About our Residencies
NS artists in residence are either in early stages of their careers or at transition points, such as 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.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.
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.
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.
Bishi
Singer, multi instrumentalist & DJ, Bishi was born in Earls Court to a Bengali musical family; her mother is an EMI signed artist to this day. She has studied Sitar at The Ravi Shankar School for Music and has a passion for English & East European folk, progressive pop & electronica. Her album ‘Nights at The Circus’ has been critically acclaimed and she has been nominated for this year’s South Bank Show Awards – the ‘Times Breakthrough Award’. Fusing British pop with her folk influences and ruminations of urban life she says: “I have based the album on being an outsider. The space between two cultures can be confusing, but it can also be very energetic”.
Abraham Brody
Abraham Brody creates unique multidimensional experiences for his audiences. Bringing together music, performance art, and multimedia, he pushes the boundaries between performer and public and challenges the traditional notions of a performer in the 21st century by uniting these three art forms into one cohesive whole. For him, performance is a vehicle to transform himself and his audiences. Drawing inspiration from the roots, rituals, and folklore of diverse backgrounds, he weaves them into performances combining his own compositions, improvisation, and multimedia works. He has collaborated with renowned performance artist Marina Abramovic, has travelled to far-eastern Siberia in search of shamans, and also creates the bulk of his solo works based on the folklore and music of his Lithuanian roots. He has performed and shown his works in such places as the Barbican Centre London (month-long residency in 2015), The Public Theater New York, Tate Modern, Southbank Centre London, Pace Gallery, Fondation Beyeler Basel, Sziget Festival Budapest, Solyanka VPA Moscow, Vortex Jazz Club London, and Rich Mix London, among others.
During his residency at NS Abraham will present his well-being project representing his diverse collaborations from across the world, such as his Moscow based group Pletai, and Lithuanian folk singers Trys Keturiose.
He will also present work in partnership with NS at HappyLuckyno1 Gallery in Brooklyn.
"He has a special power as a performer in that he has united both his skills as a classically-trained musician with the genre of performance art, creating a distinct way of performing that is entirely his own"- Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican Centre London
Website: https://www.abrahambrody.com/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/abemcw64
Bandcamp: https://abrahambrody.bandcamp.com/releases
During his residency at NS Abraham will present his well-being project representing his diverse collaborations from across the world, such as his Moscow based group Pletai, and Lithuanian folk singers Trys Keturiose.
He will also present work in partnership with NS at HappyLuckyno1 Gallery in Brooklyn.
"He has a special power as a performer in that he has united both his skills as a classically-trained musician with the genre of performance art, creating a distinct way of performing that is entirely his own"- Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican Centre London
Website: https://www.abrahambrody.com/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/abemcw64
Bandcamp: https://abrahambrody.bandcamp.com/releases
Anna Clyne
London-born Anna Clyne is a Grammy-nominated composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic music. Described as a "composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods" in a New York Times profile and as "dazzlingly inventive" by Time Out New York, Clyne’s work often includes collaborations with cutting-edge choreographers, visual artists, filmmakers, and musicians worldwide. Appointed by Music Director Riccardo Muti, Clyne served as a Mead Composer-in-Residence for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 2010-2015. She also recently served as Composer-in-Residence for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra during the 2015-2016 season and for L’Orchestre national d’Île-de-France from 2014-2016. She has been commissioned by such renowned organizations as American Composers Orchestra, BBC Radio 3, BBC Scottish Symphony, Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Houston Ballet, London Sinfonietta, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, and the Southbank Centre, and her work has been championed by such world-renowned conductors as Marin Alsop, Pablo Heras-Casado, Riccardo Muti, Leonard Slatkin, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Clyne was nominated for the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her double violin concerto, Prince of Clouds. She is also the recipient of several prestigious awards including the 2016 Hindemith Prize; a Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; awards from Meet the Composer, the American Music Center, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Jerome Foundation; and prizes from ASCAP and SEAMUS. She was nominated for the 2014 Times Breakthrough Award (UK) and is the recipient of a grant from Opera America to develop a new opera, Eva. Recent highlights include the world premieres of Masquerade for the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop at the Last Night of the Proms; This Lunar Beauty for the Britten Sinfonia and soprano Julia Doyle; RIFT, a symphonic ballet in collaboration with choreographer Kitty McNamee for Marin Alsop and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra; Pocket Book VIII for Roomful of Teeth; Threads & Traces for 100 cellos, commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and performed at Disney Hall; and her violin concerto, The Seamstress, performed by Jennifer Koh with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Refugee Orchestra Project
The Refugee Orchestra Project brings together hundreds of performers--instrumentalists and singers whose families have fled to this country to escape violence and persecution--in a large-scale concert performance that loudly proclaims these individuals' importance to our cultural wealth. All proceeds will be donated to help those trying to escape persecution abroad.
Website: http://www.refugeeorchestraproject.org/
Website: http://www.refugeeorchestraproject.org/
Murat Eyuboglu
Murat started photography as an apprentice to Josephine Powell in Istanbul. After attending the Academy of Fine Arts, School of Photography (Istanbul), he transferred to Bennington College, Vermont. He lived in Paris and returned to New York to pursue studies in music history. His dissertation was on the utopian aspects of Gustav Mahler’s works. Since 2000 he has focused mainly on portraiture and collaborative projects. In 2007, he participated in the documentary Claude Lévi-Strauss: Return to the Amazon as assistant director. He directed, filmed and co-authored the script of The Colorado (2016), a music-based documentary to which five composers contributed original music. His photographs have been published by the French edition of the National Geographic Magazine and his music videos have been released by various independent labels. He lives in New York City.
Eve Gigliotti
Quickly becoming known for her diverse repertoire ranging from Handel to Wagner, Ms. Gigliotti is an exciting artist who brings rich, resonant sound and a uniquely individual interpretation to her performances. A passionate interpreter of new American opera and vocal chamber music, Ms. Gigliotti has premiered the roles of Ruth inDark Sisters by Nico Muhly (Gotham Chamber Opera and Opera Philadelphia); The Mother in The Bricklayer by Greg Spears (HGOco); Yoani Songs, a song cycle by Paola Prestini (Bay Chamber Music Festival); and “Archaeology,” a song written exclusively for her by acclaimed composer/librettist team David Little and Royce Vavrek featured in the Opera America Songbook. This season Ms. Gigliotti made her debut with Washington National Opera as Siegrune, and covering Flosshilde and the Second Norn in their Ring Cycle. Eve appeared as The Doctor in the critically acclaimed world premiere of Keeril Makan’s operatic treatment of Persona, produced by Beth Morrison Projects; and will perform with The Princeton Festival as Auntie in Peter Grimes. In the 2016-2017 season, Eve will be returning to Opera Philadelphia to originate the role of Dodo in the world premiere ofBreaking the Waves, written by composer/librettist team Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek; as well as premiering a new work by Mohammed Fairouz commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Other engagements include Giulietta in Les Contes d’Hoffmann with Hawaii Opera Theater; and Carmen (covering the title role) with Lyric Opera of Chicago. Among other notable companies, Ms. Gigliotti has performed with The Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Minnesota Opera, Odyssey Opera, and Opera Santa Barbara.
Website: http://www.evegigliotti.com/
Website: http://www.evegigliotti.com/
Contemporaneous
Contemporaneous is a New York-based ensemble of twenty-one musicians dedicated to performing and promoting the most exciting music of now. Recognized for its "ferocious, focused performance" (The New York Times) and its "passionate drive...setting a high bar for other ensembles to live up to" (I Care If You Listen), Contemporaneous' concerts, collaborations, recordings, and outreach programs have created a thriving community of artists and audience members united by a shared love for the best music being written in our time. Founded in 2010 at Bard College, Contemporaneous has to date played over sixty shows at venues including (le) poisson rouge, Merkin Concert Hall, Roulette, St. Ann's Warehouse, Galapagos Art Space, Baryshnikov Arts Center and The Stone and has been featured at the Bang on a Can Marathon, MATA Interval Series, Tribeca New Music Festival, Neighborhood Classics, Music with a View, Make Music New York and in California at the Berkeley Arts Festival. The ensemble's recordings have been featured on many radio programs, including WNYC's "New Sounds" and WRTI's "Now is the Time."
Contemporaneous supports the work of new and established composers, encouraging artists to take risks, challenge expectations, and defy constraints. To date, Contemporaneous has performed more than thirty world premieres by such composers as Albert Behar, Conor Brown, Ryan Chase, Kyle Gann, Yotam Haber, Molly Joyce and Dylan Mattingly. In April, 2012, Innova Recordings released the ensemble's debut album, Stream of Stars — Music of Dylan Mattingly, comprising music written specifically for Contemporaneous by its founding co-artistic director.
Contemporaneous often collaborates with musicians and artists from other fields, among them pop and rock artists Jherek Bishoff, David Byrne, Sondre Lerche, Amanda Palmer, Zac Pennington, Greg Saunier, Mirah Zeitlyn, Zola Jesus, Fifth Veil and Yassou Benedict. Contemporaneous has been in residence at the University of New Orleans and Williams College and has presented educational programs for New York public elementary schools P.S. 142 and P.S. 321, the Western Connecticut Youth Orchestra and the Poughkeepsie Day School. Contemporaneous is a federally tax-exempt not-for-profit organization, supported by a dedicated community of listeners.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/econtemp/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/contemporaneous
Website: https://soundcloud.com/contemporaneous
Contemporaneous supports the work of new and established composers, encouraging artists to take risks, challenge expectations, and defy constraints. To date, Contemporaneous has performed more than thirty world premieres by such composers as Albert Behar, Conor Brown, Ryan Chase, Kyle Gann, Yotam Haber, Molly Joyce and Dylan Mattingly. In April, 2012, Innova Recordings released the ensemble's debut album, Stream of Stars — Music of Dylan Mattingly, comprising music written specifically for Contemporaneous by its founding co-artistic director.
Contemporaneous often collaborates with musicians and artists from other fields, among them pop and rock artists Jherek Bishoff, David Byrne, Sondre Lerche, Amanda Palmer, Zac Pennington, Greg Saunier, Mirah Zeitlyn, Zola Jesus, Fifth Veil and Yassou Benedict. Contemporaneous has been in residence at the University of New Orleans and Williams College and has presented educational programs for New York public elementary schools P.S. 142 and P.S. 321, the Western Connecticut Youth Orchestra and the Poughkeepsie Day School. Contemporaneous is a federally tax-exempt not-for-profit organization, supported by a dedicated community of listeners.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/econtemp/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/contemporaneous
Website: https://soundcloud.com/contemporaneous
International Contemporary Ensemble
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) is an artist collective committed to transforming the way music is created and experienced. As performer, curator, and educator, ICE explores how new music intersects with communities across the world. The ensemble’s 35 members are featured as soloists, chamber musicians, commissioners, and collaborators with the foremost musical artists of our time. Works by emerging composers have anchored ICE’s programming since its founding in 2001, and the group’s recordings and digital platforms highlight the many voices that weave music’s present.
A recipient of the American Music Center’s Trailblazer Award and the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, ICE was also named the 2014 Musical America Ensemble of the Year. The group currently serves as artists-in-residence at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Mostly Mozart Festival, and previously led a five-year residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. ICE has been featured at the Ojai Music Festival since 2015, and has appeared at festivals abroad such as Acht Brücken Cologne and Musica nova Helsinki. Other recent performance stages include the Park Avenue Armory, The Stone, ice floes at Greenland’s Diskotek Sessions, and boats on the Amazon River.
New initiatives include OpenICE, made possible with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which offers free concerts and related programming wherever ICE performs, and enables a working process with composers to unfold in public settings. DigitICE catalogues the ensemble’s performances in a free online streaming video library. ICE's First Page program is a commissioning consortium that fosters close collaborations between performers, composers, and listeners as new music is developed. EntICE, a side-by-side youth program, places ICE musicians within youth orchestras as they premiere new commissioned works together. Inaugural EntICE partners include Youth Orchestra Los Angeles and The People's Music School in Chicago. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for ICE.
Website: https://iceorg.org/
Bandcamp: https://iceorg.bandcamp.com/
A recipient of the American Music Center’s Trailblazer Award and the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, ICE was also named the 2014 Musical America Ensemble of the Year. The group currently serves as artists-in-residence at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Mostly Mozart Festival, and previously led a five-year residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. ICE has been featured at the Ojai Music Festival since 2015, and has appeared at festivals abroad such as Acht Brücken Cologne and Musica nova Helsinki. Other recent performance stages include the Park Avenue Armory, The Stone, ice floes at Greenland’s Diskotek Sessions, and boats on the Amazon River.
New initiatives include OpenICE, made possible with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which offers free concerts and related programming wherever ICE performs, and enables a working process with composers to unfold in public settings. DigitICE catalogues the ensemble’s performances in a free online streaming video library. ICE's First Page program is a commissioning consortium that fosters close collaborations between performers, composers, and listeners as new music is developed. EntICE, a side-by-side youth program, places ICE musicians within youth orchestras as they premiere new commissioned works together. Inaugural EntICE partners include Youth Orchestra Los Angeles and The People's Music School in Chicago. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for ICE.
Website: https://iceorg.org/
Bandcamp: https://iceorg.bandcamp.com/
Jojo Abot
JOJO ABOT is a Ghanaian artist expressing herself through music, film/photography, literature and performance art. FYFYA WOTO, meaning New Birth - New Discovery serves as the theme and title for her ongoing project exploring SELF as a provocative tool in the discovery, exchange and evolution of the subject of IDENTITY in relation to appropriation vs appreciation in a growing global conversation around shared space and shared identities.
Currently in NYC as a member of New Museum's incubator program, NEW INC, Abot prepares to go on tour with a supporting slot on the incredible legend, Ms Lauryn Hill's tour scheduled for fall, 2017 along with upcoming shows presented by Summerstage and Global Fest. A true global fusionist and genre bender in both sound and artistic expression, Jojo Abot is poised to take the world by storm with her uniquely coined AFRO-HYNO-SONIC sound and otherworldly perspective.
Currently in NYC as a member of New Museum's incubator program, NEW INC, Abot prepares to go on tour with a supporting slot on the incredible legend, Ms Lauryn Hill's tour scheduled for fall, 2017 along with upcoming shows presented by Summerstage and Global Fest. A true global fusionist and genre bender in both sound and artistic expression, Jojo Abot is poised to take the world by storm with her uniquely coined AFRO-HYNO-SONIC sound and otherworldly perspective.
Fufan Zhang
Fufan Zhang is a set designer and visual artist from China.
Influenced by her family of professional Peking Opera singers, Fufan is fascinated by theater, opera, dance, and film. During her artistic edification, Fufan has found set design to be a fluid dialog between performance and life. Fufan has embraced this insight, which has allowed her to fuse life experiences with the materials on stage in order to share a strong emotional experience with the audience.
Fufan’s set design credits include: Seven Guitars (Yale Repertory Theater); The Oresteia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Amy and the Orphans (Yale School of Drama); Pheadra’s Love, Salt Pepper Ketchup (Yale Cabaret); Ya Shan (Beijing Nine Theater).
Prior to attending Yale University, Fufan received a BFA in stage, film, and television design from The Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, China. Fufan’s other credits included Production Design for Yamakawa, a series of photographs; Art Director for The Terrorists (Best Foreign Short Film Award – Seoul International Youth Film Festival, 2012) and Show Time (Best Film, 1st Place – 48 Hour Film Project, Beijing, China, 2014).
Influenced by her family of professional Peking Opera singers, Fufan is fascinated by theater, opera, dance, and film. During her artistic edification, Fufan has found set design to be a fluid dialog between performance and life. Fufan has embraced this insight, which has allowed her to fuse life experiences with the materials on stage in order to share a strong emotional experience with the audience.
Fufan’s set design credits include: Seven Guitars (Yale Repertory Theater); The Oresteia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Amy and the Orphans (Yale School of Drama); Pheadra’s Love, Salt Pepper Ketchup (Yale Cabaret); Ya Shan (Beijing Nine Theater).
Prior to attending Yale University, Fufan received a BFA in stage, film, and television design from The Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, China. Fufan’s other credits included Production Design for Yamakawa, a series of photographs; Art Director for The Terrorists (Best Foreign Short Film Award – Seoul International Youth Film Festival, 2012) and Show Time (Best Film, 1st Place – 48 Hour Film Project, Beijing, China, 2014).
Choral Chameleon
Choral Chameleon is known for championing New Music for voices within the context of mixed-genre thematic programming and experiments in non-traditional staging.
Founded in 2008, by Artistic Director Vince Peterson, the organization now encompasses: a roster of professional ensemble singers, a volunteer chorus of 30-40 and an annual week-long Summer Institute for 15 emerging composers and conductors hosted in Brooklyn.
The culture of the organization marries informality, loving support and joyful curiosity with the expectation of solidly technical musicianship, constant learning and openness towards the unexpected.
Choral Chameleon’s own programming ethos seeks to dilate audience sensibilities towards the new; by the way it is paired with the familiar and by treating both with the respect they deserve.
Founded in 2008, by Artistic Director Vince Peterson, the organization now encompasses: a roster of professional ensemble singers, a volunteer chorus of 30-40 and an annual week-long Summer Institute for 15 emerging composers and conductors hosted in Brooklyn.
The culture of the organization marries informality, loving support and joyful curiosity with the expectation of solidly technical musicianship, constant learning and openness towards the unexpected.
Choral Chameleon’s own programming ethos seeks to dilate audience sensibilities towards the new; by the way it is paired with the familiar and by treating both with the respect they deserve.
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.
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.
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).
Adam Gallab
Most days, Sinkane leader Ahmed Gallab puts up a Facebook post like this: "Good morning, my friends! I hope that you have a fantastic day and I love you all!” His music — every note of it — comes straight out of that same sunny generosity of spirit. And never has that spirit been on more vivid display than on the new Sinkane album Life & Livin’ It.
By the time Sinkane finished touring for their acclaimed Mean Love album in late 2015, Ahmed and his ace band had spread the gospel of Sinkane to the world, playing 166 shows in 20 countries. He had also led the supergroup the Atomic Bomb! Band — the highly celebrated 15-piece outfit that played the music of elusive Nigerian electro-funk maestro William Onyeabor. The band included David Byrne, Damon Albarn, members of Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem, the Rapture, Jamie Lidell and legendary jazz musicians Pharoah Sanders and Charles Lloyd, and they played all over the planet. “Those 14 months really changed my life,” Ahmed says. “Not only did I learn how to put on a special show from leading the Atomic Bomb! Band, but all that touring really brought us Sinkane boys closer as a band."
By the time Sinkane finished touring for their acclaimed Mean Love album in late 2015, Ahmed and his ace band had spread the gospel of Sinkane to the world, playing 166 shows in 20 countries. He had also led the supergroup the Atomic Bomb! Band — the highly celebrated 15-piece outfit that played the music of elusive Nigerian electro-funk maestro William Onyeabor. The band included David Byrne, Damon Albarn, members of Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem, the Rapture, Jamie Lidell and legendary jazz musicians Pharoah Sanders and Charles Lloyd, and they played all over the planet. “Those 14 months really changed my life,” Ahmed says. “Not only did I learn how to put on a special show from leading the Atomic Bomb! Band, but all that touring really brought us Sinkane boys closer as a band."
Kinan Azmeh
Hailed as a “Virtuoso” and "Intensely Soulful" by the New York Times and "Spellbinding" by the New Yorker, and "Incredibly Rich Sound" by the CBC. His utterly distinctive sound across different musical genres has gained him international recognition as clarinetist and composer. Kinan was recently named composer-in-residence with Classical Movements for the 2017-2018 season.
Kinan has been touring the world as soloist, composer and improviser. Notable appearances include: Opera Bastille, Paris; Tchaikovsky Grand Hall, Moscow; Carnegie Hall and the UN's general assembly, New York; the Royal Albert hall, London; Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires; der Philharmonie; Berlin; the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, Washington DC; the Mozarteum, Salzburg, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and the Damascus opera house for its opening concert in his native Syria.
He has appeared as soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Qatar Philharmonic and the Syrian Symphony Orchestra among others.; and has shared the stage with Yo-Yo Ma, Marcel Khalife, Aynur, Daniel Barenboim and Jivan Gasparian.
His compositions include several works for solo, orchestra, and chamber music; film, live illustration, and electronics. His discography include three albums with his ensemble Hewar, several soundtracks for film and dance, a duo album with pianist Dinuk Wijeratne and an album with his New York Arabic/Jazz quartet the Kinan Azmeh CityBand. He serves as artistic director of the Damascus Festival Chamber Players, a pan-Arab ensemble dedicated to contemporary music form the Arab world. His is a frequent guest faculty at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music and is on the advisory board of the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra. He is also a member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble with whom he was awarded a Grammy in 2017.
Kinan is a graduate of New York's Juilliard school as a student of Charles Neidich, and of both the Damascus High institute of Music where he studied with Shukry Sahwki, Nicolay Viovanof and Anatoly Moratof, and Damascus University’s School of Electrical Engineering in his native Syria. Kinan earned his doctorate degree in music from the City University of New York in 2013.
Kinan has been touring the world as soloist, composer and improviser. Notable appearances include: Opera Bastille, Paris; Tchaikovsky Grand Hall, Moscow; Carnegie Hall and the UN's general assembly, New York; the Royal Albert hall, London; Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires; der Philharmonie; Berlin; the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, Washington DC; the Mozarteum, Salzburg, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and the Damascus opera house for its opening concert in his native Syria.
He has appeared as soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Qatar Philharmonic and the Syrian Symphony Orchestra among others.; and has shared the stage with Yo-Yo Ma, Marcel Khalife, Aynur, Daniel Barenboim and Jivan Gasparian.
His compositions include several works for solo, orchestra, and chamber music; film, live illustration, and electronics. His discography include three albums with his ensemble Hewar, several soundtracks for film and dance, a duo album with pianist Dinuk Wijeratne and an album with his New York Arabic/Jazz quartet the Kinan Azmeh CityBand. He serves as artistic director of the Damascus Festival Chamber Players, a pan-Arab ensemble dedicated to contemporary music form the Arab world. His is a frequent guest faculty at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music and is on the advisory board of the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra. He is also a member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble with whom he was awarded a Grammy in 2017.
Kinan is a graduate of New York's Juilliard school as a student of Charles Neidich, and of both the Damascus High institute of Music where he studied with Shukry Sahwki, Nicolay Viovanof and Anatoly Moratof, and Damascus University’s School of Electrical Engineering in his native Syria. Kinan earned his doctorate degree in music from the City University of New York in 2013.
David Krakauer
Internationally acclaimed clarinetist DAVID KRAKAUER redefines the notion of a concert artist. Known for his mastery of myriad styles, he occupies the unique position of being one of the world’s leading exponents of Eastern European Jewish klezmer music, and at the same time is a major voice in classical music. As one of the foremost musicians of the vital new wave of klezmer, David Krakauer tours the globe with his celebrated Klezmer Madness! ensemble. While firmly rooted in traditional klezmer folk tunes, the band “hurls the tradition of klezmer music into the rock era” (Jon Pareles, The New York Times). In addition to his annual European tours to major international festivals and jazz clubs, recent seasons brought Krakauer and his band to the Library of Congress, Stanford Lively Arts, San Francisco Performances, the Krannert Center, Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, the Venice Biennale, Krakow Jewish Culture Festival, BBC Proms, Saalfelden Jazz Festival, Transmusicales de Rennes, La Cigale, New Morning in Paris, and many others.
Du Yun
Born and raised in Shanghai, China, currently based in NYC, Du Yun * is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and performance artist. Her music exists at an artistic crossroads of orchestral, chamber music, theatre, opera, orchestral, cabaret, storytelling, pop music, visual arts and noise.
Hailed by The New York Times as a leading figure in China’s new generation of composers, Du Yun’s music is championed by some of today’s finest performing artists, ensembles, orchestras and organizations. Selected commissions include the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, American Composers Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony, Whitney Museum of American Art, Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer/ Commissioning USA, Chamber Music America, and Shanghai Electronic Music Week. Du Yun’s music has also been presented by Festival d’Avignon (France), Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ (The Netherlands), Musica Nova Helinski (Finland), Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music (Norway), Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (Germany), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAMNextWave, violinist Hilary Hahn, cellist Matt Haimovitz, and flutist Claire Chase, Trinity Wall Street, Festival of New Trumpet, Ecstatic Music Festival, 21c Liederabend, the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, and many more.
Hailed by The New York Times as a leading figure in China’s new generation of composers, Du Yun’s music is championed by some of today’s finest performing artists, ensembles, orchestras and organizations. Selected commissions include the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, American Composers Orchestra, Berkeley Symphony, Whitney Museum of American Art, Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer/ Commissioning USA, Chamber Music America, and Shanghai Electronic Music Week. Du Yun’s music has also been presented by Festival d’Avignon (France), Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ (The Netherlands), Musica Nova Helinski (Finland), Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music (Norway), Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (Germany), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAMNextWave, violinist Hilary Hahn, cellist Matt Haimovitz, and flutist Claire Chase, Trinity Wall Street, Festival of New Trumpet, Ecstatic Music Festival, 21c Liederabend, the San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players, and many more.
Jennifer Koh
Violinist Jennifer Koh is recognized for her intense, commanding performances, delivered with dazzling virtuosity and technical assurance. An adventurous musician, she collaborates with artists of multiple disciplines and curates projects that find connections between music of all eras from traditional to contemporary. She believes that all the arts and music of the past and present form a continuum and has premiered over 50 works written especially for her.
This season, Ms. Koh performs a broad range of concertos that reflects the breadth of her musical interests, including Steven Mackey’s concerto Beautiful Passing with the Baltimore Symphony led by Marin Alsop and Naples Philharmonic led by Eric Jacobsen, Mozart’s First Violin Concerto with the St. Louis Symphony conducted by Nicholas McGegan, Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony led by Santtu-Matias Rouvali, and Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra led by Xian Zhang. Ms. Koh will perform world premieres of violin concertos by Christopher Rountree with the new music collective wild Up as part of Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella “From Noon To Midnight” music marathon, and by Vijay Iyer at the 2017 Ojai Festival. She also performs Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 at Carnegie Hall with the New York String Orchestra led by Jaime Laredo.
This season, Ms. Koh performs a broad range of concertos that reflects the breadth of her musical interests, including Steven Mackey’s concerto Beautiful Passing with the Baltimore Symphony led by Marin Alsop and Naples Philharmonic led by Eric Jacobsen, Mozart’s First Violin Concerto with the St. Louis Symphony conducted by Nicholas McGegan, Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony led by Santtu-Matias Rouvali, and Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra led by Xian Zhang. Ms. Koh will perform world premieres of violin concertos by Christopher Rountree with the new music collective wild Up as part of Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella “From Noon To Midnight” music marathon, and by Vijay Iyer at the 2017 Ojai Festival. She also performs Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 at Carnegie Hall with the New York String Orchestra led by Jaime Laredo.
Claire Tancons
Trained as a curator and art historian at École du Louvre in Paris, Université de Montréal, the Courtauld Institute in London and the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York, Claire Tancons practices curating as an expanded field and has experimented with the political aesthetics of walking, marching, second lining, masquerading and parading in large-scale public performances for close to a decade. As a curator of performance, Tancons organized the first New York solo exhibitions of artists Robin Rhode at Artists Space (2004) and Ralph Lemon at the Kitchen (2007) as well as one of the first showcases of Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky’s Re-Birth of a Nation project at Paula Cooper Gallery. As the artistic director of large-scale public performances since 2008, Tancons has featured works by artists including Los Carpinteros, Ebony G. Patterson, Marlon Griffith, Marinella Senatore, Nicoline Van Harskamp, and Mohamed Bourouissa as well as collaborated with architect Gia Wolff and musicians Christophe Chassol and Arto Lindsay. She has curated for established and emerging international biennials including Prospect New Orleans (2008); the Gwangju Biennale (2008); the Cape Town Biennial (2009); Biennale Bénin (2012) and the Göteborg Biennial (2013). Since 2012, she has initiated a series of collaborations tackling different aspects of public ceremonial culture, civic rituals, carnival and processional performance including Far Festa: Nuove Feste Veneziane (with curatorial collective CAKE AWAY; IUAV University and Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, summer 2013), Public Practice (with Delaney Martin; New Orleans Airlift, Fall 2014) and EN MAS’: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean (with Krista Thompson; CAC New Orleans, 2014-15 and ICI New York 2016-18). Tancons was also a guest curator for the BMW Tate Live Series at Tate Modern (2014) and the artistic director of Tide by Side, the opening ceremony of Faena Forum Miami Beach (2016). She is currently the artistic director of etcetera: a civic ritual for Printemps de Septembre in Toulouse, France (2015-17). Tancons is the recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation Curatorial Fellowship (2008), a Prince Claus Fund Artistic Production Grant (2009), two Curatorial Research Fellowships from the Foundation for Art Initiatives (2007, 2009) and an Emily Hall Tremaine Exhibition Award (2012) among others. She was selected by Artsy as one of the “20 most influential young curators in the United States” in 2016.
