Season 3 Opening Weekend: Guided Discovery

season of National Sawdust, “Brooklyn’s contemporary music sanctuary” (I Care If You Listen). The second show of the season-opening trifecta focuses on our multicultural theme of the season: Origins, and is a singular opportunity to hear three iterations of musical mastery, energy, and passion from sounds that span three continents.
Lithuanian-American multi-instrumentalist Abraham Brody (NS Artist-in-Residence), dubbed “a powerful talent” by performance artist Marina Abramović, will perform violin and electronics, masterfully linking music, performance art, and multimedia together to create vivid pictures inspired by Lithuanian folk melodies.
Fresh off a Pulitzer Prize for her opera and human trafficking allegory Angel’s Bone, Chinese composer and multi-instrumentalist Du Yun (NS Curator) will show off her pop tastes, performing with her experimental ensemble Ok Miss.
The emerging mavericks of Russian Renaissance, winners of the prestigious $100,000 2017 M Prize, will perform some of their work labeled “ferocious” by M Prize critic Martin Slagter, featuring true feats of excitement and technical wizardry on traditional Russian instruments like the stringed balalaika, the domra, the button accordion, and balalaika-contrabasso.
This evening is supported in part by The Garcia Family Foundation.

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 from 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 works in such places as the Barbican Centre London (month-long residency in 2015), The Public Theater New York, Tate Moden, Southbank Centre London, Pace Gallery, Foundation Beyeler Basel, Sziget Festival Budapest, Solyanka VPA Moscow, Vortex Jazz Club London, and Rich Mix London, among 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 “cutting-edge… to whom the term ‘young composer’ could hardly do justice”
“re-invents herself daily… so does her music,” (TimeOut-NYC)
“heralds a significant voice” (Financial Times)
“…the strongest impression made yet” (by De Rode Leeuw, Amsterdam)
and “…one senses the exceptional ear, exploration and the results are impeccably powerful” (by Le Devoir, Montréal),
Musical America, ASCAP Playback Magazine, NPR, Sveriges Radio (Sweden), Radio Canada and others have featured her profile. Known as “protean” and “chameleonic”, the National Public Radio (USA) has recently voted her as one of 100 composers under 40.
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.
Her music has also been presented by Festival d’Avignon (France), Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ (Netherlands), the Nova Musica of Helinski, Ultima Contemporary Music (Norway), the Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (Germany), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Canadian Music Week, Nova Scotia Festival, Centro Nacional De la Música (Argentina), the Radio Kamer Filharmonie of The Netherlands, le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne of Canada, the Camerata Aberta of Brazil, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the New York City Opera – VOX, cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, among others. Other grants include the Civitella Raneiri Foundation, the Aaron Copland Award, Rockefellor Foundation – Bellagio, and Festival Aix-en-Provence.
As an avid performer, she has appeared in many assorted holes and halls, across New York, nationally and abroad. Her onstage persona has been described by the New York Times as “an indie pop diva with an avant-garde edge,” and “flamboyant” by the Chicago Tribune.
As a performance artist, solo engagements include the 2012 Guangzhou Art Triennial (China) at the Guangzhou Opera House, and the National Academy Museum (USA). Her ongoing collaborations of installation-performance-video with the Pakistani visual artist Shahzia Sikander have been on view at the Shanghai Rockbund Art Museum, the Tokyo Contemporary Museum of Art, San Francisco Art Institute, Pace Foundation (San Antonio), Hong Kong Art Fair 2012, the Sharjah Biennial (United Arab Emirate), Auckland Art Triennial (New Zealand) and Istanbul Biennial (Turkey), Auckland Art Triennial (New Zealand), Istanbul Biennial (Turkey), and Dhaka Art Summit (Bangladesh). ArtForum writes the collaboration as “standout, sound utilized to its best effect.”
Off Broadway credits:Original Music for David Henry Hwang’s Kung Fu (Signature Theatre); Original Music for Chiori Miyagawa Hiroshima Mon Amour (Ohio Theatre)
Du Yun’s studio pop album, Shark in You, released on vinyl, CD and digital on New Focus, which has garnered critical acclaims. Her classical compositions can be heard on labels such as Shanghai Classical Music, ATMA Classique, Oxingale, New Focus, and Deutsche Grammophon for Hilary Hahn — In 27: the Hilary Hahn Encores, which won a 2015 Grammy Award in the category of Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance.
An alumna of Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Oberlin College (BM), Harvard University (MA, PHD), Du Yun is currently on the faculty of SUNY-Purchase. Since 2014, she is named the Artistic Director of MATA Festival, a pioneering organization dedicated to commissioning and presenting young composers from around the world.

Russian Renaissance
With their professional debut in October 2015, the quartet — which includes balalaika (a Russian stringed instrument with a unique triangular body), domra (a long-necked Russian string instrument from the lute family), button accordion, and contrabass balalaika — brings together tradition and modernity in unique crossover and fusion styles.

National Sawdust