For Immediate Release - June 3, 2024 - New York, NY - VisionIntoArt (VIA) has received a $600,000 grant awarded by the Mellon Foundation, to support capacity building for the continued development and sharing methodologies of VIA’s creative production model.This funding will allow VIA to continue to expand its equity-driven approach in support of several key projects, including Sensorium Ex, an opera that centers disabled artists and reimagines more accessible, inclusive artistic processes that aim to expand the frontiers of creativity in opera, created by composer Paola Prestini (VisionIntoArt Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director), with libretto by poet Brenda Shaughnessy, co-directed by Jay Scheib and choreographer Jerron Herman, We Were Fridays, a multi-disciplinary exploration of diaspora, heritage and cultural memory with trumpeter and composer Etienne Charles and cellist Jeffrey Zeigler (VIA Co-Artistic Director), directed by Reggie 'Regg Roc' Gray, and an untitled opera project by Prestini and poet Robin Coste Lewis that aims to drive the conversation around racial equity in the arts. Commissioned by Spoleto Festival USA, this world premiere opera is slated to debut during the 50th Festival in 2026.

The grant will also be used to fund VIA's Impact Lab Fellowship - a platform to generate research and creative documentation around the artistic methods and models which emerge from VIA's equity-driven projects. The work of VIA Impact Lab fellows - artists, researchers, and creative producers who guide this creative research process - will generate research and learning resources, such as the Sensorium Codex: a framework for driving disability equity and co-creation in opera. VIA Impact Lab Fellows will also be integrated into VIA projects such as Primero sueño, VIA's first Co-Commission and Co-Production with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a site specific work for The Met Cloisters, and We Were Fridays, through a partnership with the Penn Center on St. Helena Island - exploring ways to root the artistic work more deeply in local community histories and imaginations.

Prestini alongside Zeigler, said: "We are so grateful to the Mellon Foundation for their generous support of VIA's mission. This is a pivotal moment in the history of the performing arts, and if we are to create a compelling and sustainable future for the art form we love, then it will have to be rooted in collaboration, experimentation, equity, and understanding. We look forward to continuing this work, reaching farther than ever before with the help of this grant."

“We are thrilled to be supporting VisionIntoArt’s collaborative producing model, not only for the bold creative works it will generate but the impact it can have field-wide in centering equity as a catalyst for artistic innovation,” said Emil Kang, Program Director for Arts and Culture at the Mellon Foundation. “The fact that VIA’s inclusive model will also advance disability justice in spaces like AI technology is a testament to how we as a culture benefit when artists lead the charge in innovation.”

VIA seeks to redefine how contemporary music, opera and the performing arts create impactful, socially-engaged work in the 21st century, working to develop new models, methods and ecosystems to drive holistic change across these industries. VIA is committed to advancing unique approaches to producing arts projects which merge artistry, equity, and interdisciplinarity, supported by a creative producing team that is integrated throughout the creative process, providing dramaturgical, production, administrative, marketing, and operational insights from the initial concept through to the premiere and global dissemination of VIA’s projects.

Sensorium Ex, VIA's groundbreaking opera and social-impact project, aims to bring about major transformations in how the opera industry supports disabled artists and shapes narratives of disability. The opera is a multi-sensory narrative woven together at the intersections of disability and artificial intelligence, exploring the fundamental questions of what it means to have voice, and the nature of voice beyond language. The project will devise new artistic practices which center disability equity and access at all steps in the process - pioneering inclusive casting practices; co-creating the aesthetics and expressions of the opera with disabled cast members and artists; and designing a fully inclusive and accessible audience experience. Sensorium Ex is pioneering a new set of Artificial Intelligence tools as a way of expanding the possibilities for voice and expression, developed in collaboration with the The NYU Ability Project that expands the possibilities for people with disordered, impaired, or limited speech to communicate, with an emphasis on expressivity and personalization. These tools will debut as part of the opera, and in an exhibit at the Luminarium in Omaha in May 2025.

Sensorium Ex is commissioned by VisionIntoArt in association with Common Senses Festival, Jill and Bill Steinberg, and Beth Morrison Projects, developed and produced by VisionIntoArt and Beth Morrison Projects. The project has also received funding from the Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. There will be an installation focused on voice and Artificial Intelligence in partnership with R. Luke DuBois and the NYU Ability Project, the Kiewit Luminarium.

Prestini, VIA's Co-Founder, for nearly 25 years has been creating projects which bridge disciplines, cultures and communities, building ambitious platforms for driving equity in the arts. Her work has been performed across the world, including by the New York Philharmonic, and at the Barbican Center (London), Bellas Artes (Mexico City), Artscape Theatre (Cape Town) and the United Nations largest Gender Equity conference. Alongside her artistic output, Prestini is also a multi-talented leader within the arts world, and in addition to VisionIntoArt, she also co-founded the ground-breaking arts institution National Sawdust in Brooklyn. 

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.

VisionIntoArt, “always intriguing and frequently beguiling”, is a multimedia production company that “facilitates flamboyant, confounding and enticing collaborations” (New York Times). VIA creates and commissions works that involve various disciplines, presented around the world, and forged from the most exciting, emerging, and established artists living today, as well as interdisciplinary experts including scientists and conservationists. Incubating, producing, and disseminating, VIA projects often bridge impact, community building and scientific inquiry, with the belief that collaboration sustains artistic innovation and promotes a healthier society.

VIA’s works range from the Hubble Cantata - the largest communal VR operatic event - to multiplatform works like The Colorado, now viewable on PBS. VIA productions have been seen at Lincoln Center, the Barbican Centre, HIFA in Zimbabwe, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Kennedy Center, and through residencies at MASS MoCA, The Park Avenue Armory, and Arizona State University.

The company’s projects include world premieres and tours of work including Con Alma at Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, and at The United Nations for the world's largest equity conference presented by Death of Classical in partnership with Carnegie Hall; Houses of Zodiac at The Broad Museum in Los Angeles, a live Butoh, Ballet, and cello work with film installation presented as part of The Broad’s special exhibition Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, also seen at the 2022 Romaeuropa Festival in Rome, Italy, and Bang on a Can's 2023 LOUD Weekend at MASS MoCA; Archive of Desire (Palazzo Grassi in Venice; The Broad Museum), a collaborative performance work created by poet Robin Coste Lewis, visual artist Julie Mehretu, composer and pianist Vijay Iyer, and Zeigler with original direction by Charlotte Brathwaite,  presented as part of the Onassis Foundation’s 2023 New York City-wide festival and international tour, and the forthcoming opera project Sensorium Ex, which cultivates community-centered practices, most recently presented as part of UnMute ArtsAbility Festival in Cape Town (Africa's premier disability-led, inclusive arts festival), and in collaboration with The REACH and Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center, and which will have its world premiere presented by the Common Sense Festival and Luminarium Museum in Omaha May 2025.

The VisionIntoArt team includes Paola Prestini (Founder and Co-Artistic Director), Jeffrey Zeigler (Co-Artistic Director), Ras Dia (Producing Director), and Daniella Omeruo (Marketing & Producing Associate).

Composer Paola Prestini has collaborated with poets, filmmakers, and scientists in large-scale multimedia works that chart her interest in themes ranging from the cosmos to the environment. She has created, written and produced projects such as the world's largest and first communal VR opera, The Hubble Cantata, and the eco-documentary The Colorado. Her opera Sensorium Ex dives into community impact and AI-bridging her love of collaboration with system building. Her work has been performed by the New York Philharmonic, Minnesota Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Diego Opera, Bellas Artes, and at the Festival Dei Due Mondi in Italy. She has been a resident at MASS MoCA, the Park Avenue Armory, the American Academy in Rome, and at Sundance. Prestini is a Co-Founder of VisionIntoArt, a non-profit new music and interdisciplinary arts production company in New York City and is the Co-Founder/Artistic Director of the non-profit music organization National Sawdust.

Jeffrey Zeigler is one of the most innovative and versatile cellists of our time. Following his eight year tenure as the cellist of the internationally renowned Kronos Quartet, his work continues to push boundaries with a wide array of solo and collaborative projects. His most recent solo album, Houses of Zodiac with music composed by Paola Prestini was hailed as “one of the greatest and most ambitious solo cello albums of all time."

Ras Dia is the Producing Director of VisionIntoArt (VIA), and Deputy Director, Creative Projects at National Sawdust. In this dual capacity, he leads commissioning and producing for VIA, integrating the company’s creative producing practices into strategic initiatives such as the VIA Impact Lab which explores emerging methods and models for creating interdisciplinary music and arts projects.

Daniella Omeruo is a digital marketer and interface innovator dedicated to effecting change through the arts and technology. She helps women-led businesses and organizations dedicated to social impact build their brands through effective marketing campaigns and accessible, interactive websites.