Brooklyn Youth Chorus (BYC) is working with composers Paola Prestini and Jad Abumrad (RadioLab), as well as multidisciplinary collaborator and director, Jessica Grindstaff (Phantom Limb Co.) in developing a multi-year project with a working title of Port City, a musical exploration and poetic rendering that illuminates and regenerates the archives of the Brooklyn Navy Yard through the eyes and voices of young people.

The work will bring to light the experiences of distinctive individuals whose lives were shaped by the yard through their stories of belonging and alienation, and their perspectives of what made the space at once, both a haven andor a hell. The creative team will lead the young people of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus as archaeologists unearthing the bones of history that gave significance to the yard over time as they add new chapters and voices to the archives.

The project will draw extensively on oral histories and research and will culminate in the creation of site-specific performance presentations in the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s Agger Fish Building - an historic warehouse located within the complex.

‍