美国国家公共电台 NPR Ex-Sawdust Factory Is Transformed Into A NYC Musical Venue

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

A former sawdust factory in Brooklyn has been transformed into a nonprofit music venue¹ with a $4 million annual budget. It spends nearly a quarter of that to commission new works, to record and release albums and support young artists. It's called National Sawdust. Rick Karr reports.

RICK KARR, BYLINE²: Vocalist Helga Davis says National Sawdust is aiming to be the kind of institution that can do what the Metropolitan³ Opera or New York Philharmonic do for mainstream⁴ artists.

HELGA DAVIS: We need a space for the next generation of composers and performers who don't actually fit into any of the existing spaces, who don't actually have homes in which to experiment, to build their muscles, to build their vocabularies, to build their audiences.

KARR: Davis is 1 of 12 current artists in residence at National Sawdust; so is composer and performer Abraham Brody. He's the kind of difficult-to-categorize artist Davis is talking about. Sometimes he almost sounds like a singer-songwriter.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OBERON")

ABRAHAM BRODY: (Singing) Oberon, Oberon, you change the wind. You fuel my storm. You make the moon pale in her anger.

KARR: And sometimes he dives deep into Baltic and Slavic folk music.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TREP TREPO, MARTELA")

BRODY: (Chanting in foreign language).

KARR: That's why Brody says he feels right at home at National Sawdust.

BRODY: It's not just for contemporary classical music. It's not just for experimental music. It's not just for world music. It's everything together. I just find this openness here is really unusual.

KARR: Brody says it's also an unusually generous residency. The nonprofit brought him to New York from his base in Vilnius, Lithuania, found him spaces to live and work for five months and flew in his collaborators for performances in Brooklyn and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. National Sawdust provides its artists with close to a million dollars a year in support, according to its co-founder and artistic⁵ director, composer Paola Prestini.

PAOLA PRESTINI: The hope is to educate a new audience to constantly be listening differently but also for artists to be educated in terms of how to be able to create a sustainable career; and then in terms of us and how we're leading the space, how to create a sustainable business in a world that's constantly changing.

(SOUNDBITE OF OPERA, "ANGEL'S BONE")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) You'll never believe - never believe what I tripped over in the car.

KARR: For starters, National Sawdust was able to raise funds to buy its building. So there's no worry that it'll be displaced by rising rents in a gentrifying neighborhood. It generates about 40 percent of its revenue at the box office through venue rentals⁶ and food and drink sales. The remaining 60 percent comes from philanthropists, many of whom are supporting music for the first time, Prestini says.

National Sawdust is also a recording⁷ studio. Each artist in residence gets 20 hours of free recording time, which is enough for some to complete an album.

The winner of last year's Pulitzer Prize for music was recorded at the venue - the opera "Angel's Bone" by composer Du Yun.

(SOUNDBITE OF OPERA, "ANGEL'S BONE")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Angels. Angels fallen in the brambles.

KARR: National Sawdust also has a record label. Former Kronos Quartet cellist⁸ Jeffrey Ziegler runs it. He's also married to Paola Prestini. He says in this age of almost unlimited⁹ online musical choice, he wants the label to recreate the kind of curated random¹⁰ encounter listeners experience while flipping¹¹ through CD and LP bins¹³ in record stores.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) What have you found?

JEFFREY ZEIGLER: I kind of liked the fact that like maybe there's a band that I like and that it happens to be near this other bin¹², or something is misfiled, or, like, oh, that's kind of a cool record cover. And you just kind of - you're curious about it. And that's something that I think that is missing for a lot of fans of music these days.

(SOUNDBITE OF GYAN RILEY'S "SPRIG")

KARR: Later this year, National Sawdust's reach will extend the West Coast. It will begin booking shows at the Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts in Beverly Hills in addition to the ones it already books at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and its permanent home in Brooklyn.

For NPR News, I'm Rick Karr.

1 venue   

n.犯罪地点，审判地，管辖地，发生地点，集合地点

参考例句：

• The hall provided a venue for weddings and other functions.大厅给婚礼和其他社会活动提供了场所。
• The chosen venue caused great controversy among the people.人们就审判地点的问题产生了极大的争议。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 metropolitan   

adj.大城市的，大都会的

参考例句：

• Metropolitan buildings become taller than ever.大城市的建筑变得比以前更高。
• Metropolitan residents are used to fast rhythm.大都市的居民习惯于快节奏。

4 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

5 artistic   

adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的

参考例句：

• The picture on this screen is a good artistic work.这屏风上的画是件很好的艺术品。
• These artistic handicrafts are very popular with foreign friends.外国朋友很喜欢这些美术工艺品。

6 rentals   

n.租费，租金额( rental的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• In some large hotels, the income derived from this source actually exceeds income from room rentals. 有些大旅馆中，这方面的盈利实际上要超过出租客房的盈利。 来自辞典例句
• Clerk: Well, Canadian Gifts is on the lower level. It's across from Prime Time Video Rentals. 噢，礼品店在楼下，在黄金时刻录像出租屋的对面。 来自口语例句

7 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

8 cellist   

n.大提琴手

参考例句：

• The cellist's bowing was very sensitive . 那位大提琴手的弓法十分细腻。 来自辞典例句
• World-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma founded The Silk Road Project in 1998. 世界闻名的大提琴家马友友于1998年创建了丝路工程。 来自互联网

9 unlimited   

adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的

参考例句：

• They flew over the unlimited reaches of the Arctic.他们飞过了茫茫无边的北极上空。
• There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris.在技术方面自以为是会很危险。

10 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

11 flipping   

讨厌之极的

参考例句：

• I hate this flipping hotel! 我讨厌这个该死的旅馆！
• Don't go flipping your lid. 别发火。

12 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

13 bins   

n.大储藏箱( bin的名词复数 )；宽口箱（如面包箱，垃圾箱等）v.扔掉，丢弃( bin的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Garbage from all sources was deposited in bins on trolleys. 来自各方的垃圾是装在手推车上的垃圾箱里的。 来自辞典例句
• Would you be pleased at the prospect of its being on sale in dump bins? 对于它将被陈列在倾销箱中抛售这件事，你能欣然接受吗？ 来自辞典例句