Press Features

February 9, 2016

Cutting-Edge Concertos

Entrepreneurialism has become a byword among classical musicians lately, but few have mastered the art of founding a business upon creativity as deftly as the composer Paola Prestini. Ms. Prestini, 40, started VisionIntoArt, her multimedia production company, when she was still a student at the Juilliard School, in 1999.

The Wall Street Journal

January 16, 2016

The Exuberant “Epiphany: the Cycle of Life” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music

In “Epiphany: the Cycle of Life” video artist Ali Hossaini, composer Paola Prestini, librettist Niloufar Talebi and choral master Francisco Nunez re-imagine the concert-going experience by employing interactive methods to explore the relationship between performers and observers

Art & Culture Today

December 7, 2015

The 7 Emerging Artists You Should Know About, According to National Sawdust Creative Director Paola Prestini

There’s something fitting about the fact that composer Paola Prestini made her first appearance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s vaunted Next Wave Festival the very same month that National Sawdust, the new arts institution that she directs, opened its doors with a pair of eclectic, sold out concerts.

December 7, 2015

Globally Acclaimed Composer Paola Prestini Is Turning National Sawdust into an Incubator for the Music World

Maybe you’ve heard about National Sawdust, the vast concert space that opened in Williamsburg, Brooklyn last month.

December 3, 2015

ETHEL Celebrates Women Composers

Aria by Paola Prestini, one of the founders of National Sawdust, followed. The music is reflexive of the title. Slow moving counterpoint anchored by a simple motif permeated the quartet, and the quartet was, for the first time in the evening, given a chance to really sing.

I Care If You Listen

September 9, 2015

Can This Start-up With Cellos Shake Up Classical Music’s Business-As-Usual?

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.

New York Magazine

September 7, 2015

National Sawdust Prepares for an Oct. 1 Opening

Paola Prestini, the creative and executive director of National Sawdust, stood in the space’s balcony one recent afternoon, looking over what would soon be a bustling concert hall. “The speakers just came in,” she said cheerfully, pointing at a rig hanging from the ceiling, still in its filmy protective covering.

The New York Times

Music For Writers: Paola Prestini’s Songs From Another ‘Labyrinth’

I wanted to write these two large-scale, deeply virtuosic pieces for these two muses, but I hadn’t had a chance to create a large-scale work like that yet.

Thought Catalog

Labyrinth Installation Concertos: Room No. 35

Classical music and technological innovation are seen by many as being, for the best part, mutually exclusive – something the Labyrinth Installation Concertos project, created by New York-based artist and composer Paola Prestini, aims to change.

LED Cello Lights Up The Stage

The cello, played well, is a soulful instrument. So human, so organic. The last thing you’d think a cello needs is high-tech enhancement. And yet, several years ago the visual artist Erika Harrsch began collaborating with cellist Maya Beiser and composer Paola Prestini on a new work.

December 18, 2014

Music For Writers: The Tidal Grace In Paola Prestini’s ‘Oceanic Verses’

This idea of disparate energies colliding is very much a part of everything I do. I’m interested in energies and styles that don’t necessarily go together and weaving them into a tapestry that to me makes sense.

Thought Catalog

December 10, 2014

Paola Prestini by Helga Davis

Composer, visionary, and mentor Paola Prestini not only fills all of the aforementioned roles but is also founder of her own production company, VisionIntoArt (VIA), which provides opportunities to young composers as well as established performers in the new music world.

September 8, 2014

Paola Prestini: Following Her Vision

Paola Prestini combines wild imagination and controlled practicality on an almost molecular level—it’s as if both are fused together in her DNA.

February 9, 2014

Paola Prestini's 'Visionary' Playlist Spans Anna Clyne to John Zorn

It's been a busy season for composer Paola Prestini. She's the founder of VisionIntoArt, the interdisciplinary arts company behind the annual 21c Liederabend festival, the Colorado Project at MASS MoCA and dozens of multimedia collaborations including Prestini's own Oceanic Verses and music-theatre piece Aging Magician.

November 25, 2013

The Music of the Hubble Space Telescope

Above, there’s a shortened form from a new classical work, the improbably if appropriately named Hubble Cantata by Paola Prestini. The piece, which played on Saturday at the Brookyln Academy of Music’s celebration of "contemporary art song," celebrates the beauty of the space telescope’s imagery.