Named by NPR as one of the Top 100 composers in the World under 40, composer and collaborative artist Paola Prestini compositions have been deemed “radiant…[and] amorously evocative” by The New York Times. She is founder/director of VisionIntoArt, an interdisciplinary production company, and creative director of the new venue/recording space Original Music Workshop (Brooklyn).

Her work is performed worldwide, from the Kennedy Center, BAM Next Wave Festival, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, to HIFA (Zimbabwe), Etnafest (Italy), and the Barbican Centre (London). Her work has been commissioned and presented by Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Opera America, the Kronos Quartet and and the Washington Chorus and Trinity Choir in venues worldwide. She has enjoyed many collaborations with muses, conservationists, astrophysicists, visual artists, writers, and filmmakers, and her current projects include works for the New York Philharmonic, two installation concertos (commissioned by the Krannert Center); The Hubble Cantata (a collaboration with the Space Telescope Science Institute for the Hubble's 25th anniversary); Oceanic Verses (performed at the Barbican Centre with BBC Symphony Orchestra); The Colorado, a live performance documentary about water conservation for Grammy winning Roomful of Teeth with conservationist William deBuys; and Aging Magician (a puppetry music- theater work in residence at Watermill Center and Park Avenue Armory). Residencies include the Watermill Center, MASS MoCA, Hermitage Retreat, Ucross Foundation, Sundance, and LMCC Governor’s Island and her awards have come from the NEA, NEFA, ASCAP and Opera America.

Paola is a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow and is passionate about music education-she the editor of the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composer book and she has taught in inner city schools in New York, and in Mexico, Africa, and El Sistema in Venezuela. Her music is released on Tzadik Records, Innova, Sing for Hope's Aids Quilt Songbook, and VIA Records. Her writing is published in the Arcana series by Hips Road and she is a graduate of the Juilliard School.