"a thrillingly original dive into colonial history" (The Guardian). This concert celebrates the release of The Zarabanda Variations, a combined album and chapbook exploring the historical and present syncretism of Baroque music in 12 original songs, dances, and poems. A group of musicians convened by violinist/composer Keir GoGwilt, and in collaboration with acclaimed poet Edgar Garcia, bend the historical rhythms, rhymes and resonances of the Baroque. These artists traverse the colonial histories of the zarabanda dance in this unique multimedia collage of contemporary folkloric and improvised traditions, poetry, and new compositions.

August 31, 2026

-

New York-based singer-songwriter Loren Berí celebrates the release of his new album 'Stagehand' — alongside a companion book of poems — in an evening that brings together his indie music with premieres by contemporary classical composers. His songs like "My Brooklyn (Is Better Than Yours)" have been praised for their inventive storytelling and charismatic performance style. FLOOD Magazine called his breakout single a "wildly magnetic—and hilarious—homage to NYC," highlighting its bubbly synths and clever lyricism. Recent collaborations include the song "Al Pacino" with Glassio; contributions from Mauro Refosco (David Byrne, Atoms For Peace, Dirty Projectors) throughout 'Alby's Ghost'; and his song "Greta's Inn", featuring Kishi Bashi, which was included in Fortnite.

September 9, 2026

-

The Healing Scapes is an immersive audio-visual performance by Nigerian-American sound artist, saxophonist, DJ, and producer Eli Fola. Blending electronic, ambient, jazz, and techno with elements of traditional West African instrumentation, the work explores sound as a tool for emotional and physical connection. Original compositions create evolving sonic environments that move between rhythm and stillness. Abstract visuals by Manami Sakamoto accompany the performance, deepening immersion and focus. Together, sound and image invite audiences into a shared terrain—slowing down, tuning in, and experiencing electronic music beyond the dance floor.

September 10, 2026

-

National Sawdust hosts the New York premiere of a [time] patterned, taken from harpist Lara Somogyi’s latest full-length work: a contemporary harp album constructing sonic environments, exploring how time is felt, shaped, and experienced through sound. Built from harp, pedal textures and electronics, virtuosic arpeggios, stacked tape machines, ambient processing, contemporary extended harp techniques, graphic scored symphonic language, string orchestra, and field recordings, the album constructs time not as a linear experience—but as an emotional landscape.

September 11, 2026

-

John Zorn’s newest project Flatlands is a dynamic power trio in the Simulacrum / Naked City / Insurrection mold—a new music super-group featuring Matt Hollenberg (Simulacrum, Shardik, Secret Chiefs 3) on electric guitar, Simon Hanes (Gargantua, Tredici Bacci, Tsons of Tsunami) on electric bass, and Ches Smith (Clone Row, We All Break, Laugh Ash) on drums. The music is intense, quirky, and wildly ecstatic—thirteen compact stop-on-a-dime kaleidoscopic compositions filled with virtuosic solos, infectious riffs, atonal melodies, advanced harmonies, complex rhythms, and plenty of the ever surprising structural innovations that has made Zorn one of the most continually fascinating composers of the past fifty years. Not to be missed!

September 12, 2026

-

We Were Fridays is an interdisciplinary music project led by cellist Jeffrey Zeigler - a deeply personal exploration of cultural memory and diaspora. It will follow a story that began in the Griot tradition of West Africa, travel to South Carolina by way of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, then north by way of the Great Migration, and beyond. We Were Fridays explores the music of the Gullah people of the Low Country of South Carolina, a community which to this day has preserved more of their West African linguistic and cultural heritage than any other African American community in the United States. Gullah music has influenced spirituals, gospel, ragtime, rhythm and blues, soul, hip hop and jazz. We Were Fridays will extend this reach into the world of instrumental cello music. Told through cello, electronics, and dance, We Were Fridays will explore forbidden love, fractured lines, and complex legacies.

September 18, 2026

-

We Were Fridays is an interdisciplinary music project led by cellist Jeffrey Zeigler - a deeply personal exploration of cultural memory and diaspora. It will follow a story that began in the Griot tradition of West Africa, travel to South Carolina by way of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, then north by way of the Great Migration, and beyond. We Were Fridays explores the music of the Gullah people of the Low Country of South Carolina, a community which to this day has preserved more of their West African linguistic and cultural heritage than any other African American community in the United States. Gullah music has influenced spirituals, gospel, ragtime, rhythm and blues, soul, hip hop and jazz. We Were Fridays will extend this reach into the world of instrumental cello music. Told through cello, electronics, and dance, We Were Fridays will explore forbidden love, fractured lines, and complex legacies.

September 19, 2026

-

Ruins (اطلال) is a three-act opera in Arabic, based on the epic 7th-century Arabic poems known as Al-Mu'allaqat, but set in the modern era. The opera reimagines pre-Islamic odes in the contemporary Arab world, as experienced by a young woman forced into exile and separated from her family and lover. The story begins in a refugee camp and follows her treacherous journey across the sea while her homeland is embroiled in war. The music of Ruins incorporates the maqam vocal style, as opposed to lyric singing, in addition to microtonality and improvised elements. Performed by seven singers and an orchestra of 19 instrumentalists from Middle Eastern, jazz, and classical backgrounds, plus analog modular synthesizer, the opera reimagines the modal musical system known as maqam, used in the Middle East and Central Asia, within contemporary operatic frameworks.

September 23, 2026

-

Third Reprise is bringing their debut headline Cover Theory Tour to National Sawdust for their New York show, celebrating the release of their new album and playing a mix of their most popular arrangements and fresh songs. The night will feature special guests from the extended Third Reprise family, and sounds ranging from gospel to folk to afrobeat to yacht rock.

September 25, 2026

-

An evening of celebrated interpretations by multi-instrumentalist and composer Erik Hall, presented as a solo performance + spatial audio installation. Erik Hall's 2020 re-imagining of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians is as adventurous as it is reverent, supplanting the original instrumentation for Hall's own keyboards, guitars, and synthesizers. It won the Libera Award for Best Classical Record, and Pitchfork described it as "shrewd, prismatic, organic... a minimalist standard freshly thrilling to revisit." In conjunction with the 50th Anniversary of the piece's NYC premiere—as well as Reich's 90th birthday—Hall returns to the iconic work for his National Sawdust debut, leveraging the room's immersive Meyer Sound audio system to present his one-man multi-tracked rendition in a transportive new light. Hear the prepared pianos, Hammond organ, electric guitars, and analog synths of Hall's Michigan home studio in kaleidoscopic surround sound, while he executes a grouping of the instruments live on stage—a distilled, in-person exhibition of the recording's soundscape.

September 26, 2026

-

Images of Brazil is a project of violinist Francesca Anderegg and pianist Erika Ribeiro: a decade-long collaboration exploring the breadth and depth of Brazilian music. The performance is accompanied by the work of Brazilian photographer Aline Müller — the images behind the music.

September 27, 2026

-

Though Kirby’s background is steeped in jazz, his signature sound blends genres and styles. A sought-after collaborator, he's worked with the likes of Miley Cyrus, Frank Ocean, Harry Styles, and Solange. Kirby earned a Song of the Year Grammy nomination in 2023 for his contribution to Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit.”

October 3, 2026

-

Raaginder, a San Francisco Bay Area–based violinist, composer, and songwriter, is known for blending the depth of Indian classical music with the textures of R&B, pop, and hip hop to create a sound that is both soulful and contemporary.

October 9, 2026

-

Lau Noah presents an introduction to her next project: a meeting between classical, jazz and folk musicians through the power of oral tradition. Music created, passed on and recorded using human ear, memory and skill, without it ever being written down on paper, yet not improvised. Noah's ambitious project highlights the complexity and depth of oral tradition as both modern and ancestral human language worth preserving and championing. Noah and her team will be presenting a short film, an early listening to some songs from the record and a live performance.

October 11, 2026

-

Something sacred is crossing the bridge. DVT — the trio of composer Damani Rhodes, vocalist VADIA, and poet Tongo Eisen-Martin — makes its New York City debut at National Sawdust for one night only. What happens when piano keys build cathedrals, a voice moves between shadow and flame, and words cut through silence like light through stained glass? DVT is the answer — a collision of jazz, poetry, and soul that doesn't ask you to listen so much as surrender.

October 16, 2026

-

There is a hush most of us only knew as children, the warm drift between familiar household sounds and being carried to bed, a place that belongs to you and to some self you have not met yet. June McDoom’s debut full-length, Follow the Light, lives in that dream space and then keeps walking, slipping out of time and waking somewhere new, barely familiar enough to feel like home yet wholly your own.

October 17, 2026

-

“Where are you going, little cockroach? You were smelling crumbs in a forsaken shadow just a few seconds ago, I believe…” The Cockroach Diary is a song cycle for voice, classical guitar, and electric guitar in which a cockroach becomes an artist’s unlikely muse. Released in 2025, this one-woman operetta emerged during a period of artistic stasis and slowly became an emotional space mission—beginning in intimacy, drifting into outer space, and returning to Earth changed.

October 20, 2026

-

The Green Room Ensemble is thrilled to present the U.S. Premiere performance cycle of Eleanor Alberga’s Three String Quartets, along with the World Premiere of her Second Piano Quintet with the composer herself at the piano. Eleanor Alberga, OBE, is one of today’s most esteemed and influential composers and pianists. Originally inspired by a local music teacher in Kingston, Jamaica, her compositional journey began with her work for the London Contemporary Dance Theatre, where she honed her evocative and riveting musical style. Her Three String Quartets stand as monumental achievements, each heavily varied in style and tone, yet all uniquely of her voice. They are a profound contribution to the genre.

October 30, 2026

-

Confessional, raw, poetic-alt-art-pop-piano in Spanish. From Chile to the world. Francisca is one of the boldest and daring artists of her generation in the Spanish language. From Santiago, Chile, to the world, album after album, era after era, she explores themes that are tremendously personal and intimate, raw, in an unapologetic confessional, poetic, piano-based form, with stories and truths that are very universal and compelling.

November 4, 2026

-

Meditations on the Gift of Awe :: love songs for earth & survival is an immersive, prayerful and celebratory, genre-defying song cycle. This work steadies its sonic gaze on healing and cultivation of calm via vocal soundscapes, rhythm & improvisation. With vocal trio and chamber ensemble, songs from Meditations on the Gift of Awe :: love songs for earth & survival and others from Morley’s catalogue will speak to the tenderness of our individual journeys towards collective liberation and love. Featuring Morley with Chris Bruce, Daniel Mintseris, Jack DeBoe, Chris St. Hilaire, Levon Henry, Arun Ramamurthy, Trina Basu, Kenita Miller and Justin Hicks.

November 7, 2026

-

Bailen is a songwriting-forward, indie pop, folk-rock band that has captivated audiences with their musical dynamism and the three-part “blood harmony” of siblings Julia (guitar), Daniel (bass), and David (drums). The trio was raised by two freelance classical musicians in New York City who steeped them in Rock & Roll and Brahms. Their close familial bond is evident in their tight-knit musical arrangements and rich, emotive harmonies.

November 11, 2026

-

For Diles que no me maten, every note is a small step into the unknown. The five-piece Mexico City band have always operated on a first-thought, best-thought basis, drawing on a jam-based, krautrock philosophy to craft intricate constructions of wiry art rock spiked with bluesy balladry and poetic mysticism. While their fourth album Escrito en Agua (Writ in Water) is their most consciously crafted and accessible to date, their founding principle of slow, wide-eyed exploration is alive and well.

November 12, 2026

-

Step through a portal where scars become songs and healing becomes a celebration. Blending folk concert, musical, immersive ritual, and joyous dance party, Wholly Unwinding transforms the audience into fellow travelers on a journey of radical self-discovery. Come ready to move, sing, and discover what becomes possible when every body belongs.

November 17, 2026

-

What new worlds emerge when a classic is reimagined through accessibility from the very beginning? Opera Praktikos transforms Bellini's La Sonnambula (The Sleepwalker) into a richly integrated experience where spoken, sung, and signed languages become one expressive whole. Familiar and startlingly new, this reimagining reveals how inclusion doesn't simply expand a story - it transforms its meaning.

November 18, 2026

-

What happens when technology stops speaking for us and begins listening to us? Sensorium Ex imagines a future where artificial intelligence becomes a tool for agency rather than control, blurring the boundaries between human expression and machine possibility. Part dystopian opera, part technological breakthrough, it asks who gets to define what a voice - and a person - can be.

November 19, 2026

-

In Appalachia, farmers still practice the ancestral tradition of companion planting. Corn grows tall as a trellis, beans climb the corn, and squash provides the ground cover. Rising Appalachia cultivates a similar symbiosis in their music, where Southern folk traditions, New Orleans swamp culture, and Atlanta’s street spirit strengthen each other. Known for their seamless harmonies, songcatching and storytelling, the band has released ten albums and toured throughout North America, South America, Europe, the Celtic Isles, Australia and beyond — performing everywhere from the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and Red Rocks to NPR’s Tiny Desk. All the while, the band has cultivated a devoted grassroots following traveling to communities big and small by train, horseback, bio-diesel bus and sailboat.

November 21, 2026

-

In Appalachia, farmers still practice the ancestral tradition of companion planting. Corn grows tall as a trellis, beans climb the corn, and squash provides the ground cover. Rising Appalachia cultivates a similar symbiosis in their music, where Southern folk traditions, New Orleans swamp culture, and Atlanta’s street spirit strengthen each other. Known for their seamless harmonies, songcatching and storytelling, the band has released ten albums and toured throughout North America, South America, Europe, the Celtic Isles, Australia and beyond — performing everywhere from the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and Red Rocks to NPR’s Tiny Desk. All the while, the band has cultivated a devoted grassroots following traveling to communities big and small by train, horseback, bio-diesel bus and sailboat.

November 22, 2026

-

Composer Hannah Ishizaki is writing a one-act chamber opera in 11 scenes in collaboration with librettists Mark Campbell and Chiori Miyagawa for three vocalists, chamber ensemble, and electronics, based on the Japanese folk story, “Tsuru no Ongaeshi.” The story is split between a retelling of Tsuru no Ongaeshi (The Crane’s Gratitude) in 15th-century Japan and contemporary U.S. and Japan.

December 1, 2026

-

S. Carey is the moniker of Eau Claire, Wisconsin-based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer Sean Carey, commonly recognized as the drummer, backing vocalist, and second longest serving member of Bon Iver. Over the past decade and a half, Carey has fostered his flourishing solo career via themes of nature and sustainability, songwriting built from jazz beginnings, and heartfelt, emotive lyricism. His latest release, Watercress, adds to a discography of four full-length releases, two EPs, and countless collaborations, including Unbound with Bizhiki and Shadowlands with John Raymond.

December 6, 2026

-

The Hildegard Commission Concert returns with groundbreaking premieres from our four winners, today’s most exciting rising composers—che buford, Līva Blūma, Fjóla Evans, and Maria-Eduarda Mendes Martin—along with works from our four brilliant finalists. The namesake of our commission, 12th-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen, used vivid, intricate miniature drawings in her prophetic books to bring complex spiritual visions to life. For this year’s commission, our winners have composed music that directly responds to a distinct illustration from Hildegard's codices. These historic images will be brought to life through dynamic animations and projections from a visionary visual designer, transforming the performance space into an interactive ecosystem of sight and sound. Step into a multi-sensory, immersive environment inspired by the extraordinary legacy of the 12th-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen.

December 10, 2026

-

Composer inti figgis-vizueta presents her 2026 debut record Music for Transitions, with a performance featuring GRAMMY Award-winning cellist Andrew Yee and the Germany-based Rothko String Quartet. Exploring Indigenous heritage and trans identity through playful, ecstatic soundscapes, the album exemplifies figgis-vizueta’s deep commitment to personal liberation through group improvisation. Recurring themes of land, wind, rivers, and cosmology are framed by constant musical transformation in what composer George Lewis calls “the dynamics of the decolonial.”

December 11, 2026

-

Saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Caleb Wheeler Curtis and venerated pianist, artist, and MacArthur fellow Jason Moran celebrate the release of “Incantation” (Imani Records, 2026). Guided by their powerful and dynamic sounds and a shared fascination with musical ancestry, they explore space, time, and melody.

December 12, 2026

-

For the past several years Emily Wells has been knocking on the door of an opera. Each year the door cracks open a little wider, the story gets louder, and the collaborators become clearer. This opera is a story about remaking the past in order to understand, and perhaps change, the future. It’s a conversation between a “mirror father” living the life he might have lived had he come out in the early 80s instead of living a closeted life, and his “phantom daughter” who he begins dreaming about. The two discover overlays: their queerness, their art, their relation to capital and its effects on community. At the center is each one's desire to have a child but choosing not to due to their fears of the end of the world, his AIDS, hers climate catastrophe.

February 3, 2027

-

Peni Candra Rini, PhD, is a renowned Javanese singer, educator, and composer, known for blending Javanese Sufi poetry with contemporary music for both Indonesian and Western instruments. The Kronos Quartet calls her "one of the world’s greatest singers." A master of traditional forms like gamelan, she stands out as one of Indonesia’s innovative young composers and one of its few female composers. In 2023, she became the first woman commissioned to compose for the Mangkunegaran court of Central Java, and in 2024, she was honored with the court name Raden Nganten Tumenggung. For this performance, the artist will be joined on stage by musician, ethnomusicologist, and professor Andy McGraw and multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer Shahzad Ismaily.

February 27, 2027

-