Anna Heflin
|
June 9, 2020

Paola Prestini Is Forming a Piece of the Solution

Anna Heflin
|
June 9, 2020

Paola Prestini Is Forming a Piece of the Solution

Anna Heflin
|
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.

NATIONAL SAWDUST

National Sawdust is a staple of Brooklyn’s contemporary music scene. Due to COVID-19, they had to let go of the majority of their staff and cut the National Sawdust Log. This thriving live venue has pivoted into an online home for the music and art community which is home to their Digital Discovery Festival, Masterclass Series, and The New Works Commission. The entire Digital Discovery Festival is underwritten by the Alphadyne Foundation.

WORKING IN THE LIVESTREAM MEDIUM

High quality audio is imperative to livestreams and creating this content requires training and money. “In this phase in the Digital Discovery Festival we’re trying to make it look good and focusing on sound. Our technical engineer Charles is letting artists know that we have grants for mics and is training musicians on how to use zoom and mics,” says Prestini. “You don’t train as an instrumentalist your whole life to be compressed into single channel audio. We’re doing the best with the technologies we have knowing that they will likely be improving.”

One might imagine that Prestini would be more comfortable than most working with Zoom as her Hubble Cantata currently stands as the largest shared virtual reality experience to date. But creating works intended for livestream as a medium sets up completely different parameters. “When you’re creating in those parameters of VR you’re not creating a choir out of a single feed,” says Prestini. “This has set up a completely different parameter: how do you make chamber music when you’re all in different places?”

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