On today’s episode of music/Maker with Tyler Kline, Tyler is joined by composer–pianist–choreographer Sugar Vendil, an interdisciplinary artist based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn).
Beginning as a classical pianist, Sugar spent nearly a decade honing her voice; today her kinesthetic, improvisatory practice integrates sound, movement, and theater. She writes and performs solo works for piano and electronics and co-leads Vanity Project with Trevor Gureckis. A proud second-generation Filipinx American, she’s developing Antonym: the opposite of nostalgia (supported by NPN Creation Fund and MAPFund; co-commissioned by Living Arts Tulsa, High Concept Labs, and National Sawdust, premiering 2026 with her ensemble sugar vendil/isogram). Her commissions include work for Jennifer Koh’s Alone Together, The Nouveau Classical Project, ETHEL’s Homebaked, and ACF | Create; her album May We Know Our Own Strength is out on Gold Bolus.
In this conversation, Sugar and Tyler trace how movement, breath, and physical instinct shape her compositions; the shift from championing new music to composing her own; and how identity and agency inform an interdisciplinary practice across acoustic and electronic work. They dig into the seeds of Antonym, the body-forward “new virtuosity” she’s cultivating at the piano, collaborative processes that keep the work alive, and why she prefers the deeper connection of a newsletter over social platforms.
Sugar and her work can be found online at https://sugarvendil.com/, and you can subscribe to Sugar's newsletter at https://sugarvendil.com/eletter
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