PORT(AL) is an innovative choral theater experience that delves into the history of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, exploring its past as a bustling port and its evolution within the ever-changing tides of the city. Like a river carrying whispers of forgotten stories, the acclaimed Brooklyn Youth Chorus guides audiences through a confluence of song, movement, and immersive storytelling. Co-created by a team of renowned artists including Dianne Berkun Menaker, Paola Prestini, Jad Abumrad, and Jessica Grindstaff, PORT(AL) invites you to navigate the currents of time, where the echoes of history, the realities of the present, and the dreams of the future converge.

Premiered to sold-out performances at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Cloisters in New York City in January 2025, Primero Sueño is a processional opera, co-created by Paola Prestini, Magos Herrera and Louisa Proske, bringing to life the mythical poem of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz - a 17th-century poet, scholar, and nun from Mexico, and one of the most enduring and influential writers of her era. She is also recognized as one of the first feminists of Latin America. Now beginning its world tour, the Primero Sueño opera was released as a digital album in October 2025 and is streaming on all platforms. Commissioned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Live Arts (MetLiveArts) and VisionIntoArt (VIA).

Sensorium Ex is a groundbreaking new opera that explores the intersections of artificial intelligence (AI), disability, and the arts. Composed by Paola Prestini with a libretto by Brenda Shaughnessy, it features a predominantly disabled cast and a dystopian story about a mother and her nonverbal child. The opera uses custom-designed AI tools, developed with NYU's Ability Lab, to expand the expressive potential of voice for minimally verbal individuals. The visionary production pushes the boundaries of what it means to have a voice, paving the way for future artists with disabilities. Premiered May 2025, Sensorium Ex is by librettist Brenda Shaughnessy and acclaimed composer Paola Prestini, co-directed by Jerron Herman and Jay Scheib, with music direction by Elizabeth Askren. It is Commissioned by VisionIntoArt in association with Beth Morrison Projects and Common Senses Festival. Developed and Produced by VisionIntoArt and Beth Morrison Projects. Electronics produced by Sxip Shirey.

Sensorium Ex was developed and presented with support from the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Doris Duke Foundation, Jill and Bill Steinberg, National Sawdust, the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation with additional support provided by the Allen R and Judy Brick Freedman Venture Fund for New Music, Creative Capital, Alphadyne Foundation, Achelis & Bodman Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, the Atlantic Opera, the National Endowment for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts. 

Set within a Mennonite community in northern Mexico, the opera follows a pious husband and father, Johan, who’s strongly held spiritual obligation to his marriage, family, and community is put to the test when he falls in love with another woman from his faith. Premiered at National Sawdust in September 2024, Silent Light is a chamber opera with composition by Paola Prestini, libretto by Royce Vavrek, direction/design/concept by Thaddeus Strassberger and foley by Sxip Shirey. Commissioned by the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, National Sawdust and VisionIntoArt. Finalist for Best World Premiere at the 2025 International Opera Awards.

Based on the Ernest Hemingway 1952 novella, this innovative adaptation of The Old Man and the Sea is the result of a collaboration between illustrious composer Paola Prestini, librettist Royce Vavrek, and conductor and stage director Karmina Šilec. Breathtakingly staged with eight pools of water enhanced with dynamic lighting, costumes, and sound, the performance combines the Hemingway text with original portraits of everyday life to create a look at aging, legacy, and our relationship to the ocean. Onstage you’ll hear music from longtime collaborators and muses of Prestini’s including Jeffrey Zeigler, and the cast brings to life the book’s pivotal characters: Santiago, Manolin, and the wife, rewritten as La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, a goddess in the Afro-Caribbean faith Santería found floating off the coast of Cuba in 1628. Direction by Karmina Šilec, libretto by Royce Vavrek, choreographer Sidra Bell and designer Dorian Silec, produced by Beth Morrison Projects, developed at Mass Moca. Electronics produced by and co-composed by Sxip Shirey. Commissioned by Arizona State University and Carolina Performing Arts.

Houses of Zodiac is a sprawling, multidisciplinary masterwork by composer Paola Prestini, praised by the Wall Street Journal as an artist "known for pushing the boundaries of classical music." Prestini's expansive composition is brought to life by Jeffrey Zeigler (formerly of the Kronos Quartet) on solo cello, and co choreographers and dancers Georgina Pazcoguin (former New York City Ballet soloist) and Dai Matsuoka (Butoh dance master of Sankai Juku), as they move through some and space unfolding an emotionally-charged story of love, creation, guilt, and emancipation.  The work is site specific, and has been done at The Broad, Mass MoCA, Green-wood Cemetery, RomaEuropa, and can be designed for any space.

"One of the greatest and most ambitious solo cello albums of all time."

– Strings Magazine