ORCHESTRATED is a feature documentary investigating the untold story of the first all-Black symphony orchestra in the United States.
ORCHESTRATED is a feature documentary about the first all-Black symphony orchestra in the United States—the Negro Symphony Orchestra (NSO), founded in 1930s. Under the leadership of Harlem's leading activists and thinkers, this virtually unknown project brought together over a hundred classically trained African American musicians. Their efforts and dreams were to culminate with a debut at Carnegie Hall in 1939 followed by European tour, but never did. Why? To tell the NSO’s story in the context of a century-long Black struggle for an equal place in classical music, ORCHESTRATED follows an NYU professor, pianist, podcaster, and BLM activist Kyle P. Walker, determined to bring the NSO out of oblivion.
Writer/director Natalia Iyudin works with the themes of oppression and personal freedom, both in the narrative genres of sci-fi and horror, and her nonfiction work.
Her short films screened worldwide — most notably The Garden, starring Sophia Lillis (Adults, Sharp Objects) — and in 2019, she made her directorial TV debut for the CW and Netflix with showrunner Vera Miao's "Two Sentence Horror Stories", starring Nicole Kang (Catwoman, Swallow) and Jim Parrack (True Blood).
Natalia developed multiple series including Girly, with Rashida Jones and Refinery29; directed for mental health campaigns around teen suicide and opioid crises; and on several projects for Toyota. She also co-created and directed We Got You, an award-winning digital series with Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter of The Roots.
A graduate of the Directing Program at the Krzysztof Kieslowski School of Film & Television in her native Poland, Natalia is also a seasoned film and TV editor, and a programmer, and has worked with MTV, BET, PBS, Vogue, MoMA, Film Society of Lincoln Center, National Gallery of Arts, BAM, Sony Pictures Classics among others.
Producer - Robert Salyer
Advisor - Sam Pollard
Creative Supervisor - Ross Kauffman
Producer - Kashka Glowacka
Director of Photography/Writer - Bongani Mlambo
