In Residence July 5 – July 19, 2024
As 2024 Guild Hall William P. Rayner Artists-in-Residence, composer & performer, Shara Nova, and interdisciplinary artist, Andrew Ondrejcak will continue their ongoing collaboration, incubating ideas for a new music-theater piece.
For over a decade, Nova and Ondrejcak have collaborated on wide-ranging productions from music-theater to opera, choral song cycles to chamber music, and epic dinner spectacles. Highlights of their work together include the chamber opera, YOU US WE ALL, which debuted at BAM’s 2015 Next Wave Festival, to 3 Songs in Spectacle, which premiered at a special event hosted by Hermès in 2023.
About Shara Nova
Shara Nova has released five indie rock albums under the moniker My Brightest Diamond and has composed works for The Crossing, Conspirare, Cantus Domus, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Roomful of Teeth, The Detroit Opera touring company, many community choirs, yMusic, Brooklyn Rider, as well as Aarhus Symfoni, Cincinnati Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, American Composers Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra, among others.
Ms. Nova has composed for theater and film with such artists as Matthew Barney (River of Fundament), Matthew Ritchie (Infinite Movement), playwright / librettist Andrew Ondrejcak (Kings of Macedonia; You Us We All, Hermès), puppeteer Lake Simons (Alice in Wonderland) and Adam Rapp (Trueblinka directed by Simon Hammerstein).
In 2019, she composed for over 600 musicians along with the Cincinnati Symphony, a piece entitled “Look Around,” with director Mark DeChiazza. Her baroque chamber p’opera “You Us We All” premiered in the US in October 2015 at BAM Next Wave Festival. With co-composer and performer Helga Davis, Nova created a four screen film entitled “Ocean Body,” along with director Mark DeChiazza, which premiered at The Momentary in August 2021..
Ms. Nova composed and is the featured singer on ‘23 Grammy nominated album “The Blue Hour” with the string orchestra A Far Cry and co-composers Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Sarah Kirkland Snider and Caroline Shaw on Nonesuch Records (Sept ‘22).
Nova is a Kresge Arts fellow, a Carolina Performing Arts Creative Futures fellow, a Knights Grant recipient, a United States Artists fellow, a New Music USA recipient, an Opera America Discovery Grant awardee. In 2023 three of Shara’s projects were nominated for Grammy awards.
https://www.mybrightestdiamond.com/
Photo: Shervin Lainez
Andrew Ondrejcak
Andrew Ondrejcak is an artist working in the intersection of film, fine art and performance.
Born and raised in Mississippi, Andrew studied architecture and painting at Savannah College of Art and Design and, later, playwriting at Brooklyn College under Mac Wellman and Vito Acconci. His work with experimental theater led him to a career in art direction and production design in the fashion industry where he became known for bold, large-scale environmental installations. He has been the creative director of special projects for Hermes, Vivienne Westwood, 3.1 Phillip Lim, New York and Shanghai Fashion Weeks, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Vogue Italia, among others.
He has collaborated on short films and music videos with Tilda Swinton, James Franco, Isabel Sandoval, Shepherd Fairey, Rufus Wainwright, Darren Criss and choreographer Kyle Abraham.
Andrew’s theatrical works have been presented at REDCAT, Los Angeles; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans; deSingel International Arts Campus, Antwerp; Holland Festival, Amsterdam; The Kampnagel, Hamburg; and in New York at The Kitchen, BAM Harvey Theater, The Public Theater in Under the Radar Festival and the Guggenheim Museum’s Works in Process as curated by Robert Wilson.
In 2010, he reperformed the work of Marina Abramovic´ in “The Artist is Paresent” at MoMA.
Artist Residencies include MacDowell (2020, 2024), Watermill Center (2018, 2016), Josef and Anni Albers Foundation’s Thread in Senegal (2017), Yaddo (2016), the Park Avenue Armory (2015-2016), Baryshnikov Arts Center (2013) and NYC’s Governor’s Island (2013).
Andrew was a freelance lecturer at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from 2003-2013.
https://www.andrewondrejcak.com
Photo: Georgia Nerheim