Paola Prestini
2010-2011 Swing Space Resident, Building 110: LMCC’s Arts Center At Governors Island
CREATOR & COMPOSER, PAOLA PRESTINI’s music takes the listener on a journey through different life experiences, creating an aural and visual map of the countries and cultures that have inspired her. These travels sonically reflect the impact that collective identities, cultures and values have when they meet and dissolve in a person whose artistic roots are the collective sum of many parts. This culminates in a romantic vision told in the form of calls to prayers, spirituals, narrations, and electronic resonances that come together with visuals to create Prestini’s unique voice.
Paola Prestini’s compositions have been called “radiant...[and] amorously evocative.” by The New York Times. She is a composer, director and a co-founder of VisionIntoArt, an interdisciplinary collective/production company that has created over 50 multimedia productions worldwide and garnered the title "Best of 2009" in classical and opera performances by TimeOut NY. VisionIntoArt has been called “always intriguing and frequently beguiling...” by the New York Times. Her 2009 Tzadik release Body Maps has been featured on WQXR and Q2 and showcases new music’s great soloists. Her music has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, WNYC, and Concert Artist Guild, and has been performed by ensembles such as New York City Opera, the Kronos Quartet, ETHEL, Ensemble ACJW, and by soloists such as grammy winning soprano Hila Plitmann, and cellists Jeffrey Zeigler and Maya Beiser in venues and festivals ranging from Zankel Hall, Bam Cafe, The Whitney Live, Joe's Pub, and the Stone in NY, to Catania's Etnafest, Milano's Teatro Manzoni and BEMUS in Belgrade, Serbia. She has curated festivals at the Stone and Galapagos Art Space, and has published articles for Arcana III, and New Music Box. Her current projects include Spell, for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Music Now series; A Degree of Difference: a residency at the Krannert Center; an opera with librettist Donna Di Novelli that will inaugurate New York City Opera's Word First Program; and An Aging Magician, a multimedia song cycle with text by Jonathan Safran Foer starring Rinde Eckert and ACME that will premiere on 21c Liederabend at the Kitchen April 7-9, 2011.
A graduate of the Juillard School, she has received numerous awards from NYSCA, ASCAP and LMCC. Prestini is a Paul and Daisy Soros fellow, and a 2010 Sundance Fellow. Recent accolades include awards from Meet the Composer, the American Society for Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) Morton Gould prize, multiple American Music Center CAP grants, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Swing Space and MCAF award, two New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) Individual Artist Grants, and 2 Concert Artist Guild commissions. Prestini received her BM and MM at the Juilliard School and has studied with Samuel Adler, Robert Beaser, and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.
During her residency, Prestini will continue to develop OCEANIC VERSES, a multimedia folk opera created by her in collaboration with film artist Ali Hossaini and librettist Donna Di Novelli. Through OCEANIC VERSES, Prestini fiercely assembles the lineage of her own Italian ancestry, imagining a synthesis of the rich and vast folkloric traditions of the Mediterranean through an eccentric and evocative modern lens.
A Beth Morrison Projects and Vision Into Art Co-Production
