This is a seated performance. If you require accessibility accommodations, please email boxoffice@nationalsawdust.org.

// "Division of Time" was commissioned by National Sawdust and VisionIntoArt, and was made possible, in part, by the Brown Arts Institute.

ABOUT JEFFREY ZEIGLER

Jeffrey Zeigler is one of the most innovative and versatile cellists of our time. Strings Magazine says Zeigler is “widely known for pushing boundaries and breaking conventions”. The New York Times has described Zeigler as “fiery”, and a player who performs “with unforced simplicity and beauty of tone”. Acclaimed for his independent streak, Zeigler has commissioned dozens of works, and is admired as a potent collaborator and unique mproviser. As a member of the internationally renowned Kronos Quartet from 2005-2013, he is the recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize, the Polar Music Prize, the President’s Merit Award from the National Academy of Recorded Arts (Grammy’s), the Chamber Music America National Service Award and The Asia Society's Cultural Achievement Award. 

Following his tenure with Kronos, his multifaceted career has led to collaborations with a wide array of artists and innovators such as Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Hauschka, Vijay Iyer, Robin Coste Lewis, Yo-Yo Ma, Julie Mehretu, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Carl Hancock Rux, Foday Musa Suso, and Tanya Tagaq. He has also performed as a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Toronto Symphony, the Royal Danish Radio Symphony, the New Century Chamber Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra under the batons of Peter Oundjian, JoAnn Falletta, Dennis Russell Davies and Dmitry Sitkovetsky. 

Recent concertos written for him include Mark Adamo’s Last Year (at Carnegie Hall with the American Composers Orchestra), Andy Akiho’s Cello Concerto (Sun Valley Music Festival Oregon Symphony, Bozeman Symphony, Columbus ProMusica and South Carolina Philharmonic) and Amy Brandon’s Simulacra (Open Waters Festival, Nova Scotia). 

His most recent solo album, Houses of Zodiac, is his first full collaboration with his wife, trailblazing composer Paola Prestini. It is a multimedia experience that combines spoken word, movement, music, and imagery into a unified exploration of love, loss, trauma and healing. 

Alongside Paola Prestini, Zeigler is the Co-Artistic Director of VisionIntoArt, a non-profit new music & interdisciplinary arts production company based in New York. He is the Director of the National Sawdust Ensemble of National Sawdust, an artist-led, multidisciplinary new music venue in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where he sits on the Advisory Board. Additionally, he is a member of the Board of Directors of Chamber Music America and CelloBello and is on the Honorary Committee of the Sphinx Organization. Zeigler teaches cello and chamber music at Mannes School of Music. Visit Jeffrey’s website here.

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ABOUT GANDINI JUGGLING

Formed in 1992 by world-renowned jugglers Sean Gandini and Kati Ylä-Hokkala, Gandini Juggling continues to be at the vanguard of contemporary circus, reinventing and reinvigorating juggling for the 21st Century.

Gandini Juggling celebrates juggling in all its facets, exploring not just what juggling is, but what juggling can be. Currently an ever-evolving ensemble made up of a virtuosic core group of jugglers, they regularly expand to include up to 20 performers for specially commissioned events and performances. Ferociously prolific, they are constantly creating new works, which range from radical art/juggling fusions to accessible theatrical performances, from choreographic studies to commercially commissioned routines.

Since their inception the Gandinis have performed over 6,000 shows in 50 countries. They continue to perform at many of the most prestigious festivals and venues throughout the world. These venues range from Contemporary art museums in France to Opera houses in Germany, from theatres in Lebanon to tents in Argentina. Closer to home the Gandinis can be seen performing at the UK’s major outdoor festivals and theatre houses including London’s Royal Opera House, English National Opera, The Royal National Theatre and Sadler’s Wells.

In creating their work Gandini Juggling collaborated with a wide range of cultural leaders, initially teaming up with the pioneering and influential dance artist and choreographer Gill Clarke. The Gandini’s continue to be influenced by a range of disciplines, which include amongst others, composers, ballet choreographers, fashion designers, computer programmers, sound designers, set makers and mathematicians. They have spent several seasons working with orchestras, choreographing juggling patterns to a wide range of classical compositions and have had music specially composed for them by leading composers Tom Johnson, Nimrod Borenstein, Gabriel Prokofiev and Caroline Shaw. They Choreographed the Olivier Award winning Philip Glass Opera Akhnaten, and made critically acclaimed tributes to Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham.

In addition to performing, Gandini Juggling is very much in demand at leading circus schools. Teaching workshops, creating performances and supporting the next generation of circus artists. Alongside this, Gandini publishes books and delivers virtual classes to support the wider understanding of the beautiful possibilities of juggling, for jugglers and non-jugglers alike. The Gandini's have an insatiable thirst for juggling pieces and a fiery desire to collaborate, communicate and provoke. They aim to reposition juggling as a versatile, engaging and malleable art form for our times.

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ABOUT ERIC NATHAN

Eric Nathan’s (b. 1983) music has been called “as diverse as it is arresting” with a “constant vein of ingenuity and expressive depth” (San Francisco Chronicle), “thoughtful and inventive” (The New Yorker), and as “a marvel of musical logic” (Boston Classical Review) Nathan, a 2013 Rome Prize Fellow and 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, has garnered acclaim internationally through performances by Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, International Contemporary Ensemble, Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, New York Classical Players, JACK Quartet, American Brass Quintet, Ensemble Dal Niente, A Far 

Cry, and Momenta Quartet, and by performers including vocalists Dawn Upshaw, Lucy Shelton, Tony Arnold, Jessica Rivera, and William Sharp, violinists Jennifer Koh and Stefan Jackiw, trombonist Joseph Alessi, and pianists Gloria Cheng, Gilbert Kalish, and Molly Morkoski. His music has been featured at the New York Philharmonic’s 2014 and 2016 Biennials, Carnegie Hall, Aldeburgh Music Festival, Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Aspen Music Festival, MATA Festival, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Ravinia Festival Steans Institute, Yellow Barn, 2012 and 2013 World Music Days, Library of Congress, Louvre Museum, Hudson Valley Music Club, Tenri Cultural Institute, and the American Academy in Rome. 

Recent projects include three commissions from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, including a chamber work, Why Old Places Matter (2014) for the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and two orchestral works, the space of a door (2016), that Andris Nelsons and the BSO premiered in November 2016 and commercially released on the Naxos label in 2019, and Concerto for Orchestra (2019), which Nelsons premiered on the 2019-20 season-opening concerts. Nathan’s Opening (2021) for orchestra, co-commissioned by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation at the Library of Congress, was premiered by the MSO and broadcast nationally on a PBS television special in 2021. In 2019, Yellow Barn featured Nathan’s 50-minute dramatic song cycle, Some Favored Nook, created in collaboration with librettist Mark Campbell, on opening night of its 50th anniversary season. Nathan has received numerous commissions from leading ensembles and institutions such as the New York Philharmonic, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Barlow Endowment, Fromm Music Foundation, Tanglewood Music Center, Aspen Music Festival, Boston Musica Viva, Chelsea Music Festival, New York Virtuoso Singers, Collage New Music, and University of Chicago’s Grossman Ensemble. He has been honored with a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship and Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Copland House residency, Civitella Ranieri Music Fellowship, ASCAP’s Rudolf Nissim Prize, four ASCAP Morton Gould Awards, BMI’s William Schuman Prize, Aspen Music Festival’s Jacob Druckman Prize, Leonard Bernstein Fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center, and an Early Career Research Achievement Award from Brown University. Nathan has completed residencies at Yellow Barn, Copland House, and the American Academy in Rome, and is a 2022 fellow at Civitella Ranieri Foundation. 

In 2015, Albany Records released a debut CD of Nathan’s solo and chamber music, Multitude, Solitude: Eric Nathan, produced by Grammy-winning producer Judith Sherman. In 2019, Chelsea Music Festival Records released Eric Nathan: Dancing with J.S. Bach, featuring conductor Ken-David Masur in Nathan’s two suites of orchestrations of Bach keyboard works. In 2020, Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project released a portrait album of Nathan’s orchestral and large ensemble music on the BMOP Sound label, and New Focus Recordings released a two-CD set of Missing Words in 2022 (described as “brilliantly original stuff” by Musical America). Nathan’s music has additionally been released on Bridge Records. 

A passionate educator and advocate for contemporary composers, Nathan serves as Associate Professor of Music in composition and theory at Brown University's Department of Music. At Brown, he teaches a variety of subjects from composition to popular music history that engage students with and without backgrounds in music. In 2018, he was awarded Brown University's most prestigious award for junior faculty, the Henry Merritt Wriston Fellowship, that recognizes excellence in teaching. He has further served as David S. Josephson Assistant Professor at Brown and Visiting Assistant Professor at Williams College, and has taught composition at the New York Philharmonic’s Composer’s Bridge program and Yellow Barn’s Young Artists Program. 

In the 2024-25 season, Nathan assumes the role of Artistic Director of Boston’s Collage New Music, now in its 51st season. Since the 2019-20 season, Nathan has served as Composer-in-Residence with the New England Philharmonic, where he has composed music for the orchestra and assisted in programming its seasons. In the 2023-24 season he assumes the newly created role of Director of the NEP New Music Readings. He previously served as Composer-in-Residence at the 2013 Chelsea Music Festival (New York) and 2013 Chamber Music Campania (Italy). He received his doctorate from Cornell, and holds degrees from Yale (B.A.) and Indiana University (M.M.), as well as a diploma from the Pre-College Division of The Juilliard School. His principal teachers include Claude Baker, Sven-David Sandström and Steven Stucky. Nathan additionally was a composition fellow at Tanglewood, Aspen, Aldeburgh and the Composers Conference.