Sugar Vendil
Sugar Vendil is a New York-based pianist and multidisciplinary artist lauded for “leading the unlikely intersection of classical music and new fashion” (The New York Times). A first generation Filipino-American, Vendil grew up in El Sobrante, CA, a suburb in the San Francisco Bay Area. She holds a Master of Music degree from New York University and is the founder of The Nouveau Classical Project (NCP), a music ensemble that collaborates with artists such as visual artists, dancers, and fashion designers for its performances.
Vendil is currently commissioning a set of solo works for her first solo album. In addition to rigorous discipline as a musician, her artistic practice is strongly focused on multidisciplinary performance that integrates music, movement, and fashion, and approaches the piano in unconventional ways. For her piece “Test Site 1: In)habit”, the first part in a series of these explorations, she worked with choreographer Coco Karol and composer Trevor Gureckis, who has been her main collaborator for six years. Prior to this, she directed “Potential Energies,” a hybrid work for five musicians and five dancers choreographed by Barbie Diewald, composed by Trevor Gureckis, and performed by NCP and TrioDance at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Fisher. Her present investigations revolve around the themes of identity and race, particularly related to discrimination as well as being caught in between two cultures. Vendil was recently awarded a Puffin Foundation grant, which will assist in generating a new piece that will confront these issues. Residencies include Earthdance (E|MERGE Multidisciplinary Residency), the A-Z West Wagon Station Encampment, and Arts Letters & Numbers. Vendil was a 2016 Fellow in the Target Margin Institute for Collaborative Theater Making..
Sugar is an advocate of the oxford comma, is obsessed with her cat Coco, and has an excellent memory. Her name is a combination of her parents' names: SUsan and edGAR.
photo credit: Julia Comita
Website:
http://sugarvendil.com/