On a perfect summer night in 2012, the keening of a clarinet ricocheted off the century-old walls of a roofless sawdust factory and plumed out into the streets of Williamsburg. It was the first audible intimation of an unlikely dream: a tiny high-tech clubhouse where composers, musical adventurers, and classical-music performers could make as much noise as they wanted 24 hours a day. Three years, $16 million, and untold sleepless nights later, that brick shell enfolds a new hall and a new organization: National Sawdust. It’s the sort of place that makes a new-music aficionado want to bring a sleeping bag and move in for a few weeks.
There’s nothing else quite like it in New York. Establishment venues like Zankel Hall have welcomed composers, the 28-year-old organization Bang on a Can has colonized virtually every concert space in the city, and (Le) Poisson Rouge has found a winning combination of eclectic programming, casual atmosphere, and poor acoustics. But new music has never had its own miniature Carnegie Hall, a space explicitly designed for musical experimentation.
