Photo courtesy of Jill Steinberg

There’s something fitting about the fact that composer Paola Prestini made her first appearance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s vaunted Next Wave Festival the very same month that National Sawdust, the new arts institution that she directs, opened its doors with a pair of eclectic, sold out concerts. Staging a large-scale show at Next Wave is a mark of superstar status in the new music scene—and for 37-year-old Prestini, it was just the latest feather in her cap. She’ll have more soon, what with forthcoming projects such as Two Oars: An Opera at Sea, a collaboration with Robert Wilson based on the novel The Old Man and the Sea, and The Colorado, an “eco-cantata” set to debut at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

But the fitting-ness of the timing goes to the nature of Prestini’s success: She’s arrived at the tippity top of the cultural world thanks to her pay-it-forward approach to getting ahead. Her company, VisionIntoArt (VIA), which she founded while still a student at Juilliard, emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration, and she’s used it not only as a platform for her own dazzling multimedia productions, but as a launchpad for the varied artists with whom she works. Prestini’s role at National Sawdust is an extension of that modus operandi: She’s made it the mission of the non-profit to further emerging artists’ careers, not only by offering the rotating resident groups a stage, but by inviting a diverse mix of curators to program shows at the venue according to their own broad-spectrum tastes. “National Sawdust is a place for artists to discover and be discovered,” says the creative director.

With that in mind, we asked Prestini to pay it forward one more time, and give us her list of seven National Sawdust-affiliated artists to watch. She was more than happy—indeed, ‘gleeful’ may be the right word—to oblige.

ANTHONY ROTH COSTANZO