Rescheduled from January 2022, Voices of Ascension and the Young People’s Chorus of New York City perform The Glass Box, Paola Prestini’s gripping oratorio from 2018 about young refugees in Sweden afflicted by a coma-like condition. Voices will also give the world premiere of James Bassi’s Protect, a reflection on humanity’s collective struggles during the COVID-19 pandemic. The evening culminates in brilliance and victory with Haydn’s magnificent “Lord Nelson” Mass.
Church of the Ascension
Kicking off the season with a free concert at Iroquois Amphitheater, the Louisville Orchestra celebrates with a colorful program of symphonic music. The featured soloist is pianist LARA DOWNES performing Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin. She is the creator of Rising Sun Music, a recording series that sheds light on the music and stories of Black composers over the last 200 years.
Iroquois Amphitheate
Awadagin Pratt, celebrated pianist and conductor, explores the truth and beauty found within T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets through its sibling universe in music. Joined by composers Tyshawn Sorey, Paola Prestini, Peteris Vasks, Jessie Montgomery, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Alvin Singleton and Judd Greenstein, out-of-the-voice-box, super-group Roomful of Teeth and armed with seven newly composed works, Pratt embraces Eliot in a concert-length narrative that expresses an elemental truth…”at the still point of the turning world…there the dance is…and there is only the dance.”
Masterclass/seminar with Paola Prestini whose new work is part of the Stillpoint project. Young Artists from the Art of the Piano program will be playing for Paola and asking her questions. The public is invited to attend and listen.
The Swedish premiere of Paola Prestini's 'Barcarola', conducted by Speranza Scappucci
The Main Hall
Paola Prestini presents her multimedia project Houses of Zodiac: Poems for Cello , an immersive live / installation in which music, word, movement and image are combined to explore the intersection between mind body and nature. Alongside cellistJeffrey Zeigler, former member of the Kronos Quartet, Prestini combines texts by Anaïs Nin, Pablo Neruda, Brenda Shaughnessy and Natasha Trethewey, unites the most disparate worlds and imaginaries and reflects on the themes of being, becoming, solitude, communion and freedom.
This sweeping and inspiring new multi-media operatic work employs video projection, shadow puppetry, and cutting-edge stage craft to tell the story of Harold (Rinde Eckert); a man on his vibrant last adventure as he explores the allegory of time, youth and the peculiar magic of ordinary life.
Balboa Theatre
Boosting Stephen Sondheim’s legacy as a composer for all time, Anthony de Mare brings that songbook to solo piano with 50 inspirations at his fingertips, created by the likes of Jon Batiste, Steve Reich, Paola Prestini, and more.
Continuing the tradition of midday concerts established by Gian Carlo Menotti, the musicians of the Budapest Orchestra deliver a series of chamber performances at the Teatro Caio Melisso Spazio Carla Fendi. The programme of the morning concerts is a tribute to Gian Carlo Menotti, with a new transcription for voice and ensemble of the Canti della lontananza and pieces by contemporary composers.
Under the direction of their founder Dianne Berkun Menaker the Brooklyn Youth Chorus has become one of the most inspiring, ambitious, and polished ensembles in the city. Singing music by Nathalie Joachim, Tania León, Paola Prestini, Olga Bell and Gity Razaz.
Anna Clyne, the Philharmonia’s Featured Composer, curates a free evening of chamber music by some of the most engaging composers working today. Paola Prestini’s 'G-force', dedicated to the memory of a friend and “a life fully lived”, combines the traditional textures of a string quartet with the otherworldly sound of the vibraphone.
Inna Faliks breaks ground with the first full performance of nine social responses she commissioned on Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Op. 126 Bagatelles plus the original masterpieces.
Paola Prestini’s piano concerto Let Me See the Sun, which features trailblazing pianist Lara Downes. The concerto is about the human impulse to remain hopeful, and what it means to struggle towards clarity and light. The work is structured as a dialogue between piano and orchestra, at times contentious and at times unified.
Edward Tulane is a toy rabbit who thinks of himself as quite exceptional. Content in his easy life, his world is upturned when he is separated from his loving family. Based on the best-seller by local author Kate DiCamillo.
Monarch Brass will perform Paola's original composition 'Wave' at the International Trumpet Guild.
Magos Herrera and Paola Prestini will present the live Con Alma concert, which includes original works and selections from the Mexican and jazz songbook. The concert celebrates a groundbreaking journey from creating a digital work viewed by audiences around the world, to a live theatrical version.
Simone Dinnerstein joins forces with pianist-activist Lara Downes for a celebration of trailblazing American artists called “Variations on a Dream,” performed June 22. The concert includes the world premiere of the Oregon Bach Festival commission, “Let Me See the Sun,” from Paola Prestini.
The European premiere of Paola Prestini's 'Barcarola', conducted by Speranza Scappucci.
This collaboration between composer Paola Prestini, cellist Jeffrey Zeigler, Sankai Juku dancer Dai Matsuoka, New York City Ballet dancer Georgina Pazcoguin, and filmmaker Murat Eyuboglu explore the intersection of mind, body, and nature—themes mirrored in the recent artworks of Takashi Murakami which express his interests in spirituality and ecological and human-made disasters. Houses of Zodiac is a series of live cello solos and dance, with lush filmic visuals and poetic interludes by Pablo Neruda, Anaïs Nin, Brenda Shaughnessy, and Natasha Tretheway underscored by Zeigler along with musicians such as Nels Cline and Tanya Tagaq.
The Broad Museum
Magos Herrera and Paola Prestini will present the live Con Alma concert, which includes original works and selections from the Mexican and jazz songbook, at Palacio de Bellas Artes on March 26th. The concert celebrates a groundbreaking journey from creating a digital work viewed by audiences around the world, to a live theatrical version in Mexico City’s cultural center.
World premiere of 'Let the Wind Speak for Choir, Percussion and Cello' at Peabody Conservatory.
AloneTogether comprises spoken word, poetry, sculpture, video art, music, and film and features 500 YPC choristers, 15 composers and songwriters, seven poets, three choreographers, and two filmmakers. Featuring a newly-commissioned work by Paola Prestini.
The Cramer Quartet premieres the Seven Last Words Project, featuring Paola Prestini's "It is finished," at the 5 Boroughs Music Festival.
The Cramer Quartet premieres the Seven Last Words Project, featuring Paola Prestini's "It is finished," at the 5 Boroughs Music Festival.
Paola Prestini will be joined by Copenhagen’s Enactlab to discuss their interdisciplinary arts, research, and community project centered around Prestini’s opera, Sensorium Ex, a multi-sensory narrative woven together at the intersections of disability and artificial intelligence.
Acclaimed Leipzig-based vocal sextet Sjaella performs Paola Prestini's 'A Triptych for Our Time'
Acclaimed Leipzig-based vocal sextet Sjaella performs Paola Prestini's 'A Triptych for Our Time'
Acclaimed Leipzig-based vocal sextet Sjaella performs Paola Prestini's 'A Triptych for Our Time'
Acclaimed Leipzig-based vocal sextet Sjaella performs Paola Prestini's 'A Triptych for Our Time'
Acclaimed Leipzig-based vocal sextet Sjaella performs Paola Prestini's 'A Triptych for Our Time'
Pianist Anthony de Mare performs a new work by Paola Prestini as part of the landmark commissioning and concert project Liaisons: Re-Imagining Sondheim from the Piano.
Pianist Inna Faliks performs new works from her album 'Reimagine: Beethoven and Ravel,' including Paola Prestini's 'Variations on a Spell'
World premiere of "What the Silence Said," written by Marie Howe, composed by Paola Prestini, and performed by Nels Cline, Yuka C. Honda, and Jeffrey Zeigler.
Beth Morrison Projects and National Sawdust present an audience-interactive and sensorial iteration of 21c Liederabend, featuring new works by Paola Prestini and others.
Orchestre Métropolitain performs Paola Prestini's 'Barcarola' alongside works by Debussy and Alma Mahler.
This panel will explore the future of creative expression in the context of rapidly evolving technologies and economic, political, and social change.
Presented by Death of Classical, the pre-release event for Houses of Zodiac: Poems for Cello (out September 10 on National Sawdust Tracks) includes a reception and spirits tasting, performances by Jeffrey Zeigler, readings of the poetry featured on the album, and an exclusive preview of the film and immersive video projections by Murat Eyuboglu, featuring dancers Georgina Pazcoguin and Dai Matsuoka.
National Sawdust
"Thrush Song" with words by Maria Popova, performed in Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival's Series Concert Five, with Benjamin Rous, conductor; Rachel Calloway, soprano; Soovin Kim, violin; Aki Saulière, violin; Timothy Summers, viola; Raphael Bell, cello; I-Jen Fang, percussion.
Old Cabell Hall
World premiere with Tanya Tagaq from her new album with Saul Williams
World premiere of Allison Loggins-Hull's commissioning project Diametrically Composed, with mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran and pianist Gabriela Martinez, featuring works by Prestini and others
In its west coast premiere, Aging Magician is a hauntingly beautiful hybrid of opera and theatre that combines opera, choral music, and puppetry, composed by Paola Prestini and produced by Beth Morrison Projects.
Balboa Theatre
Halted by the pandemic, Minnesota Opera’s premiere of Edward Tulane was put on hold. Tune in for a virtual concert featuring choral highlights from Paola Prestini's opera based on the best-selling novel by Kate DiCamillo. Streaming begins December 13.
America/Beautiful is a project by pianist and arts advocate Min Kwon, in which she has commissioned a diverse group of more than 70 of today’s leading American composers to each compose a variation on “America the Beautiful.” The series culminates in two live programs at Green-Wood Cemetery on July 8 and 9.
The Catacombs at the Green-Wood Cemetery
Paola Prestini and Beth Morrison present 21c Liederabend, Op. Worldwide (digital), the first installment of Contemplations from National Sawdust celebrating the institution's 5th anniversary
Paola Prestini will be joined by composer Kamala Sankaram and sound artists Mendi and Keith Obadike to discuss online programming and classical music in the digital age. American Composers Orchestra president Melissa Ngan will moderate.
Grammy-winning guitarist Sharon Isbin performs Tango! by Paola Prestini with the Maryland Symphony Orchestra
In this New York Festival of Song showcase, Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning librettist/lyricist Mark Campbell previews new work including songs from Paola Prestini's opera Edward Tulane, commissioned by Minnesota Opera
New York Festival of Song
Influential opera director Yuval Sharon will join Paola Prestini to discuss arts leadership in times of change, the future of performance and the operatic form, collaborating with artists and creating safe spaces for all.
Paola Prestini joins renowned author Sonu Shamdasani to discuss the inspirations behind her new quartet based on Carl Jung's The Red Book, which will receive its livestreamed world premiere on Sunday, April 11, 2021 by the Thalea String Quartet.
Episode 5 of the #ActiveHopePodcast discusses feminism and social justice, as well as beauty and aesthetics in partnership with the Apollo Theater and the Kennedy Center.
Episode 4 of the #ActiveHopePodcast discusses futurism in partnership with the Apollo Theater and the Kennedy Center.
Episode 3 of the #ActiveHopePodcast discusses borders live in partnership with the Apollo Theater and the Kennedy Center.
Episode 2 of the #ActiveHopePodcast discusses incarceration, law, and politics live in partnership with the Apollo Theater and the Kennedy Center.
Exploring the Creative Process with Paola Prestini & Magos Herrera at AMP Concerts: Screening of videos from the Con Alma project, including a world premiere video, La Creación de las Aves (The Creation of The Birds), followed by an online discussion and Q&A. Hosted by the National Hispanic Cultural Center, in collaboration with UNM's Latin America and Iberian Institute.
Panelist for Chicago Opera Theater 'Inner Workings' Discussion: Taking Care of Business
Premiere of No One Is Forgotten: A Live Radio Opera Experience at HERE
Live kickoff event for the #ActiveHopePodcast with the Apollo Theater and the Kennedy Center
Talkback with Ash Koosha and Tateo Nakajima
Panelist for Presenting Progress: American Classical Heritage at SphinxConnect 2021 (2:20pm ET)
Speaker for the Artists and Technology Working Together panel at the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra's Evolution of the Arts in a Digital World Symposium
Artists and Technology Working Together
Public Broadcast premiere of The Colorado with Arizona PBS
Arizona PBS
Performance by Jeffrey Zeigler
The Krannert Center in The Lyric Theater at the University of Illinois
Fistful of Stars from The Hubble Cantata @ The Skylight Pavilion
The Juilliard School ‘Composer of Today’ Global K-12 Program Educational Initiative @ The Juilliard School
Margaret Greenham Theatre @ Banff Center for the Arts
Forward Music Project @ The Wallis Annenberg Center
Performance of works in collaboration with cellist Jeffrey Zeigler
Performance of new works for trombone and electronics with Dave Nelson of the duo Nelson Patton
Performance of an excerpt Stellet Licht – that will be workshopped at Banff Opera in the 21st Century
Performance of To Tell a Story by Amanda Gookin, cello and electronics
New works for voice, exploring extended techniques, AI, and a new sound world @ The New School
For Becca, @ Miller Theater
Performance of For Becca @ Miller Theatre
Silent Voices: Amplify @ The Kennedy Center Direct Current