About our Residencies
National Sawdust Residency Program provides both individual artists and groups with space and technical/marketing staff support through recordings, rehearsals, shows as well as commissions. Over 80 hours of staff support for each residency with a total financial commitment of $450k (in kind and reward payments combined) ensure that these dedicated artists can present their new works in various stages of development in concert, often in collaboration with other artists they meet during their year-long residency.
NS artists in residence are either in early stages of their careers or at transition points, such as transition from performance to composition, or from ensemble to solo work. They embody artistic excellence and are diverse in background and style; past residencies include musicians, writers, stage directors, and more.
Helga Davis
Helga Davis is a principle actor in the 25th anniversary re-staging of Robert Wilson and Philip Glass’s seminal work Einstein on the Beach. In 2012, Ms. Davis appeared twice in the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, in both Einstein on the Beach and Maya Beiser’s Elsewhere with music by Missy Mazzoil.
R.B. Schlather
Celebrated American opera director R. B. Schlather is recognized for his practice innovating the duration of performance and public access to classical music. His work is increasingly located in fine art spaces in dialogue with larger themes about opera production, intimacy, and process.
Sophia Brous
Sophia Brous is a creative musician and interdisciplinary performer, vocalist, artistic director and curator. A performer with diverse interests, she collaborates with a vast number of distinguished artists and organizations internationally on new and devised works.
Glenn Kotche
For a percussionist and composer as energetic, inquisitive, and versatile as Glenn Kotche, it’s his sense of balance — his ability to thrive in different and seemingly disparate worlds — that really makes him stand out as a musician. Glenn Kotche will be working on a new NS commissioned orchestral work for 1B1, and will be commissioning 2 new works for solo drumset during his residency.
Ellen Reid
Ellen Reid is a composer and sound artist whose work “brims with canny invention” (LA Weekly). Reid’s work is largely collaborative and takes the form of opera, chamber music, electronic pop songs, scores for film and theater, and immersive interactive installations.
Julia Holter
Julia Holter is a composer, performer, and recording artist based in Los Angeles. Her most recent recording was the studio album Have You In My Wilderness (2015), which followed her previous albums, including Loud City Song (2013), Ekstasis (2012), and Tragedy (2011).
Yuka C. Honda
Yuka C. Honda is a Japanese composer/musician and producer residing in New York City. She is best known for the band Cibo Matto, which she co-founded with Miho Hatori in 1994 and in which Honda created a unique one-man band sound by triggering samples ‘live’.
Latasha Alcindor
Honest. Intuitive. Raw. Latasha Alcindor, also known as L.A., is the essence energy in rhyme. Coming from Flatbush, Brooklyn, the young trailblazer utilizes her many talents ranging from poetry and philosphy to give her bites and story to music.
Beth Morrison Projects
With National Sawdust, BMP brings the most evocative new opera concert works to an intimate venue. BMP Presents Persona and Saga at Prototype this season.
Y Music
Hailed by NPR’s Fred Child as “one of the groups that has really helped to shape the future of classical music,” yMusic is a group of six New York City instrumentalists flourishing in the overlap between the pop and classical worlds.
wild Up
wild Up is a modern music collective; a Los Angeles-based group of musicians committed to creating visceral, thought-provoking happenings. wild Up believes that music is a catalyst for shared experiences, and that a concert venue is a place to challenge, excite and ignite a community of listeners.
Reggie “Regg Roc” Gray
Reggie Regg Roc Gray's journey with dance began when he was 3. Introduced to reggae music by his family, Reggie took a liking to it. He wanted to learn this dance style, called Dancehall/Brukup. He and his friends went onto form an elite dance group based on this type of dance. The group HYPERACTIVE eventually led to Reggie being a pioneer in developing a new genre of dance – FLEXIN.
Sugar Vendil
Sugar Vendil is a New York-based director and pianist lauded for “leading the unlikely intersection of classical music and new fashion” (The New York Times). She is the founder of The Nouveau Classical Project, a contemporary classical ensemble based in New York that integrates music with other arts disciplines.
Caroline Polachek
Caroline Polachek is vocalist/multi-instrumentalist/composer/producer in NYC pop duo, Chairlift. Constantly collaborating, Polachek has worked with fashion designers such as Proenza Schouler and J.Mendel to create runway and video soundtracks, as well as recorded collaborations with contemporaries including Blood Orange, SBTRKT, and PC Music. “No Angel”, a song Caroline wrote and produced, was performed by Beyonce on her self-titled “Beyonce” album, and nominated for a Grammy in 2015.
Curators
About our Curators
National Sawdust is more than a music venue, it is music, hand-picked by curators, just for you. We don’t use an algorithm to find music for you, we rely on a curation model where master artists in their own genres function as artistic guides by bringing their unique points of view to programming. This program gives curators a platform to advance the field through promoting emerging artists as well as established voices from around the world.
Magos Herrera
Born in Mexico City and currently based in New York City, Magos Herrera is considered one of the most beautiful voices and most active vocalists in the contemporary Latin American jazz scene. She is known for her beguiling rhythmic scatting and deep captivating singing.
Billy Jones
Billy Jones is the co-owner and music director for Baby’s All Right & Elvis Guesthouse. Jones also manages the band Porches.
Jeffrey Zeigler
Jeffrey Zeigler is one of the most versatile cellists of our time. Known for his independent streak, he has commissioned dozens of works, and is admired as a potent collaborator and unique improviser. Described as “fiery”, and a player who performs “with unforced simplicity and beauty of tone” by the New York Times.
Roger Bonair Agard
Roger Bonair-Agard is a native of Trinidad & Tobago and Brooklyn, a Cave Canem fellow, and author of four full length collections of poetry. Writer-in-Residence at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust, Roger is a two-time National Poetry Slam champion, co-founder of NYC’s LouderARTS Project, founding member of NYC’s Vision Into Art, and creator and facilitator of The Baldwin Protocols: an arts based intervention and Reading Series.
Sxip Shirey
Sxip Shirey is a composer/producer/performer based in New York City. His music is featured in the international circus theater production “LIMBO” which is a co-production between Underbelly (UK), Strut N Fret (Australia) and South Bank Center (UK). This summer he debuted “The Gauntlet,” a unique situation for choir in which the audience walks through two lines of hocketing singers. It was produced by Make Music New York and Friends of the Highline and debuted on the Highline itself.
Timo Andres
Timo Andres (b. 1985, Palo Alto, CA) is a composer and pianist who grew up in rural Connecticut and now lives in Brooklyn, NY. A Nonesuch Records artist, his newest album of orchestral works, Home Stretch, has been hailed for its “playful intelligence and individuality,” (The Guardian) and of his 2010 debut album for two pianos, Shy and Mighty, Alex Ross wrote in The New Yorker that “it achieves an unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene… more mighty than shy, [Andres] sounds like himself.”
Anthony Roth Costanzo
Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo began performing professionally at the age of 11 and has since appeared in opera, concert, recital, film, and on Broadway.
This season, Mr. Costanzo makes his debuts at the Los Angeles Opera as the title role in Phillip Glass' Ahknaten, the Finnish National Opera in Kaija Sariaaho's Only the Sound Remains, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in performances of Messiah, and with both the London Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic as Prince Go-Go in performances of Le Grand Macabre, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and directed by Peter Sellars. He also produces and stars in his critically acclaimed show, Orphic Moments, at the Landestheater in Salzburg.
Mr. Costanzo has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera as both Ferdinand and Prospero in the world premiere of The Enchanted Island, as well as Prince Orlofsky in a new production of Die Fledermaus after making his debut as Unulfo in Rodelinda. He made his European debut at the Glyndebourne Festival in Rinaldo and has since appeared at the English National Opera in Indian Queen and Ahknaten. He has also appeared in recent seasons with San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Teatro Real Madrid, Dallas Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Canadian Opera Company, Opera Philadelphia, San Diego Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Palm Beach Opera, The North Carolina Opera, and as a guest with Juilliard Opera.
In concert, Mr. Costanzo appeared in the New York Philharmonic’s acclaimed production of Le Grand Macabre, performed Handel's Messiah, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and Orff's Carmina Burana with The Cleveland Orchestra, and sang Messiah at Carnegie Hall. He has also appeared in concert with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) at both the Mostly Mozart Festival and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with Jordi Savall in Barcelona, Paris, and Versailles, with Ian Bostrdige and Julius Drake at the Teatro Real, and at the Spoleto Festival USA. In addition he has been a featured soloist with the orchestras of Indianapolis, Alabama, Detroit, Denver, Seattle and with the National Symphony Orchestra. He has also been presented in recital in Vancouver, Princeton University Concerts, Duke Performances, and at the Morgan Library in New York.
A champion of new work, Mr. Costanzo recently created roles in the world premieres of Jimmy Lopez' Bel Canto at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Jake Heggie's Great Scott at the Dallas Opera. He has also premiered works written for him by Matthew Aucoin, Paola Prestini, Gregory Spears, Suzanne Farrin, Bernard Rands, Scott Wheeler, Mohammed Fairouz, and Steve Mackey. In the spring of 2017 will premiere a new work by Nico Muhly in Boston.
This season, Mr. Costanzo makes his debuts at the Los Angeles Opera as the title role in Phillip Glass' Ahknaten, the Finnish National Opera in Kaija Sariaaho's Only the Sound Remains, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in performances of Messiah, and with both the London Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic as Prince Go-Go in performances of Le Grand Macabre, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and directed by Peter Sellars. He also produces and stars in his critically acclaimed show, Orphic Moments, at the Landestheater in Salzburg.
Mr. Costanzo has appeared at the Metropolitan Opera as both Ferdinand and Prospero in the world premiere of The Enchanted Island, as well as Prince Orlofsky in a new production of Die Fledermaus after making his debut as Unulfo in Rodelinda. He made his European debut at the Glyndebourne Festival in Rinaldo and has since appeared at the English National Opera in Indian Queen and Ahknaten. He has also appeared in recent seasons with San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Teatro Real Madrid, Dallas Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Canadian Opera Company, Opera Philadelphia, San Diego Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Palm Beach Opera, The North Carolina Opera, and as a guest with Juilliard Opera.
In concert, Mr. Costanzo appeared in the New York Philharmonic’s acclaimed production of Le Grand Macabre, performed Handel's Messiah, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and Orff's Carmina Burana with The Cleveland Orchestra, and sang Messiah at Carnegie Hall. He has also appeared in concert with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) at both the Mostly Mozart Festival and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with Jordi Savall in Barcelona, Paris, and Versailles, with Ian Bostrdige and Julius Drake at the Teatro Real, and at the Spoleto Festival USA. In addition he has been a featured soloist with the orchestras of Indianapolis, Alabama, Detroit, Denver, Seattle and with the National Symphony Orchestra. He has also been presented in recital in Vancouver, Princeton University Concerts, Duke Performances, and at the Morgan Library in New York.
A champion of new work, Mr. Costanzo recently created roles in the world premieres of Jimmy Lopez' Bel Canto at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Jake Heggie's Great Scott at the Dallas Opera. He has also premiered works written for him by Matthew Aucoin, Paola Prestini, Gregory Spears, Suzanne Farrin, Bernard Rands, Scott Wheeler, Mohammed Fairouz, and Steve Mackey. In the spring of 2017 will premiere a new work by Nico Muhly in Boston.
Ric Leichtung
AdHoc is a monthly print publication and events collective founded by Ric Leichtung and Emilie Friedlander after their experimental music blog Altered Zones dissolved from Pitchfork. A multi-faceted arts and culture initiative, AdHoc’s prestigious editorial and events have a symbiotic dynamic where longform music writing about punk, noise, forward-thinking dance music is brought to life from the page to the stage with adventurous curation.
Jeff McErlain
Jeff McErlain is a New York City based guitarist, songwriter, teacher and producer. He has contributed to Guitar Player Magazine, Guitar World and is the author of Modern Rock Techniques. He has taught at the National Guitar Workshop as well as the Bath International Guitar Festival. He was also the guitar instructor and musical consultant for the Warner Bros. movie August Rush.
Adam Abeshouse
Adam Abeshouse has produced and engineered recordings for labels including Bridge, Telarc, Angel-EMI, SONY, BMG, Naxos, Hyperion, ASV, and more. Possessing a broad musical background as a violinist with a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music, Mr. Abeshouse brings a unique set of skills to his producing, engineering, and mastering technique.In 2002, Adam Abeshouse founded the Classical Recording Foundation to meet the growing need for artists not supported by major labels to be able to record music about which they are passionate. He has been integrally involved in design and project planning for National Sawdust as well as board and funding development.
Theo Bleckmann
Theo Bleckmann. A singer and new music composer of eclectic tastes and prodigious gifts, GRAMMY® NOMINATED and ECHO award recipient Theo Bleckmann makes music that is accessibly sophisticated, unsentimentally emotional, and seriously playful, leading his work to be described as “from another planet” (New York Times).
Robert Sirota
Over four decades, composer Robert Sirota has developed a distinctive voice, clearly discernible in all of his work – whether symphonic, choral, stage, or chamber music. The New York Times has described his style as, “fashioned with the clean, angular melodies, tart harmonies, lively syncopations and punchy accents of American Neo-Classicism...”
