Nadia Sirota Announces New Online Series

UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA) has announced an online series from violist, broadcaster, curator and CAP UCLA alum Nadia Sirota. An Artist-In-Residence with CAP-UCLA, Nadia Sirota released a new music and talk show, Living Music with Nadia Sirota, from her garage in Los Angeles, with special guests performing from their homes. The first show, is today, Thursday, March 19th at 9pm EDT and 6pm PDT, to be broadcast on Facebook Live. Featured socially-distanced guests: composer, pianist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Timo Andres, GRAMMY-nominated composer and performer Nathalie Joachim, and cellist Gabriel Cabezas.

"I just wanted to do something joyful," host Nadia Sirota said. Having previously won a Peabody Award for her podcast "Meet the Composer," Nadia had been planning on releasing her new show "Living Music" this fall, but in light of current events, she decided to fast track it. "None of us has anything to do! All of our gigs were cancelled for the foreseeable future, and what I really miss is coming together -- a whole bunch of people doing the same thing at the same time. Broadcasting this show gives us a chance at the type of community a concert can create. " She added that this event will present new challenges for the show. "It's brand new territory for everyone; we'll see what happens!"

If all goes to plan, Living Music with Nadia Sirota will be broadcast twice each week. Nadia and her staff have decided to do the show without a paywall, instead soliciting donations from those who can afford it.

"We are all various degrees of unemployed, so it kind of defeats the purpose to put up a paywall and prevent musicians from tuning in! But hopefully those who can help to make this more of a "gig" for the staff and performers will chip in a couple of bucks."

Future guests on the show include composers Marcos Balter, Nico Muhly and Missy Mazzoli, performers Pekka Kuusisto and Claire Chase, and many more to be announced. For more information, nadiasirota.com/livingmusic.