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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.