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.
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 Residency
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 Ensemble
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/
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.
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...”
