songbook
January 11, 2017 - 7:00pm The quarterly web magazine for experimental music, Sound American, moves from the text to the sonic in order to answer the question: “What does a truly modern American Songbook sound like?”
Bluegrass Situation: Michael Daves Plays Orchids and Violence
March 23, 2017 - 7:00pm The Bluegrass Situation is thrilled to partner with National Sawdust for a series of intimate performances featuring some of today's best modern roots acts. The first concert in this series will feature Grammy-nominated guitarist and singer Michael Daves.
Lost Spring
March 3, 2017 - 7:00pm One hundred years after the Armenian Genocide, a mother must explain this troubled history to her daughter. But how does one explain inhuman cruelty to innocence itself? Mixing theater, dance, and live music, and further brought to life by the visuals of artist Kevork Mourad, this multi-disciplinary creation is the poetic journey of a woman in quest of her history, in quest of meaning, in quest of a lost spring…
The Passionate Pilgrim Deluxe
June 3, 2017 - 7:00pm The Passionate Pilgrim” is a song cycle co-written by composer-performer collective Oracle Hysterical (Elliot Cole, Majel Connery and Doug and Brad Balliett). In this collaboration with baroque period ensemble, New Vintage Baroque, “The Passionate Pilgrim” brings an all-but-forgotten poem cycle back to life, reimagined as tuneful Baroque pop.
Turquoise Lake, featuring Humayun Khan and Douglas J. Cuomo
March 12, 2017 - 4:00pm Humayun Khan and Douglas J. Cuomo have formed Turquoise Lake, an eight-piece ensemble of musicians from a variety of improvisational traditions to create music that blends the raga tradition of North India and Afghanistan, Farsi poetry of the great Sufi masters, and Afghan folk melodies and ghazals, with western jazz and rock styles.
The Thurber Theater: Michael Thurber’s 30th Birthday Concert
January 7, 2017 - 10:00pm Celebrate Michael Thurber's 30th birthday with a concert featuring music by Thurber and guest performers from different musical traditions. The audience will hear performers from the Classical and Jazz worlds as well as the Pop and Broadway worlds.
Bridging the Gap IV
April 30, 2017 - 7:00pm Composers from the Yale School of Music: William Gardiner, Paul Kerekes, David Lang, Hannah Lash, Daniel Schlosberg, and Christopher Theofanidis.
Bridging the Gap V
June 04, 2017 - 7:00pm Featuring music by Robert Sirota, Jonathan Bailey Holland, and Angel Lam.
James Rhodes
February 8, 2017 - 7:00pm Immortal piano music by history's finest composers performed in an intimate setting with the lights down low and an opportunity to disappear and escape from the world for an hour and a half. Along with a few jokes. And a bit of historical context.
Josh Green & The Cyborg Orchestra
March 2, 2017 - 10:00pm Josh Green & The Cyborg Orchestra will take on full-blooded human form for the live debut and release of their irreverent album, Telepathy & Bop — a quirky, colorful, approach to melding modern jazz and contemporary classical music.
Sxip Shirey presents: Trevor Wishart
March 25, 2017 - 6:30pm Encounters is an 8-channel sound-surround piece based on speaking voices recorded in the North East of England where Trevor Wishart was A.C.E. Composer-in-Residence from October 1st, 2006 to September 2009, based at the University of Durham. The piece is constructed in 4 Acts of approximately 20 minutes each, combining portraits of individual speakers (accompanied by sounds and imaginary instruments derived from the voices themselves) with computer animation of the entire community of voices - speech that waltzes, speech that locks in harmony, clouds of speech that circle the audience, culminating with speech that transforms into song. The piece was finally completed on January 1st 2011.
Timo Andres Presents: Work Songs
March 18, 2017 - 7:00pm "Inspired by old American parlor songs, I've written a set of “Work Songs” on the general subject of artists writing about their work." -Timo Andres
Ted Hearne: New Songs
March 17, 2017 - 7:00pm Singer-composer Ted Hearne premieres an intimate and ecstatic collection of vocal music, accompanied by a band of longtime friends and new collaborators.
Alternative Guitar Summit 2017: Guitars of Heaven, Guitars of Hell
March 15, 2017 - 7:00pmFounded and produced by Joel Harrison and Life Force Arts, The "Summit" is a yearly gathering of some of the most creative guitarists on earth.
ETHEL’s HomeBaked Round III
March 8, 2017 - 7:00pm The musically omnivorous string quartet ETHEL, whom The New York Times has described as “indefatigable and eclectic” and The New Yorker has deemed “vital and brilliant,” returns to National Sawdust to present the third chapter of ETHEL’s HomeBaked project. With its focus on emerging NYC-based composers, the project, which began in 2010, has already produced eight compositions, many of which have entered the quartet’s repertoire.
Bridging the Gap III
March 5, 2017 - 7:00pm Featuring music by Philip Glass, Paola Prestini, and John Zorn.
Women in Music: A Tribute to Mercedes Sosa
March 2, 2017 - 7:00pm Magos Herrera brings together an international line up to celebrate the life and music of the iconic Latin American singer Mercedes Sosa.
Spring Revolution: Amanda Gookin
March 1, 2017 - 7:00pm The Forward Music Project is driven by social justice for women. We musicians, now more than ever, have an incredible ability to effect change in our communities. The seven FMP composers were commissioned to write pieces based on their personal story or a particular issue that affects women and girls. The compositions are stylistically contrasting and represent the vast definition of what it means to be a woman, ranging from empowerment and issues of the LGBTQ+ community, to reproductive rights, and violence against women. A visceral experience, the composers require that she embodies the spirit of their message mentally, emotionally, and physically. In performance Amanda sings, chants, breathes, and sweats life into these works.
Sxip Shirey Presents: Baby Dee
February 23, 2017 - 7:00pm One of the industry's most incredible musical discoveries of the last decade, Baby Dee is an enchanting song writer, classically trained harpist, circus sideshow veteran, and west side street legend Her infectious cackle and extraordinary talent on piano, harp and accordion has caught her many musical admirers including Will Oldham, Matt Sweeney, Maxim Moston, and Andrew WK, all of whom have produced unique and magnificent albums for her.
Attacca Quartet: Recently Added
February 19, 2017 - 7:00pm First Prize winners of the 7th Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in 2011, top prizewinners and Listeners’ Choice Award recipients in the 2011 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, and winners of the Alice Coleman Grand Prize at the 60th annual Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition in 2006, the internationally acclaimed Attacca Quartet has become one of America’s premier young performing ensembles.
James Rhodes
February 4, 2017 - 7:00pm Immortal piano music by history's finest composers performed in an intimate setting with the lights down low and an opportunity to disappear and escape from the world for an hour and a half. Along with a few jokes. And a bit of historical context.
BMP Presents: Sound from the Bench
February 3, 2017 - 7:00pm A single sentence from the Iraq War Logs, wealth distribution and privilege, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and the 2013 case of rape by high school students in Steubenville, Ohio: inspirations all for the music of Ted Hearne.
Ritz Chamber Series Vol. 1
January 29, 2017 - 4:00pm THE RITZ CHAMBER PLAYERS is hailed by the e Baltimore Sun as “one of the most interesting and dynamic ensembles to emerge in recent years.” Boasting some of the world’s preeminent musicians spanning the African diaspora, it brings a fresh, new energy to the classical music genre.
Michael Gordon / Rushes Ensemble
January 26, 2017 - 7:00pm Composed for seven bassoons, Rushes takes its place alongside Michael Gordon’s Timber for expanding the boundaries of a single instrument’s repertoire into unknown (and at times, otherworldly) spaces. Like Timber, which maps new percussive territory for the simantra—a simple two-by-four slab of wood, amplified and played in a group of six to yield trance-like sonic textures—Rushes brings out tonal and timbral aspects of the bassoon that are meant to induce a quasi-meditative, almost ecstatic state, in the listener as well as the performer.
Ferus Festival: Revert to Sea (Yuka C. Honda)
January 6, 2017 - 10:00pm National Sawdust artist-in-residence Yuka C. Honda presents a brand new multimedia work-in-progress based on the writings of Japanese author Ryu Murakami. Murakami, while not well known in the United States, is one of Japan’s most celebrated and iconic living literary figures.
Prototype Presents: Funeral Doom Spiritual
January 13, 2017 - 10:00pm Funeral Doom Spiritual is a song of mourning for what Anthony Paul Farley calls “the motionless movement of death through slavery, segregation, and neo-segregation.” This new monodrama composed by M. Lamar and Hunter Hunt-Hendrix draws on themes of apocalypse, end times, and rapture found in Negro Spirituals, what Lamar calls “Doom Spirituals.”
A Mouth is Not for Talking: La voix humaine
March 10, 2017 - 7:00pm In this theatrical concert, Poulenc and Cocteau’s cautionary tale La voix humaine receives a reflective update when paired with world premiere songs from Forrest Pierce’s The Burning Harp, set to texts of Rumi. Soprano Laura Bohn and pianist Mila Henry’s dual conversation forces listeners to ask: in this age of technology, can we connect with others without losing ourselves?
Ferus Festival: Sxip Shirey’s A Bottle of Whiskey and a Handful of Bees
January 9, 2017 - 7:00pm National Sawdust’s in-house record label VIA Records celebrates its release of the new album by composer, producer, interdisciplinary performer, and NS curator Sxip Shirey.
Prototype Presents: Funeral Doom Spiritual
January 14, 2017 - 7:00pm Funeral Doom Spiritual is a song of mourning for what Anthony Paul Farley calls “the motionless movement of death through slavery, segregation, and neo-segregation.” This new monodrama composed by M. Lamar and Hunter Hunt-Hendrix draws on themes of apocalypse, end times, and rapture found in Negro Spirituals, what Lamar calls “Doom Spirituals.”
Prototype Presents: Funeral Doom Spiritual
January 14, 2017 - 10:00pm Funeral Doom Spiritual is a song of mourning for what Anthony Paul Farley calls “the motionless movement of death through slavery, segregation, and neo-segregation.” This new monodrama composed by M. Lamar and Hunter Hunt-Hendrix draws on themes of apocalypse, end times, and rapture found in Negro Spirituals, what Lamar calls “Doom Spirituals.”
Bridging the Gap II
January 22, 2017 - 4:00pm Featuring composers from the Yale School of Music: Martin Bresnick, Michael Gilberston, Balint Karosi, and Aaron Jay Kernis.
Ferus Festival: Requiem for: A Tuesday
January 7, 2017 - 7:00pm Requiem for: A Tuesday is a theatrical concert that takes the form of a ceremony in which those assembled are invited to overcome fear by looking to each other. In this ceremony, music opens up a space for the audience to witness and thus face collective and individual notions of mortality and fear. By taking part in such an act, the assembled will perhaps understand that these actions are universal and thus fear of the other is not necessary as there is, in fact, no other
New York Philharmonic Presents: Contact!
January 23, 2017 - 7:30pm Celebrating its 175th Anniversary season and the city that has shaped its history and guides its future, the New York Philharmonic returns to National Sawdust this spring with two programs focusing on composers who have called New York home. From revered figures such as Carter and Druckman, to major voices of today such as David Lang and Steve Mackey, to newer voices such as Zosha di Castri and David Fulmer, the musicians of the New York Philharmonic present a snapshot of New York past, present and future.
Late Night at National Sawdust: a Live Radio Broadcast Vol. 1
January 20, 2017 - 10:00pm Returning audiences to the glory days of live radio broadcasts, Late Night at National Sawdust is a collaboration between Open G Records and Access Contemporary Music on a quarterly concert series airing live on Relevant Tones, the world’s only weekly syndicated contemporary music radio program.
Ferus Festival: The Afield / Nelson Patton with Lonnie Holley
January 6, 2017 - 7:00pm This evening features a split bill of musicians who are expanding the notions of visual and textual storytelling within musical performance.
Prototype Presents: Funeral Doom Spiritual
January 13, 2017 - 7:00pm Funeral Doom Spiritual is a song of mourning for what Anthony Paul Farley calls “the motionless movement of death through slavery, segregation, and neo-segregation.” This new monodrama composed by M. Lamar and Hunter Hunt-Hendrix draws on themes of apocalypse, end times, and rapture found in Negro Spirituals, what Lamar calls “Doom Spirituals.”
Philip Glass @ 80 – The Complete Etudes with Maki Namekawa
February 24, 2017 - 7:00pm Following studies at the Kunitachi Music University in Tokyo, Maki Namekawa pursued advanced work under Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the Musikhochschule in Cologne as well as studies with Werner Genuit and Kaya Han at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe and Stefan Litwin in Saarbrücken.
yMusic: Freshly-Minted
February 5, 2017 - 3:00pm Hailed by NPR’s Fred Child as “one of the groups that has really helped to shape the future of classical music,” yMusic is a group of six New York City instrumentalists flourishing in the overlap between the pop and classical worlds. Their virtuosic execution and unique configuration (string trio, flute, clarinet, and trumpet) has attracted the attention of high profile collaborators—from Ben Folds to Dirty Projectors to Jose Gonzalez—and inspired an expanding repertoire of original works by some of today’s foremost composers, including Nico Muhly and Andrew Norman.
National Sawdust+ /ˈəntrəpē/ Mickalene Thomas + Terri Lyne Carrington
February 28, 2017 - 7:30pm Acclaimed Brooklyn-based distinguished international artist and filmmaker Mickalene Thomas, a 2015 United States Artists Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz fellow, turns her gaze from her arresting, often glittering and provocative mixed-media work to present /ˈentrəpē/ , a collaboration of music and art with three-time Grammy Award-winning jazz musician, Terri Lyne Carrington.
Doug Fitch’s Art Gallery Variety Show
March 3, 2017 - 10:00pm This being the first edition of Doug Fitch’s Art Gallery Variety Show, we begin in the bubble of comfort of our own little room – so nice to come home to – only to find certain outside influences more pernicious and pugnacious than one might have envisioned. The demons of disingenuity are swarming about, filling the void with fallacious authenticity and threatening our exceptionalist contentment. Following a story-esque through-line presented in songful vignettes and other musical vehicles, some of the city’s most talented performers and cultural barometers inhabit National Sawdust, offering uplift in this downful time.
Theo Bleckmann presents Skúli Sverrisson: Sería
February 2, 2017 - 7:00pm Layers of pulsating strings. Streams of cinematic texture. Expanses of heartfelt melody. These are all aspects of the musical world of Skúli Sverrisson, a twenty-first century virtuoso composer and multi-instrumentalist from Iceland who has united broad swaths of contemporary music into a unique personal language.
Glass @ 80: Philip Glass & Foday Musa Suso with Jeffrey Zeigler
March 12, 2017 - 7:00pm Known for his hypnotic performances of traditional Kora (Harp/Lute) music, as well as his cutting edge musical encounters, Kora virtuoso Foday Musa Suso is a direct descendent of Jalimadi Wulen Suso, the inventor of the Kora.
