Jupiter String Quartet Presented by Madeline Island Chamber Music

Photo by Todd Rosenberg. More photos available in high resolution at www.jensenartists.com/jupiter-string-quartet

Jupiter String Quartet
Presented by Madeline Island Chamber Music

Performing Music by Wynton Marsalis, Antonin Dvořák, and Béla Bartók

Friday, July 7, 2023 at 8pm
Bayfield Presbyterian Church | 306 Washington Ave. | Bayfield, WI
Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 5pm
The Clubhouse on Madeline Island | 480 Old Fort Road | La Pointe, WI

Tickets and information: www.micm.org/performance/calendar-of-events/
Livestream (Free): www.micm.org/performance

“The Jupiter String Quartet, an ensemble of eloquent intensity, has matured into one of the mainstays of the American chamber-music scene.” – The New Yorker

www.jupiterquartet.com

Bayfield & La Pointe, WI – The internationally acclaimed Jupiter String Quartet –– winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition –– will be presented in concert by Madeline Island Chamber Music, a Program of MacPhail for two performances on Friday July 7 and Saturday July 8, 2023. These performances, held at Bayfield Presbyterian Church (306 Washington Ave.) and The Clubhouse on Madeline Island (480 Old Fort Road) respectively, are presented during Madeline Island Chamber Music’s summer season for 2023.

For each of their concerts, the Jupiter Quartet will perform a program that features excerpts from "At the Octoroon Balls," String Quartet No. 1 by Wynton Marsalis, Antonin Dvořák’s Quartet in A-flat major Op. 105, and Béla Bartók Quartet No. 6.

As longtime, beloved performers of the Madeline Island Chamber Music community, the Jupiter Quartet cherish every opportunity to bring their close-knit and lively style of performance to the similarly well-bonded community of Madeline Island. Of the Jupiter Quartet’s history with and appreciation for Madeline Island Chamber Music’s programs, violist Liz Freivogel says:

“Our quartet always looks forward very much to our time at the Madeline Island Chamber Music festival. We first taught at Madeline Island very early on in our career, and have loved returning many times since then, each time marveling at how wonderfully the program is thriving. It has such an inspiring mix of music-making, career counseling, and general life advice, all in a beautiful setting. We are so excited to be a part of it all again!”

The Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Brought together by ties both familial and musical, the Jupiter Quartet is now celebrating its 22nd year together.

More About Jupiter String Quartet: The Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Now enjoying their 22nd year together, this tight-knit ensemble is firmly established as an important voice in the world of chamber music. Artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana since 2012, the Jupiter Quartet maintain private studios and direct the University’s chamber music program.

The Jupiter Quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, Austria’s Esterhazy Palace, and Seoul’s Sejong Chamber Hall. Their major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, Music at Menlo, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana since 2012, where they maintain private studios and direct the chamber music program.

Their chamber music honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City; the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two.

The quartet's latest album is a collaboration with the Jasper String Quartet (Marquis Classics, 2021), produced by Grammy-winner Judith Sherman. This collaborative album features the world premiere recording of Dan Visconti’s Eternal Breath, Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-flat, Op. 20, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round. The quartet’s discography also includes numerous recordings on labels including Azica Records and Deutsche Grammophon.

The quartet chose its name because Jupiter was the most prominent planet in the night sky at the time of its formation and the astrological symbol for Jupiter resembles the number four. For more information, visit www.jupiterquartet.com.

About Madeline Island Chamber Music: Madeline Island Chamber Music is a program of MacPhail Center for Music, devoted to educating and nurturing the next generation of musicians through concentrated study and performance of chamber music on verdant, historic Madeline Island. Established in 1985 as a one-week camp for 20 high school musicians, the program has evolved to its current six-week structure serving over 70 extraordinarily talented high school, college, and graduate school string and woodwind musicians. Each year, a pre-professional quartet is invited as the Emerging Artist Quartet-in-Residence, participating in the Fellowship String Quartet program and later a week-long artist residency hosted by MacPhail Center for Music. This residency features public performances and community engagement programs throughout the Twin Cities. Madeline Island Chamber Music is a nationally recognized model for education in chamber music. https://www.micm.org/

About MacPhail Center for Music: MacPhail Center for Music is the nation’s largest music learning and performance center and one of Minnesota’s top ten arts organizations. Since 1907, MacPhail Center for Music has been providing meaningful opportunities and is committed to transforming lives and strengthening communities through music learning experiences that inspire. Each year, MacPhail offers programming to 15,000 students of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities at locations in Minneapolis, White Bear Lake, Chanhassen, Apple Valley, Austin, and Madeline Island, WI., as well as 103 community partnerships across the Twin Cities. An industry leader in online music education, MacPhail’s Live Online and Online School Partnerships programs have reached students for the past ten years. MacPhail has a 117-year history of excellence, promoting life-long learning and building long-term relationships between students and teachers. https://www.macphail.org/

For Calendar Editors:

Description (for both concerts): The Jupiter Quartet, described as “an ensemble of eloquent intensity” by The New Yorker, performs as part of the Madeline Island Chamber Music (MICM) –– a nationally recognized model for education in chamber music. MICM is devoted to educating and nurturing the next generation of musicians through concentrated study and performance of chamber music on verdant, historic Madeline Island. On Thursday July 6, Jupiter Quartet will work with students as part of a master class held at The Clubhouse at Madeline Island and in two performances on July 7 and 8, Jupiter Quartet will perform a program that features the music of Wynton Marsalis, Béla Bartók, and Antonín Dvořák.

Short description: The Jupiter Quartet, “an ensemble of eloquent intensity” (The New Yorker), presents a masterclass and performs in two concerts as part of the Madeline Island Chamber Music’s 2023 summer season.

Concert details:

Who: Jupiter String Quartet
Presented by Madeline Island Chamber Music
What: Music by Wynton Marsalis, Dvořák, and Bartók
When: Friday, July 7, 2023 at 8pm
Where: Bayfield Presbyterian Church, 306 Washington Ave., Bayfield, WI
Tickets and information: www.micm.org/performance/calendar-of-events/

Who: Jupiter String Quartet
Presented by Madeline Island Chamber Music
What: Music by Wynton Marsalis, Béla Bartók, and Antonín Dvořák
When: Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 5pm
Where: The Clubhouse on Madeline Island, 480 Old Fort Road, La Pointe, WI
Tickets and information: www.micm.org/performance/calendar-of-events/
Livestream (Free): www.micm.org/performance

Joshua Bell's New Sony Classical Album - Butterfly Lovers

Joshua Bell Releases New Sony Classical Recording - Butterfly Lovers

Available Now

Bell Collaborates with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra
on the Beloved Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto


Adapted for an Orchestra of Traditional Chinese Instruments

(June 30 – New York, NY) GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell’s forthcoming recording Butterfly Lovers features one of the most renowned works in the Chinese classical violin repertoire, the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto. Recorded with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) and conducted by Tsung Yeh, the work is a distinctive adaptation for an ensemble of traditional Chinese instruments. The new Sony Classical album is available everywhere now.  Accompanying today’s news is the video for the seventh movement (Adagio Cantabile) from the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto – listen here.

The recording also features Bell as soloist in three popular Western Romantic works for violin and orchestra, all specifically arranged to be performed with the SCO’s virtuosic ensemble of Chinese instruments.

"I'm thrilled to have worked with the incredible Singapore Chinese Orchestra and Maestro Tsung Yeh on this recording, which includes the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto as its centerpiece,” Joshua Bell says. “It was a joy to collaborate with the SCO musicians, who brought this work to life through the expressive sounds of the traditional Chinese instruments.”

Inspired by a hauntingly romantic Chinese legend, the concerto was written in 1959 by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao. The original version, richly scored for a full Western symphonic orchestra, has achieved global popularity. For this recording, Bell performed an adaptation of the work by Yang Hui Chang and Ku Lap-Man for an orchestra of traditional instruments.

“The music beautifully describes the classic Butterfly Lovers story, featuring themes of romance, star-crossed lovers, and friendship,” Bell adds.

The concerto, in seven concise but evocative movements, recounts the ancient Chinese legend of the youthful “butterfly lovers,” a story as passionate and star-crossed as that of Romeo and Juliet. The new arrangement for Chinese orchestra lends the concerto an authentic clarity of sound and a timeless atmosphere, in which Bell’s violin becomes a poignant voice telling and inhabiting a story of tragic but transcendent love.

“Joshua has brought his own unique interpretation to this world-famous masterwork,” conductor Tsung Yeh says, calling their collaboration “a beautiful and emotional musical journey.”

“My favorite parts of this recording are the more soulful, soft passages,” he adds. “I can actually hear the sighing and sobbing from his violin.”

Bell says, “We have also included three classics of the violin repertoire from 19th-century Europe – works by Sarasate, Saint-Saens and Massenet – making it a truly multicultural project.” 

Those three classics – Sarasate’s “Ziguenerweisen,” Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso in A Minor; and Massenet’s “Méditation” from Thaïs – are also heard in distinctive arrangements for Chinese orchestra.

Bell and Yeh first performed together at the beginning of Bell’s career in 1989, following Yeh's appointment as music director of Indiana’s South Bend Symphony Orchestra. Bell was the soloist for one of Yeh’s very first concerts.

“As an American, I feel so privileged to have been given this opportunity,” Bell says of the new recording, “and I find it fitting that we have recorded this in Singapore, a historically important setting that bridges East and West."

Bell hopes to share the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto with American audiences during the 2024-25 concert season.

JOSHUA BELL – BUTTERFLY LOVERS – JUNE 30, 2023

TRACKLIST:
1. Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto: I. Adagio Cantabile (Chen Gang / Zhanhao He)
2. Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto: II. Allegro (Chen Gang / Zhanhao He)
3. Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto: III. Adagio Assai Doloroso (Chen Gang / Zhanhao He)
4. Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto: IV. Pesante - Piu mosso - Duramente (Chen Gang / Zhanhao He)
5. Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto: V. Lagrimoso (Chen Gang / Zhanhao He)
6. Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto: VI. Presto resoluto (Chen Gang / Zhanhao He)
7. Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto: VII. Adagio Cantabile (Chen Gang / Zhanhao He)
8. Introduction et rondo capriccioso in A minor, Op. 28 (Camille Saint-Saëns)
9. “Méditation” from Thaïs (Jules Massenet)
10. Zigeunerweisen, Op. 20 (Pablo de Sarasate) 

ABOUT JOSHUA BELL

With a career spanning almost four decades, GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated artists of his era. Bell has performed with virtually every major orchestra in the world and continues to maintain engagements as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, conductor, and Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints.

FOLLOW JOSHUA BELL
WEBSITE || FACEBOOK || INSTAGRAM || TWITTER || YOUTUBE

Britt Festival presents West Coast Premiere of Guggenheim Fellow Lisa Bielawa’s Send the Carriage Through

Photo by Desmond White available in hi-resolution at www.jensenartists.com/lisa-bielawa

Britt Festival presents West Coast Premiere of Guggenheim Fellow Lisa Bielawa’s Send the Carriage Through

Britt Festival Orchestra
Conducted by Music Director Teddy Abrams

Saturday, June 24, 2023 8pm
Britt Pavilion | 350 First St. | Jacksonville, OR

Tickets: www.brittfest.org/performance/beethoven-5-alexi-kenney-23/

Lisa Bielawa: www.lisabielawa.net

Jacksonville, OR – 2023 Guggenheim Fellow Lisa Bielawa’s latest orchestral work, Send the Carriage Through, will have its West Coast premiere on Saturday, June 24, 2023 at 8pm, presented by the Britt Music and Arts Festival and performed by the Britt Festival Orchestra led by Music Director Teddy Abrams. The program also includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 and Barber’s Violin Concerto, featuring violin soloist Alexi Kenney.

Lisa Bielawa wrote Send the Carriage Through for the Louisville Orchestra, where Teddy Abrams also serves as Music Director, as part of her Creators Corps residency with that orchestra. Bielawa is one of three composers who temporarily relocated to Louisville, Kentucky, to make new orchestral and community-based work as an active, engaged member of the community, as part of the orchestra’s new Creators Corps program.

Inspired in part by Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral processional, Bielawa describes Send the Carriage Through as, “a gift of gratitude to the players of the Louisville Orchestra and a celebration of Teddy Abrams’ own open-hearted vision of leadership as a connection and invitation.”

The Queen’s meticulously choreographed funeral initially inspired her work on the piece. Bielawa says, “[Queen Elizabeth II] had in fact ‘composed’ the whole pageant herself, down to every detail – and there she was, at the center of it all, yet absent from it. As I watched the astounding choreography of the procession, I ruminated: ‘What does the way we enshrine people who are gone, especially great leaders, say about us?’ … What began as a rumination on greatness and mortality took on more and more playfulness and joy as the weeks and months went by, and my relationship with Louisville – the city, its Orchestra, its audience and community – became more and more colorful and engaged. I began to celebrate the exhilaration of music-making as a team sport, a kind of relay race in which one could literally ‘pass the baton,’ sometimes leading, sometimes following.”

Lisa Bielawa is a Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition. She takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations. Her music has been described as “ruminative, pointillistic and harmonically slightly tart,” by The New York Times. She is the recipient of the 2017 Music Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters and a 2020 OPERA America Grant for Female Composers. She was named a William Randolph Hearst Visiting Artist Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society for 2018 and was Artist-in-Residence at Kaufman Music Center in New York for the 2020-2021 season. In 1997 Bielawa co-founded the MATA Festival. 

During her Guggenheim Fellowship period this year, Bielawa is primarily working on two projects – a new opera, La Ballonniste, and a book of prose vignettes from her experiences and encounters with music in a variety of international settings. La Ballonniste is an opera in three acts inspired by the life of Elisabeth Thible, an opera singer who was the first woman to fly in a hot air balloon, with libretto by Claire Solomon, dramaturgy by Cori Ellison. Bielawa’s book will share remembrances and observations gathered from her decades of wandering, offering cultural moments in the global continuum frozen in time.

In addition to Send the Carriage Through, Lisa Bielawa’s recent premieres all celebrate the musical relationships and community that have become a hallmark of her work:

• On April 15, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), led by Artistic Director Gil Rose, gave the New York premiere of her piece In medias res at Carnegie Hall, as part of the orchestra’s 25th anniversary celebration. Bielawa was the BMOP Music Alive Composer-in-Residence from 2006-2009, and wrote this work inspired by the bonds she forged with her fellow musicians. The San Francisco Chronicle praised the work’s “superb combination of rhythmic exuberance, melodic grace and textural inventiveness.”

• On April 23, the Louisville Orchestra presented the world premiere of Louisville Broadcast, an iteration of Bielawa’s ongoing Broadcast series focused on the city of Louisville. Over 500 professional, student, and amateur musicians from throughout the area joined together to perform Bielawa’s 45-minute piece, turning two historic locations – Shelby Park and Big Four Bridge – into vast musical canvases, with listeners walking freely among the performers.

• From May 17-19, the Louisville Orchestra gave the premiere performances of Bielawa’s new piece Home, co-composed with Lindsey Branson, on tour to three Kentucky cities – Harlan, Prestonburg, and Pikesville. Bielawa met Branson, a singer/songwriter and graduate of the Kentucky School of Bluegrass and Traditional Musicon a recent trip to Hazard, KY, in the Appalachian mountains. They created the piece in an organic and intuitive process over the next weeks, resulting in a joyful shared musical performance work for full orchestra and unlimited musicians from the rich traditions of the region.

For more information about Lisa Bielawa, please visit www.lisabielawa.net.
For information about Teddy Abrams, please visit www.teddyabrams.com
For information about the Britt Music and Arts Festival, please visit www.brittfest.org/about-britt

Annual "Garden of Memory" Summer Solstice Concert Returns for 2023 Presented by New Music Bay Area and Chapel of the Chimes

“Garden of Memory”
Annual Summer Solstice Concert Returns for 2023

Presented by New Music Bay Area and Chapel of the Chimes

Featuring Bay Area performers and composers

Wednesday, June 21, 2023, 5-9pm
Chapel of the Chimes
4499 Piedmont Avenue | Oakland, CA

Parking is limited. Public transit and carpooling are recommended. No ticket sales at the door.

Tickets ($20 general, $15 students & seniors, $5 children 5-12) available through Eventbrite.

More information: bit.ly/gardenofmemory2023

Oakland, CA – On Wednesday, June 21, 2023 from 5 to 9pm, Garden of Memory –– the annual summer solstice celebration presented by New Music Bay Area and Chapel of the Chimes –– returns for an evening of musical performance. Tickets, which will be available through online sales only, are limited to 2500. Though not required, masks are encouraged for indoor performances.

At this popular solstice concert, described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a walk-through fun house of musical and visual splendor” and by the East Bay Times as “the best party of the year,” the program features concurrent performances in different parts of the building by Bay Area composers, musicians, sound artists, and other performers presenting a variety of acoustic and electronic music, installations, and interactive events. The audience is free to explore the multilevel labyrinth of interior gardens, cloisters, stairwells, fountains, alcoves, pools, and antechambers during the performances.

Select highlights of programming and performers for 2023:

• Pianist Sarah Cahill will perform Ballade by the late Kaija Saariaho, who passed away on June 2; excerpts from Birds and Insects by Arlene Sierra; and Kotekan from Vivian Fung's Glimpses

• Pamela Z, a multimedia artist, composer, and pioneer of digital looping techniques

• The Cornelius Cardew Choir, a Bay Area-based vocal performance ensemble specializing in experimental music

• Theresa Wong, an internationally-renowned composer, cellist, and vocalist with Bay Area composer, vocalist, producer and improviser Roco Córdova

• SORIAH (stage persona of Enrique Ugalde), an internationally-acclaimed throat singer and ritual artist

Additional artists to be featured for 2023, many of whom are known around the Bay Area, include: Beth Custer, Guillermo Gallindo and Andy Meyerson, Nico Simonian, Paul Dresher, Duo B: Lisa Mezzacappa and Jason Levis, Karen Stackpole and Krys Bobrowski, Randy Porter and Friends, Orchestra Nostalgico, Dan Plonsey and Friends, Jon Raskin, Gino Robair and Steve Adams, and many others.

Garden of Memory offers a unique and personal musical experience to every listener roving freely through the Chapel of the Chimes. Getting lost is part of the experience as guests climb up and down the three floors of this Oakland Historic Landmark building and its unique architectural elements, which rise into vaulted ceilings. Seamless in feel, there are three separate design sections created by four architects; Cunningham & Politeo 1909, Julia Morgan 1926-1951 (consulting until her retirement 1951), Aaron Green 1956-1986 and JST Architects 1986-1998. In the older section the complexity of chapels, columbaria, and mausoleum areas are adorned with murals, paintings, sculpture, mosaics, California tile and 16th century antiquities. All architectural and garden areas have excellent acoustics and are illuminated by gentle natural light, often through beautiful arrangements of stained glass.

Drawing crowds of over four thousand people in past years (including a large number of children), Garden of Memory has become a favorite summer solstice celebration for Bay Area audiences. Since the pandemic, the audience is now limited to 2500. Information about performances, directions, parking, accessibility, food/beverage, and is available at www.gardenofmemory.com.

About New Music Bay Area: Since 1996, New Music Bay Area, a nonprofit organization which provides opportunities and information to composers and performers of new music throughout the Bay Area, has hosted the Garden of Memory solstice concert every June 21st from 5pm-9pm. Board president Sarah Cahill came up with the idea after wandering into the Chapel of the Chimes, and now Cahill and Lucy Farber Mattingly organize the concert each year, in collaboration with the small board of New Music Bay Area and the Chapel of the Chimes. Cahill recalls, “As I meandered around the building, I heard distant organ music, and tried to follow the sound to its source, through a labyrinth of magical gardens and gothic alcoves with the afternoon light filtering through stained glass. I imagined putting musicians all around this maze, so that when you turn a corner you might encounter a string quartet or an electronic music installation or a Georgian choir. So that's what we did.”

About Chapel of the Chimes: Chapel of the Chimes, the largest above-ground cemetery west of the Mississippi, started out as a street car station and became the California Memorial Crematorium and Columbarium in 1909. The property was expanded and transformed by Julia Morgan and later, Aaron Green – a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright. The lobby and hallways feature artwork by Diego Rivera, a marble table top from the Medici family crest and a page from the Gutenberg Bible.

The facility’s numerous chapels, columbaria, and mausoleum areas are adorned with antiquities that date back to the 16th century. All architectural and garden areas have excellent acoustics and are illuminated by gentle natural light, often through beautiful arrangements of stained glass.

About Sarah Cahill: Sarah Cahill, hailed as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, has commissioned and premiered over seventy compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to Cahill include John Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Roscoe Mitchell, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF). In May 2023, Cahill premiered Viet Cuong's new piano concerto, Stargazer, with the California Symphony.

Cahill’s latest project is The Future is Female, an investigation and reframing of the piano literature featuring more than seventy compositions by women around the globe, from the Baroque to the present day, including new commissioned works. Recent and upcoming performances of The Future is Female include concerts presented by The Barbican, Carolina Performing Arts, Carlsbad Music Festival, Detroit Institute of Arts, University of Iowa, Bowling Green New Music Festival, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, North Dakota Museum of Art, Mayville State University, the EXTENSITY Concert Series’ Women Now Festival in New York, and the Newport Classical Music Festival.

Sarah Cahill’s discography includes more than twenty albums on the New Albion, CRI, New World, Tzadik, Albany, Innova, Cold Blue, Other Minds, Irritable Hedgehog, and Pinna labels. Cahill's latest album, The Future is Female, Vol. 3, At Play, was released in April 2023 on First Hand Records. The Future is Female is a three-volume series, which celebrates and highlights women composers from the 17th century to the present day.

Cahill’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 8 to 10 pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. She is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory and is a regular pre-concert speaker with the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

For more information, visit www.sarahcahill.com.

ECM New Series Releases Vox Clamantis’s New Recording of Music by Henrik Ødegaard out on June 2

ECM New Series Releases

Vox Clamantis’s Recording of Music by Henrik Ødegaard
Jaan-Eik Tulve, conductor

ECM New Series 2767
0289 4858473 4
Release Date: June 2, 2023

After dedicating past ECM New Series recordings to the works of contemporary composers Arvo Pärt, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Helena Tulve and most recently Cyrillus Kreek, the Vox Clamantis choir, under the direction of Jaan-Eik Tulve, turns its attention towards Norwegian composer Henrik Ødegaard with a fine-drawn programme of liturgical choral music. Vox Clamantis are at home in the worlds of both old and new music, having addressed Gregorian chant and the polyphony of Pérotin as well as present-day compositions on previous albums. The ensemble and the works of Ødegaard make a perfect match, as the composer’s work, in a subtle sleight of hand, interweaves Gregorian chant with Norwegian folk song.

“In this recording, Gregorian chant is the protagonist,” writes Kristina Kõrver in the liner notes, “sometimes in its pure beauty, sometimes intertwined with the ‘new song’ of Henrik Ødegaard. As an organist and choir conductor, his musical thinking has been strongly influenced by two important traditions, Gregorian chant and Norwegian folk music, both of which have found unique expressions in his work.”

While these two traditions appear inextricably merged into one in the performance of the choir, they are visibly separated from one another in Ødegaard’s scores – the passages of Gregorian chant being marked in square notation, the predominant musical notation form in European vocal music from the 13th to the early 17th century. It’s a symbolic divide, translated gracefully into the music by opening up monophonic plainchant with modern polyphonic ingredients. The composer employs liturgical hymns as source material, from which he then branches off with his own compositional voice.

His empathic embrace of the original scores is as respectful as it is subtle, endowing the early music with different shades of his own creation and thereby achieving a fresh perspective. The approach his heard on Jesu, dulces memoria, composed in 2014/2015, with the title of the original Gregorian hymn maintained. He gently integrates new musical material on O filii et filiae, based on a 15th century paschal hymn, and the approach persists in the following Kyrie and the conductus Pater noster.

The main work here is the eight-part Meditations over St. Mary Magdalene’s Feast in Nidaros, originally conceived to be sung by two separate choirs. It is based on antiphons found in a 13th-century manuscript from medieval Scandinavia. Ødegaard’s compositional process transfigures these antiphons without overriding the original sketches – a process described in the liner notes “as if the composer were literally sitting in front of a fragmentary manuscript, filling in the gaps and adding the missing lines, not as scholar-restorer, but as a poet, a co-creator.”

The album was recorded at the St. Nicholas Dome in Haapsalu, Estonia, in March 2021.

*

With an extensive background of studies in trombone, church music, composition and Gregorian chant, Henrik Ødegaard (Oslo, 1955) settled his focus on liturgical composition, working as choir conductor, organist and composer. He is represented in the Norwegian hymn book (1985), and from 1982 to 2006 held a position as organist/choir conductor in Sauherad, Telemark, in addition to being an active composer. His main focus is on choir music, where he mixes plainchant with the Norwegian folk tradition, employing micro-tonal elements in the process. Ødegaard has received commissions from Oslo Chamber Choir, Oslo Philharmonic, Telemark Brass Ensemble, Telemark Chamber Choir, and many other ensembles across Scandinavia and the Baltic States.

Tulve and Ødegaard first met 30 years ago, when Tulve was giving Gregorian chant masterclasses in Norway. Shortly after, the composer would go on to study at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musqiue et de Danse de Paris, where Tulve was the assistant of the professor of Gregorian chant, Louis-Marie Vigne. Tulve: “Henrik has always been interested in linking Gregorian chant to his own compositions, and so we have a long-standing connection through his work. Vox Clamantis has been performing his music for years. It is therefore deeply symbolic that he wrote Meditations over St. Mary Magdalene’s Feast in Nidaros, in which he used the old manuscripts of the Trondheim Cathedral, specifically for us and the Norwegian women's ensemble Schola Sanctæ Sunnivæ.”

After leading the Paris Gregorian Choir and the Lac et Mel ensemble, Jaan-Eik Tulve founded Vox Clamantis in Tallinn in 1996, and he remains its artistic director and conductor today. From the outset a collective with members sharing interest in Gregorian chant, Vox Clamantis has explored both early polyphony and contemporary music, with many composers writing new music for the group. Vox Clamantis’s recordings have won numerous awards, and in 2017 the ensemble received the National Cultural Award of the Republic of Estonia. The choir appears on numerous critically acclaimed ECM New Series recordings, including Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Oxymoron (2007), Filia Sion (2012), Arvo Pärt’s Adam’s Lament (2012) and The Deer’s Cry (2016), Helena Tulve’s Arboles lloran por lluvia (2014), and The Suspended Harp of Babel (2020) with music by Estonian composer Cyrillus Kreek. The BBC and The Observer, among much other international press, had high praise for the latter, each connecting something deeply universal but also alien with the music, calling it “magic of another sphere” on the one hand and “music of another place and time, beautifully done” on the other.

More info:

http://www.voxclamantis.ee/

https://ecmrecords.com/artists/vox-clamantis/

Anna Thorvaldsdottir's new portrait album - ARCHORA and AIŌN - out on Sono Luminus May 26

Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s ARCHORA / AIŌN

Recorded by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra
Led by Chief Conductor Eva Ollikainen

Release Date: May 26, 2023
Sono Luminus

US Premiere of ARCHORA: Los Angeles Philharmonic, May 11-14
UK Premiere of AIŌN: BBC Symphony Orchestra, Aldeburgh Festival, June 16

“Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s natural instrument is the symphony orchestra, but in her hands it is reborn as a natural organism.”
– The Guardian

www.annathorvalds.com | www.en.sinfonia.is | www.sonoluminus.com

On Friday, May 26, 2023, Sono Luminus releases a new portrait album of the music of Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir featuring her orchestral works ARCHORA from 2022 and AIŌN from 2018, by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra led by Chief Conductor Eva Ollikainen. The album is offered in standard CD and Pure Audio Blu-ray™ formats (5.1 DTS HD MA 192kHz, 7.1.4 Auro-3D 96kHz, 2.0 LPCM 192kHz, 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos 48kHz), as well as digitally.

Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s “seemingly boundless textural imagination” (The New York Times) and “riveting” (The Times) sound world has made her “one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music” (NPR). Her music is composed as much by sounds and nuances as by harmonies and lyrical material – it is written as an ecosystem of sounds, where materials continuously grow in and out of each other, often inspired in an important way by nature and its many qualities, in particular structural ones, like proportion and flow.

ARCHORA was commissioned by the BBC Proms with co-commissioners the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Klangspuren Schwaz, and was premiered in August 2022 at the BBC Proms by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Eva Ollikainen in a concert selected as among The Guardian’s Classical Highlights of 2022. The Los Angeles Philharmonic and Ollikainen gave the U.S. premiere performances of ARCHORA at Walt Disney Concert Hall in May.

Of the premiere, Andrew Clements wrote in The Guardian, “Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s music is about mass and density, how different planes of sounds collide and combine, and how intricately detailed textures evolve over time. Those qualities make the orchestra the obvious medium for her work, and it has largely been through her sequence of strikingly effective orchestral scores that the Iceland-born composer has become recognised as one of the most distinctive voices in European music today."

AIŌN was written for the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and co-commissioned by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. The BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ollikainen, will give the UK premiere performance of AIŌN on June 16, 2023 as part of the 2023 Aldeburgh Festival, where Anna will be featured composer. AIŌN is a symphony-scale orchestral work in three parts – “Morphosis,” “Transcension,” and “Entropia” – and has been described as, “intense, surprising, and beautiful. AIŌN takes you to another place,” by Nordlys, and as, “an extraordinary three-movement work ... a soundworld that could be massively placid, deafeningly chaotic, weirdly unearthly, or awesome with oceanic majesty,” by Classical Voice North America.

Anna writes of these two pieces, and her sources of inspiration, in this excerpt from the liner notes for the new album:

The core inspiration behind ARCHORA centers around the notion of a primordial energy and the idea of an omnipresent parallel realm – a world both familiar and strange, static and transforming, nowhere and everywhere at the same time . . . AIŌN is inspired by the abstract metaphor of being able to move freely in time, of being able to explore time as a space that you inhabit rather than experiencing it as a one-directional journey through a single dimension. . .

As with my music generally, the inspiration behind ARCHORA and AIŌN is not something I am trying to describe through the music or what the music is “about”, as such. Inspiration is a way to intuitively tap into parts of the core energy, structure, atmosphere and material of the music I am writing each time. It is a fuel for the musical ideas to come into existence, a tool to approach and work with the fundamental materials, the ideas and sensations, that provide and generate the initial spark to the music.

This new album follows the April 28, 2023 release on Sono Luminus of Anna’s major orchestral work CATAMORPHOSIS (commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic and co-commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Iceland Symphony Orchestra) as part of the album Atmospheriques, recorded by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra led by Daníel Bjarnason.

With the addition of these two albums in 2023, Sono Luminus will have released all six of Anna’s orchestral works to date – including METACOSMOS (commissioned by the New York Philharmonic), released in 2019; AERIALITY, originally released by Deutsche Grammophon in 2014 and re-released in a remastered version on Sono Luminus in 2022; and Dreaming, originally released on a portrait album by Innova Recordings in 2011 and re-released on Sono Luminus in 2020.

Anna’s music is widely performed internationally and has been commissioned by many of the world’s leading orchestras, ensembles, and arts organizations, including the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Danish String Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, BBC Proms, and Carnegie Hall. Her “confident and distinctive handling of the orchestra” (Gramophone) has garnered her awards from the New York Philharmonic, Lincoln Center, the Nordic Council, and the Ivors Academy. Currently Composer-in-Residence with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, she will also be in residence at the 2023 Aldeburgh Festival. She lives in the London area.

RECENT AND UPCOMING PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS

Danish String Quartet International Tour - March 19-August 2, 2023
Featuring the premiere performance of Rituals
Including April 13 at UC Santa Barbara, CA; April 14 in Berkeley, CA; April 16 in Vancouver, BC; April 20 at Carnegie Hall in New York, NY; April 21 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; and more.
Information

Seven-City Iceland Symphony Orchestra UK Tour - April 20-28, 2023
Featuring METACOSMOS
Information

Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles, CA - May 11-14, 2023
US premiere of ARCHORA
Information

Carnegie Hall, New York, NY - May 25, 2023
World premiere of Ubique, a concert-length work for solo flutes, two cellos, and piano; part of Claire Chase’s Density series
Information 

National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ottawa, Ontario - May 18-19, 2023
Canadian premiere of CATAMORPHOSIS
Information 

Royal Opera House, London, England - June 9-17, 2023
Featuring CATAMORPHOSIS and METACOSMOS w/ choreography by Wayne McGregor
Information 

Aldeburgh Festival, Suffolk, England - June 12-24, 2023
Featured festival composer; UK Premiere of AIŌN, performance of METACOSMOS, and more
Information 

Tanglewood Festival & Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Lenox, MA - July 28-August 2, 2023
Composer in residence, including a portrait concert, performance of METACOSMOS, and the Danish String Quartet performing Rituals
Information

For Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s complete performance calendar, visit www.annathorvalds.com/performances.

ALBUM TRACK LISTING

Anna Thorvaldsdottir: ARCHORA / AIŌN
Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, Conducted by Eva Ollikainen
Sono Luminus
Release date: May 26, 2023

[1] ARCHORA by Anna Thorvaldsdottir [20:52]
[2-4] AIŌN by Anna Thorvaldsdottir
2. I. Morphosis [13:16]
3. II. Transcension [16:47]
4. III. Entropia [10:50]

Total Time: 61:48

Recorded at Harpa Concert Hall, Reykjavík, Iceland
Norðurljós Recital Hall, October 17-20, 2022
Producer: Ragnheiður Jónsdóttir
Executive Producer: Collin J. Rae
Recording, Mixing Engineer: Daniel Shores
Editing Engineer: Ragnheiður Jónsdóttir
Assistant Engineer: Joshua Frey
Mastering Engineers: Daniel Shores; Morten Lindberg

Pure Audio Blu-ray™ Audio specifications:
5.1 DTS HD MA 192kHz
7.1.4 Auro-3D 96kHz
2.0 LPCM 192kHz
7.1.4 Dolby Atmos 48kHz

Maya Beiser Releases InfInIte Bach - Bach’s Six Cello Suites - in Spatial Audio & Immersive Binaural Mix on May 26

Maya Beiser Releases InfInIte Bach
J.S. Bach’s Six Cello Suites

Available in Full Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio
via Apple Music & in an Immersive Binaural Mix

Release Date: May 26, 2023
Islandia Music Records

New York, NY – On May 26, 2023, cellist and producer Maya Beiser will release InfInIte Bach on her Islandia Music Records label – her first recording of the complete Solo Cello Suites of J.S. Bach. Maya made this album in her converted barn in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, recording the Suites while exploring the varying frequencies and resonances of the room, in order to create layers of sound acoustically. InfInIte Bach will be released digitally in full Dolby Atmos spatial audio, available via Apple Music, and in an immersive binaural mix on all other platforms.

Maya writes of the process, “I spent 2022, my 60th year of life, immersed in recording, and rerecording, deconstructing and decontextualizing, experimenting and exploring sounds, reverberations, harmonics in my converted barn in the Berkshires, Massachusetts, engaging with Bach’s cello Suites. Having dedicated the past 35 years to creating new music, work that reimagines the cello on a vast canvas in multiple disciplines, I radically departed from the conventional classical cello sound. Yet, the Suites were ingrained in my daily practice. Even as I was getting ready to perform a new work by Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, or David Bowie, I would still begin every day playing a movement from the Suites. Over the years I was experimenting with the process of unlearning the doctrine I was taught about this music, until last year when I took the time to relearn it anew.”

Maya’s approach to this recording was inspired, in part, by Alvin Lucier’s seminal 1969 piece, I am sitting in a room. She writes, “I brought my longtime sound engineer and collaborator, Dave Cook, to the space and we started exploring the acoustic environment. I considered how the space itself uncovers, informs and reshapes my interpretation of the Suites, feeding back the music to me as I play and record it. We mixed many microphones placed at various distances in the resonant space to emphasize nuances in overtones, reflections, and reverberations. Analyzing the multichannel recording, identifying and accentuating the natural drones and harmonics, we further reinforced the resonances and macro harmonic structure of the music. In the spatial audio mix, we aimed to bring the listening experience into the room; guiding the listener through the virtual space as the music infinitely evolves around them.”

Maya Beiser’s InfInIte Bach engages the listener in a profound and all-encompassing way, moving us to reconsider the familiar while keeping whole Bach’s seminal work.

About Maya Beiser:

Describing cellist, producer, and multifaceted artist Maya Beiser, The New York Times writes, “The adventurous Ms. Beiser has been called the ‘cello goddess,’ which is not hyperbole: She summons from her instrument an emotional power so stirring that even the most stoic audience members risk turning into sobbing sacks of flesh.”

Passionately forging her artistic path through uncharted territories, Maya Beiser has been captivating audiences worldwide, bringing a bold and unorthodox presence to contemporary classical music, reimagining solo cello performance in the mainstream arena, and defying conventional norms with her boundary-crossing performances. Hailed as “the reigning queen of avant-garde cello” by The Washington Post, she has been called a “cello rock star,” by Rolling Stone and praised as “a force of nature,” by The Boston Globe. 

Raised on a commune in Israel’s Galilee Mountains, by her Argentinean father and French mother, Maya spent her early life surrounded by the music and rituals of Jews, Muslims, and Christians, while studying classical cello repertoire. Throughout her extensive career she has been a featured performer on the world’s greatest stages among them Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, London’s Southbank Centre, Royal Albert Hall and the Barbican, the Sydney Opera House, Barcelona’s L’Auditori, Paris’ Cité de la Musique, Stockholm’s Concert Hall, and major venues across five continents. Among the wide range of artists with whom she has collaborated are Louis Andriessen, Philip Glass, Tan Dun, Steve Reich, Brian Eno, Mark Anthony-Turnage, Shirin Neshat, Erin Cressida-Wilson, Bill Morrison, Robert Woodruff, Missy Mazzoli, David Lang, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, Evan Ziporyn, Pontus Lidberg, Wendy Whelan, Lucinda Childs, and Joe Hisaishi.

Maya’s vast discography includes fourteen solo albums, many of them topping the classical music charts. She is the featured soloist on numerous film soundtracks, including an extensive collaboration with composer James Newton Howard for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening and After Earth, Denzel Washington’s The Great Debaters, Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond, and Rupert Sanders’ Snow White and the Huntsman. Her performance of David Lang’s “world to come” has been featured on the soundtrack for Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar winning film, La Grande Bellezza. 

Maya Beiser is a United States Artists (USA) Distinguished Fellow in Music and was a Mellon Distinguished Visiting Artist at MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology; invited to present at the prestigious TED main stage in Long Beach, CA, Maya’s TED Talk has been watched by millions of people. She has been featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts and All Things Considered, PBS News Hour, and the BBC World News. Maya is a graduate of Yale University.

Track Listing:
Maya Beiser: Infinite Bach
Islandia Music Records
Release Date: May 26, 2023

J.S. Bach
1-6 Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007
7-12 Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008
13-18 Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009
19-24 Cello Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major, BWV 1010
25-30 Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011
31-36 Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012

Produced by Maya Beiser
Recorded by Dave Cook at The Art at Foothill Farm, Lenox, MA
Edited and mixed by Dave Cook at Area 52 Studios, Saugerties, NY
Immersive mix and mastering by Scott Anthony at Storybook Sound, Maplewood, NJ
Photography by Hu Boyang
Art direction by Denise Burt
Creative Director: Kristen Loring Brennan

About Islandia Music Records:
Islandia Music Records is an independent record label founded and spearheaded by cellist and producer Maya Beiser, one of the foremost soloists and avant-garde artists of her generation. Maya Beiser’s desire to be the driving force behind her artistic expression led her to concentrate on an intensely rich and innovative solo career. She has engaged composers, choreographers, dancers, visual artists, filmmakers, sound designers, and technology innovators to create works written for her or by her and interpreted through her singular artistic lens. The freedom to chart her own course made it possible to become a game changer in the contemporary creative landscape. A platform for self-expression and daring artistic adventures, Islandia Music Records allows for a broad palette of collaborative patterns: between the old and the new, the brazen and the subtle, the dark and the hopeful.

Baritone Benjamin Appl Embarks on North American Concert Tour Culminating with Carnegie Hall Debut on May 20

Baritone Benjamin Appl Embarks on North American Concert Tour in
May 2023 Culminating with Carnegie Hall Debut on May 20

"the way he navigated the song’s transformation, from disappointment to obsession, was so gripping and troublingly real, I heard people all around me exhale afterward, as if Mr. Appl had rendered them breathless."
– The New York Times

“In dynastic terms the young German baritone Benjamin Appl is Lieder royalty.”
– The Spectator

“the current front-runner in the new generation of Lieder singers”
- Gramophone

Tour Details:
May 2: Linfield Lively Arts (McMinnville, OR)
May 4: Friends of Chamber Music Portland (Portland, OR)
May 7: Vancouver Recital Society (Vancouver, BC)
May 10: San Francisco Performances (San Francisco, CA)
May 14: Cranbrook Music Guild (Bloomfield Hills, MI)
May 20: Carnegie Hall Debut (New York, NY)

Benjamin Appl Online: www.benjaminappl.de

New York, NY – Baritone Benjamin Appl, hailed by The Financial Times as, “the most promising of today’s up-and-coming song recitalists,” embarks on a North American tour from May 2-20, 2023 and will perform with pianist James Baillieu in Portland, OR (May 2, Linfield Lively Arts; May 4, Friends of Chamber Music Portland); Vancouver, BC (May 7, Vancouver Recital Society); San Francisco, CA (May 10, San Francisco Performances); and Bloomfield Hills, MI (May 14, Cranbrook Music Guild); concluding his tour with his Carnegie Hall Weill Recital Hall debut in New York on May 20. 

Mentored by one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Appl is  celebrated by audiences and critics alike for a voice that “belongs to the last of the old great masters of song” with “an almost infinite range of colours” (Suddeutsche Zeitung), “exacting attention to text” (The New York Times), and artistry that’s described as “unbearably moving” (The Times). 

Named Gramophone Award Young Artist of the Year in 2016, Appl was a member of the BBC New Generation Artist scheme from 2014-16, as well as a Wigmore Hall Emerging Artist and ECHO Rising Star for the 2015-16 season, appearing at major venues throughout Europe, including the Barbican Centre London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wiener Konzerthaus, Philharmonie Paris and Cologne and the Laeiszhalle Hamburg. He was signed exclusively to SONY Classical between 2016 and 2021, and has recently partnered with Alpha Classics for a long-term collaboration on multiple albums. His first album for Alpha Classics, released last year, features Schubert’s Winterreise. Other recent recordings include the orchestral songs of Hans Sommer with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and of Hugo Wolf with the Jenaer Philharmonie, also released in 2022.

Appl is dedicated to drawing connections for contemporary audiences to the Lieder tradition, often sharing with audiences personal sources of inspiration during his performances. “In a manner that is unusual for classical music,” reports The Financial Times, “Appl has woven the backstory into his concerts – introducing Richard Strauss’ ‘Allerseelen,’ for instance, as an homage to the two grandparents he lost a few years ago, or prefacing the English songs with a recollection of the disorientation and exhilaration he felt after first moving to London.”

In recent years, Appl has also worked beyond the concert stage, presenting a series of programs for BBC Radio 3 entitled “A Singer’s World,” and starring in the film Breaking Music, which celebrates both the Argentinian Tango and German Lied traditions by breaking down the traditional boundaries between musical genres. During the 2021-22 season, Appl took part in an exciting new realization of Schubert’s Winterreise, which was filmed in the Swiss Alps in November 2021. Commissioned by the BBC and Swiss television station SRF, and directed by John Bridcut, the film was first broadcast on BBC4 in early 2022, coinciding with the release of Appl’s recording of Winterreise on Alpha Classics. This season, Appl is Artist in Residence at London’s St. Martin in the Fields giving multiple recitals throughout the year, including a collaboration with Holocaust survivor Éva Fahidi in a recital and talk exploring the loss of family, identity, memory, and rediscovered hope.

For his North American tour, Appl will present Nocturne, a program exploring a nighttime journey with selections arranged according to facets of the night – romance, the moon, stars, nightmares, fancies, insomnia, dreams, the darkest hour, and finally morning. As part of the program’s darkest hour section, Appl will perform two pieces by Ilse Weber, a Czech composer and poet who was imprisoned with her family in Theresienstadt and later killed with her young son in Auschwitz. Nocturne also includes music by Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Grieg, Wolf, William Bolcom, James MacMillan, and many more.

Of the program, Benjamin Appl writes:

Assisted by music and poetry, we walk through the night, beginning with the evening hours, where we indulge in romance and longing, and where the stars and the moon become our companions. Shrouded in myths and legends, they then become our partner to reflect our innermost feelings and passions in songs by Schubert, Vaughan Willliams and Somervell. Unnerving events and vivid nightmares form the backbone of Schumann’s cruel ballad of King Belshazzar, Schubert’s frightening masterpiece Erlkönig as well as in the bizarre Ballad of Black Max by William Bolcom. Phantasies and dreams put to music by Quilter, Gurney Wolf and Grieg, enrich our imagination.

As someone who was born and raised in Germany, it is utterly important for me to come and perform songs written in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt, here in the United States of America. During the time of Nazi Germany, this camp was known for imprisoning, torturing, and killing so many people, in particular, many creative people. In this, our darkest hour of human history, people retreated into themselves to write music as an escape from the real, inhuman, evil world around them. One of the prisoners there was Ilse Weber, a children’s nurse, who shared her own compositions with the children in Theresienstadt, and where she accompanied the young on her guitar whilst singing together. After her deportation to the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau she made the decision to go with the children into the gas chambers. Witnesses afterwards told that they could hear her and the children singing her lullaby Wiegala, when the doors were shut behind them.

Strauss’ Morgen gives us hope for a better, more peaceful future, where we all encounter each other with more respect and understanding. A night gives everyone of us a chance of a new morning: a new and better beginning.

More about Benjamin Appl: 

Benjamin Appl started in music as a young chorister at the renowned Regensburger Domspatzen, later continuing his studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and eventually at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. He had the good fortune of being mentored by the legendary singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Appl says, “my years of working with Fischer-Dieskau were invaluable and had a hugely formative influence on me. He is an inspiration – someone who is always searching and seeking a deeper understanding of music and of life. He was a role model for how to prosper as an artist, never just delivering, but each time creating.” Appl also enjoys a significant long-term collaboration with composer György Kurtág.

An established recitalist, Appl has performed at the Ravinia, Rheingau, Schleswig Holstein, Edinburgh International, and Oxford Lieder festivals; Schubertiade Schwarzenberg and at the KlavierFestival Ruhr. He has performed at major concert venues including Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus Berlin and Vienna, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and Musée de Louvre Paris, in addition to which he is a regular recitalist at Wigmore Hall and at Heidelberger Frühling. In equal demand as soloist on the world’s most prestigious stages, he collaborates with NHK Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Philharmonia, Seattle Symphony, Vienna Symphony and many others.

In addition to this North American tour, Appl’s 2022-23 season includes orchestral concerts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Klaus Mäkelä and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in Mozart’s Requiem; NDR Hannover with Andrew Manze and Orchestre Pays de Loire in Brahms’ Requiem; Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Thomas Søndergård in Britten’s War Requiem; La Verdi Orchestra Milan in Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder; and Zurich Chamber Orchestra’s prestigious New Year’s Gala. A revered interpreter of period music, Appl looks forward to collaborations with Les Talens Lyriques on a solo Mozart tour and in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Christophe Rousset; a recital with Ensemble Masques at BOZAR Brussels, further Bach programmes with the Berliner Barocksolisten and his debut appearance with the Gabetta Ensemble in Budapest. In addition, he looks forward to revisiting successful collaborations with lutenist Thomas Dunford in Bonn, Schleswig Holstein and Oxford Lieder Festivals; with pianist Alice Sara Ott at London’s Southbank Centre; with accordionist Martynas in Heidelberg, Mecklenburg Vorpommern, and with pianist James Baillieu at Festival St. Denis.

Appl’s growing discography includes Schumann duets with Ann Murray (DBE), accompanied by Malcolm Martineau; his debut solo disc Stunden, Tage, Ewigkeiten accompanied by James Baillieu, which was released in April 2016 on Champs Hill records; and a live recording of Schubert lieder with Graham Johnson for the Wigmore Hall Live label. His first solo album for Sony Classical, Heimat, was Gramophone nominated and won the prestigious Prix Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Best Lieder Singer) at the 2017-18 Académie du Disque Lyrique Orphées d’Or. Other recent recordings include an album of Bach with Concerto Köln as well as Sibelius’s Kullervowith the BBC Scottish Symphony and Thomas Dausgaard for Hyperion Records.

Pianist Sarah Cahill's The Future is Female, "At Play," - Final of Three Volumes Out on First Hand Records - Music by 30 Women Composers from Around the Globe

Pianist Sarah Cahill's New Album Out Today
The Future is Female, Vol. 3, At Play

Third of a Three-Volume Series Featuring 30 Solo Piano Works by Women Composers from Around the Globe

Available Today via First Hand Records

“Here, then, is an alternative history of solo piano music – and one that's delivered with real conviction by pianist Sarah Cahill.” – BBC Music Magazine

“This disc is a revelation, and is wholeheartedly recommended.”
RECOMMENDED, ‘Recording of the Month’ – MusicWeb International

www.sarahcahill.com

Today, April 28, 2023, pianist Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, releases her new album, The Future is Female, Vol. 3, At Play, on First Hand Records. The Future is Female is a three-volume series, which celebrates and highlights women composers from the 17th century to the present day. These albums encompass 30 compositions by women from around the globe and include many new commissioned works and world premiere recordings.

The Future is Female, Vol. 3, At Play features works by Hélène de Montgeroult, Cecile Chaminade, Grażyna Bacewicz, Frangiz Ali-Zadeh, Chen Yi, Pauline Oliveros, Hannah Kendall, Aida Shirazi, and Regina Harris Baiocchi. This album, centered around the theme of play, concludes the three volume collection. On Wednesday, March 8, 2023 –– in honor of International Women’s Day –– Cahill will give a four-hour performance of The Future is Female, presented by the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

In March of 2022, coinciding with the release of the first volume –– The Future is Female, Vol. 1, In Nature –– and in celebration of International Women’s Day, Cahill gave a marathon performance of The Future is Female presented by the Barbican Centre at the Barbican Conservatory. Vol. 1 In Nature features music by Anna Bon, Fanny Mendelssohn, Teresa Carreño, Leokadiya Kashperova, Fannie Charles Dillon, Vítězslava Kaprálová, Agi Jambor, Eve Beglarian, Deirdre Gribbin, Mary D. Watkins. The second album in the series, The Future is Female Vol. 2, The Dance, features works by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Clara Schumann, Germaine Tailleferre, Zenobia Powell Perry, Madeleine Dring, Betsy Jolas, Elena Kats-Chernin, Meredith Monk, Gabriela Ortiz, and Theresa Wong.

Since the first album in The Future is Female trilogy, “In Nature” –– an album Classical-Notes describes as presenting “exemplary performances” –– listeners have wholeheartedly embraced Cahill’s celebration of historical and living women composers. BBC Music Magazine writes: “As with the fine first instalment, the American pianist [Sarah Cahill] takes us on a chronological journey that zips around the world, stitching together contrasting styles into an enjoyable musical patchwork.” Musicweb International calls Vol. 2, The Dance “a revelation,” while New Music Buff notes the “impressive command of baroque, classical, romantic, and modern idioms” that Cahill brings to both “In Nature” and “The Dance.”

Cahill started working on her project, The Future is Female, which now encompasses more than 70 compositions, in 2018. “For decades I had been working with many living American composers, including Pauline Oliveros, Tania León, Eve Beglarian, Mary D. Watkins, Julia Wolfe, Ursula Mamlok, Meredith Monk, Annea Lockwood, and many more, but felt an urgent need to explore neglected composers from the past, and from around the globe,” she explains. “Like most pianists, I grew up with the classical canon, which has always excluded women composers as well as composers of color. It is still standard practice to perform recitals consisting entirely of music written by men. The Future is Female, then, aims to be a corrective towards rebalancing the repertoire. It does not attempt to be exhaustive, in any way, and the three albums in this series represent only a small fraction of the music by women which is waiting to be performed and heard. Since recording these three albums in August 2021, I’ve performed extraordinary music by Louise Farrenc, Maria Szymanowska, Helen Hopekirk, Dora Pejačević and Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, Reena Esmail, Arlene Sierra, Viola Kinney, Marion Bauer, and many other composers who should rightfully be included in this series. The possibilities are, in fact, limitless. I am delighted to be working with First Hand Records on this three-album project, concluding with this third and final album, loosely based on the theme of ‘play’”.

Cahill has developed and performed The Future is Female as a flexible concert program, which she has been performing since the project’s inception. It has been presented as an evening-length recital performance and as a marathon performance and is ideal for concert halls, museums, and gallery spaces. The marathon performance duration is typically between four to seven hours, allowing audience members to sit and listen for any length of time, with the ability to come and go, as well as the ability to walk around the space. Recent and upcoming performances of The Future is Female include concerts presented by The Barbican, the National Gallery of Art, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Carolina Performing Arts, Carlsbad Music Festival, Detroit Institute of Arts, University of Iowa, Bowling Green New Music Festival, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, North Dakota Museum of Art, Mayville State University, the EXTENSITY Concert Series’ Women Now Festival in New York, and the Newport Classical Festival.

The Future is Female, Vol. 3, At Play | Sarah Cahill, piano | First Hand Records | Available April 28, 2023

Recorded at St. Stephen’s Church, Belvedere, California, August 15–28, 2021 | Produced and recorded by Matt Carr

Hélène de Montgeroult (1764–1836)
Sonata No. 9, op. 5 no. 3 (1811) [19:52]
1. I. Allegro spiritoso [8:10]
2. II. Adagio non troppo [4:38]
3. III. Presto [6:57]

Cecile Chaminade (1857–1944)
4. Thème varié (1898) [5:01]

Grażyna Bacewicz (1909–1969)
5. Scherzo (1934) [7:08]

Chen Yi (b. 1953)
6. Guessing (1989)† [5:15]

Frangiz Ali-Zadeh (b. 1947)
7. Music for Piano (1989-1997) [9:32]

Pauline Oliveros (1932–2016)
8. Quintuplets Play Pen (2001)* [4:15]

Hannah Kendall (b. 1984)
On the Chequer'd Field Array'd (2013) [10:40]
9. I. Middlegame [2:35]
10. II. Mindplay [5:19]
11. III. Coda [2:40]

Aida Shirazi (b. 1987)
12. Albumblatt (2017)† [6:58]

Regina Harris Baiocchi (b. 1956)
Piano Poems (2020) * [13:25]
13. I. common things surprise [2:54]
14. II. cockleburs in wooly hair/tiny pond [3:54]
15. III. beatitudes [2:17]
16. IV. a candle burns time [4:12]

Total Time: [79:50]

Première recording *
Première commercial recordings †

About Sarah Cahill: Sarah Cahill, hailed as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times and “a brilliant and charismatic advocate for modern and contemporary composers” by Time Out New York, has commissioned and premiered over seventy compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to Cahill include John Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Roscoe Mitchell, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. Keyboard Magazine writes, “Through her inspired interpretation of works across the 20th and 21st centuries, Cahill has been instrumental in bringing to life the music of many of our greatest living composers.” She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF).

Cahill enjoys working closely with composers, musicologists, and scholars to prepare scores for each performance. She researched and recorded music by prominent early 20th-century American modernists Henry Cowell and Ruth Crawford and commissioned a number of new pieces in tribute to their enduring influence. She has also premiered and recorded music by Leo Ornstein, Marc Blitzstein, and other 20th century mavericks.

Cahill has worked closely with composer Terry Riley since 1997, when she commissioned his four-hand piece Cinco de Mayo for a festival at Cal Performances celebrating Henry Cowell’s 100th birthday – the first of six works she has commissioned from him. For Riley’s 80th birthday, Cahill commissioned nine new works for solo piano in his honor and performed them with several of Riley’s own compositions at (Le) Poisson Rouge and Roulette in New York, MIT, the North Dakota Museum of Art, and other venues across the country. Sarah Cahill commissioned the late Frederic Rzewski to compose a substantial solo piano work in honor of Terry Riley’s 85th birthday.

Sarah Cahill also worked closely with Lou Harrison and has championed many of his works for piano. In 1997, Cahill was chosen to premiere his Festival Dance for two pianos with Aki Takahashi at the Cooper Union and worked with Harrison in rehearsals. She was also chosen to perform his Dance for Lisa Karon, discovered only a few years ago and not heard since its premiere in 1938, and she performed his Varied Trio, both piano concertos, and a number of solo and chamber works on her 2017 Lou Harrison tour celebrating his centennial year, with concerts in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Orlando, Miami, Hawaii, Tokyo and Fukuoka in Japan, and more. In Fall 2019, Sarah performed Lou Harrison's exuberant Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan in two Berkeley performances and at the ICA Boston. She also performed and recorded the work with Gamelan Galak Tika at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Cahill has performed classical and contemporary chamber music with artists and ensembles such as Jessica Lang Dance; pianists Joseph Kubera, Adam Tendler, and Regina Myers; violinist Stuart Canin; the Alexander String Quartet; New Century Chamber Orchestra; Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, and many more. She also performs as a duo with violinist Kate Stenberg.

Sarah Cahill’s discography includes more than twenty albums on the New Albion, CRI, New World, Tzadik, Albany, Innova, Cold Blue, Other Minds, Irritable Hedgehog, and Pinna labels. Cahill's latest album, The Future is Female, Vol. 2, The Dance, was released in October 2022 on First Hand Records. The Future is Female is a three-volume series, which celebrates and highlights women composers from the 17th century to the present day. These albums encompass 30 compositions by women from around the globe and include many new commissioned works and world premiere recordings. Cahill’s 2013 release A Sweeter Music (Other Minds) featured musical reflections on war by eighteen eloquent and provocative composer/activists. In 2015, Pinna Records released her two-CD set of Mamoru Fujieda’s Patterns of Plants, an extraordinary fusion of nature and technology created by identifying the musical patterns in the electrical impulses of plants. In September 2017, she released Eighty Trips Around the Sun: Music by and for Terry Riley, a box set tribute to Terry Riley, on Irritable Hedgehog Records. The four-CD set includes solo works by Riley, four-hand works with pianist Regina Myers, and world premiere recordings of commissioned works composed in honor of Riley’s 80th birthday.

Sarah Cahill’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 6 to 8 pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. The program focuses on the relationships between classical music and new music, encompassing interviews with musicians and composers, historical performances, and recordings outside the mainstream. Cahill is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory and is a regular pre-concert speaker with the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

For more information, visit www.sarahcahill.com.

The Future is Female Vol. 1 In Nature 
“….delivered with real conviction by pianist Sarah Cahill”
(BBC Music Magazine)    

The Future is Female Vol. 2 The Dance
“This disc is a revelation, and is wholeheartedly recommended.”
(MusicWeb International)

Composer Lisa Bielawa Named 2023 Guggenheim Fellow

Photo by Desmond White available in hi-resolution at www.jensenartists.com/lisa-bielawa

Composer Lisa Bielawa Named 2023 Fellow by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

Upcoming Premieres:

April 15: New York Premiere of In medias res
Boston Modern Orchestra Project at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
Information: www.bmop.org/season-tickets/play-it-again-carnegie-hall

April 23: World Premiere of Louisville Broadcast
Spatialized Symphony for Hundreds of Musicians, Louisville, KY
Information: www.louisvilleorchestra.org/louisville-broadcast

May 17-19: World Premiere Performances of Home
Co-composed with Lindsey Branson
Louisville Orchestra in Prestonsburg, Pikeville, Harlan, KY
Information: www.louisvilleorchestra.org/inharmonytour

June 24: West Coast Premiere of Send the Carriage Through
Britt Music & Arts Festival in Jacksonville, OR
Information: www.brittfest.org/performance/beethoven-5-alexi-kenney-23

Lisa Bielawa: www.lisabielawa.net

New York, NY – Composer, vocalist, and producer Lisa Bielawa has been named a 2023 Fellow by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, joining a diverse group of 171 exceptional individuals. Chosen from a rigorous application and peer review process out of almost 2,500 applicants, the Fellows were appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise. Since its establishment in 1925, the Foundation has granted nearly $400 million in Fellowships to over 18,000 individuals, among whom are more than 125 Nobel laureates, members of all the national academies, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Fields Medal, Turing Award, Bancroft Prize, National Book Award, and other internationally recognized honors.

Lisa Bielawa is a Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition. She takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations. Her music has been described as “ruminative, pointillistic and harmonically slightly tart,” by The New York Times. She is the recipient of the 2017 Music Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters and a 2020 OPERA America Grant for Female Composers. She was named a William Randolph Hearst Visiting Artist Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society for 2018 and was Artist-in-Residence at Kaufman Music Center in New York for the 2020-2021 season. In 1997 Bielawa co-founded the MATA Festival. 

Upon learning of her selection as a 2023 Fellow, Bielawa said, “I’m so deeply honored to be among this year’s Guggenheim Fellows. Sincere thanks to the many members of my musical family for our work together. This honor is for all of us.”

During her Guggenheim Fellowship period, Bielawa will primarily work on two projects – a new opera, La Ballonniste, and a book of prose vignettes from her experiences and encounters with music in a variety of international settings. La Ballonniste is an opera in three acts inspired by the life of Elisabeth Thible, an opera singer who was the first woman to fly in a hot air balloon, with libretto by Claire Solomon, directed by Mary Birnbaum, dramaturgy by Cori Ellison, and production/design consulting by Charles Otte. Bielawa’s book will share remembrances and observations gathered from her decades of wandering, offering cultural moments in the global continuum frozen in time – including music theater in bombed-out buildings in Milosevic’s Serbia in 2000; watching Yassir Arafat get thrown out of the New York Philharmonic performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations in 1995, from the only place from which the episode was visible (the stage); spending a seven-hour layover in Kuala Lumpur in 2014, at the very moment that a Malaysian Air flight left the airport and disappeared; and celebrating an anxiously catered Thanksgiving Dinner in 2003 as the only American guests at an iconic hotel in Moscow that was bombed by the Black Widows six days later – to name but a few.

Lisa Bielawa’s premieres in the upcoming months all celebrate the musical relationships and community that have become a hallmark of her work:

• On April 15, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), led by Artistic Director Gil Rose, will give the New York premiere of her piece In medias res at Carnegie Hall, as part of the orchestra’s 25th anniversary celebration. Bielawa was the BMOP Music Alive Composer-in-Residence from 2006-2009, and wrote this work inspired by the bonds she forged with her fellow musicians. The San Francisco Chronicle praised the work’s “superb combination of rhythmic exuberance, melodic grace and textural inventiveness.”

• In 2022, Bielawa was selected for a residency with the Louisville Orchestra’s Creators Corps and temporarily relocated to Louisville to make new orchestral and community-based work as an active, engaged member of the community. On April 23, the Louisville Orchestra will present the world premiere of Louisville Broadcast, an iteration of Bielawa’s ongoing Broadcast series focused on the city of Louisville. Over 500 professional, student, and amateur musicians from throughout the area will join together to perform Bielawa’s 45-minute piece, turning two historic locations – Shelby Park and Big Four Bridge – into vast musical canvases, allowing listeners to walk freely among the performers.

• From May 17-19, the Louisville Orchestra will give the premiere performances of Bielawa’s new piece Home, co-composed with Lindsey Branson, on tour to three Kentucky cities – Harlan, Prestonburg, and Pikesville. Bielawa met Branson, a singer/songwriter and graduate of the Bluegrass School, on a recent trip to Hazard, KY, in the Appalachian mountains. They created the piece in an organic and intuitive process over the next weeks, resulting in a joyful shared musical performance work for full orchestra and unlimited musicians from the rich traditions of the region.

• On June 24 at the Britt Music & Arts Festival in Jacksonville, OR, conductor Teddy Abrams will lead the West Coast premiere of Bielawa’s Send the Carriage Through, written as part of Bielawa’s residency with the Louisville Orchestra and premiered by the LO and Abrams in January. Inspired in part by Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral processional, Bielawa describes the piece as, “a celebration of Teddy’s open-hearted vision of leadership as connection and invitation.”

More About Lisa Bielawa:

Lisa Bielawa received a 2018 Los Angeles Area Emmy nomination for her unprecedented, made-for-TV-and-online opera Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch's Accuser, created with librettist Erik Ehn and director Charles Otte. Vireo was filmed in twelve parts at locations across the country and features over 350 musicians. Vireo was produced as part of Bielawa’s artist residency at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, California and in partnership with KCETLink and Single Cel. In February 2019, Vireo was released as a two CD + DVD box set on Orange Mountain Music.

In spring 2022, Bielawa’s violin concerto Sanctuary had its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall by Jennifer Koh and the American Composers Orchestra (ACO), conducted by Marin Alsop. Sanctuary was co-commissioned by the Orlando Philharmonic (which premiered the piece), Carnegie Hall, ACO, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP). Other recent highlights include the world premiere of Voters’ Litany, a commission from the Cathedral Choral Society, which was premiered at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC; Missa Primavera, commissioned and recorded by cellist Matt Haimovitz, on his label Oxingale Records; and Brickyard Broadcast –– a virtual reality collaboration commissioned by North Carolina State University. 

Bielawa consistently executes work that incorporates community-making as part of her artistic vision. She has created music for public spaces in Lower Manhattan, the banks of the Tiber River in Rome, on the sites of former airfields in Berlin in San Francisco, and to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. During the coronavirus lockdown, Bielawa cultivated a virtual community using submitted testimonies and recorded voices from six continents through her project, Broadcast from Home. In 2021, Broadcast from Home was inducted into the Library of Congress as part of its Performing Arts COVID-19 Response Collection.

Bielawa’s music has been premiered at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, SHIFT Festival, Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, National Cathedral, Rouen Opera, MAXXI Museum in Rome, and Helsinki Music Center, among others. Orchestras that have championed her music include The Knights, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, ROCO in Houston, and the Orlando Philharmonic. Premieres of her work have been commissioned and presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Rider, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Radio France, Yerevan Concert Hall in Armenia, the Venice Architectural Biennale, American Music Week in Salzburg, the INFANT Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, and more. 

Born in San Francisco, Lisa Bielawa played the violin and piano, sang, and wrote music from early childhood. She moved to New York two weeks after receiving her B.A. in Literature in 1990 from Yale University.

For more information, please visit www.lisabielawa.net.

Louisville Broadcast by Lisa Bielawa presented by the Louisville Orchestra

Announcing Louisville Broadcast by Lisa Bielawa

A Spatial Symphony for Hundreds of Musicians

Presented by the Louisville Orchestra as Part of its Creators Corps Program

Two FREE outdoor performances featuring performers from throughout the Louisville area

Sunday, April 23, 2023:
11:30 am-12:15 pm – Shelby Park (600 E. Oak St., Louisville, KY)
7:00-7:45 pm – Big Four Bridge (1101 River Rd., Louisville, KY)

Participants include members of the Louisville Orchestra, Louisville Academy of Music, Louisville Civic Orchestra, University of Louisville Orchestra, VOICES of Kentuckiana, Louisville Leopards & ensembles from Jefferson County Public Schools

Members of the public can join the Louisville Broadcast Town Criers or contribute text to be considered for inclusion in the piece.

Information: www.louisvilleorchestra.org/louisville-broadcast

Lisa Bielawa: www.lisabielawa.net

Louisville, Kentucky – The Louisville Orchestra (LO) presents LO Creators Corps composer Lisa Bielawa’s Louisville Broadcast, a new 45-minute musical piece for an unlimited number of participants that celebrates two historic sites and the vitality of Louisville’s many musical communities. Two free performances will take place in the open air on April 23, 2023, in Shelby Park (600 E. Oak St.) from 11:30 am-12:15 pm and at Waterfront Park-Big Four Bridge (1101 River Rd.) from 7:00-7:45 pm, turning these sites into vast musical canvases. Bielawa will create the piece specifically for Shelby Park and Waterfront Park-Big Four Bridge, and listeners can walk freely among and between the performers.

Louisville Broadcast will feature hundreds of musicians, celebrating the diversity of Louisville's musical life. A varied roster of over 500 professional, student, and amateur musicians from throughout Jefferson County will join together for the performances, including members of the LO, students and parents from the Louisville Academy of Music, the Louisville Civic Orchestra, the University of Louisville Orchestra, VOICES of Kentuckiana choir, the Louisville Leopards, the Louisville Drumline Academy and ensembles from several JCPS schools: Male High School, Moore High School, Noe Middle School, Johnson Middle School, Farmer Elementary, and Tully Elementary, as well as the Louisville Classical Academy.

In addition, all are invited to join The Town Criers, a community choir that anyone can join regardless of musical background. Bielawa will create music for the Town Criers that is easy to learn without any music-reading skills or training – anyone who wishes to raise their voice can join the performances. To learn more about participating and sign up for more information about joining Louisville Broadcast, visit: www.louisvilleorchestra.org/louisville-broadcast

The texts Bielawa will be setting in Louisville Broadcast are now being collected from any Louisville residents who want to contribute via the Louisville Orchestra’s website. Answers submitted will be considered for inclusion in the performance and shared online. To contribute, visit: www.louisvilleorchestra.org/louisville-broadcast

Bielawa has chosen Shelby Park and the Big Four Bridge as performance sites for their historical significance to Louisville. Frederick Law Olmsted’s firm designed Shelby Park in 1907, the only park in Louisville designed explicitly with a Carnegie Library (now the Shelby Park Community Center). It is the geographic anchor of the Shelby Park neighborhood, where the LO has established residences for the Creators Corps (including Bielawa). From 1895 to its decommission in 1969, the Big Four Bridge served as a railroad bridge for freight and passengers connecting Louisville and Southern Indiana. It was converted into a pedestrian bridge in 2013 and has since become an iconic landmark in the city, with 1.5 million pedestrians and cyclists crossing its span each year.

“The goal of Louisville Broadcast is to interpret and celebrate these important public spaces in Louisville, allowing listeners to draw their own meaning and experience from them,” said composer Lisa Bielawa. “I would like to see this event bring about new partnerships, new vitality, and new relationships between different generations, musical traditions and identities, and between arts or music lovers and totally non-arts-identified park-goers enjoying a surprise encounter with music as a ‘happening’ in the middle of their familiar and beloved city. By inviting anyone in the city to contribute their words to be sung by the participating choirs, I can multiply the diversity of Louisvillian voices that speak through the piece. It is the sound of a whole city – its history, people, neighborhoods, and communities.”

“Louisville Broadcast epitomizes the Creators Corps’ mission of creating new work for and with the city of Louisville on a huge scale,” says Jacob Gotlib, Manager of the Creators Corps program at the Louisville Orchestra. “Louisville is renowned for its rich and deep musical culture, but we often work in disparate stylistic, educational, and geographic pockets. The Louisville Orchestra is thrilled to help bring together our diverse musical communities in this historic way.”

The nature of Bielawa’s work is in keeping with the definition of the word broadcast, “cast or scattered in all directions.” Musicians will begin in the center of the sites and disperse outwards according to instructions in Bielawa’s musical score, coordinated only by absolute time and long-distance musical cues. Players will spread out in long chains, flanking the walkways and bridge. Audience members can choose how to hear the pieces, deciding where to move as the musicians disperse. They will be able to take in several different points of view from throughout the site during the performances.

“Louisville is a very musical city, filled with singers, writers, instrumentalists and performers. It is therefore the perfect backdrop for Lisa’s participatory Louisville Broadcast,” said Graham Parker, Chief Executive to the Louisville Orchestra. “We are so excited to see the enthusiasm to be involved as evidenced by the numbers who have signed up, and to partner with Shelby Park, and Waterfront Park to make use of the Big Four Bridge.”

Louisville Broadcast is the result of a collaboration between the Louisville Orchestra and several community organizations, including the Louisville Academy of Music, Jefferson County Public Schools, Louisville Metro Parks, and Waterfront Park.

“The Louisville Academy of Music is honored to work with Lisa Bielawa and the Louisville Orchestra on this ambitious and unprecedented composition,” said Sara Louise Callaway, Louisville Academy of Music’s Executive Director. “We are excited to bring together our students, families, and teachers to join in this incredible opportunity for our city. This is a new and unique experience for our school and community, and I have loved seeing the joy, creativity, and new relationships sparked through this project.”

“We are excited to partner with the Louisville Orchestra to present Louisville Broadcast on the Big Four Bridge,” said Deborah Bilitski, executive director of Waterfront Park. “As Waterfront Park celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Big Four Bridge throughout the year, this partnership is evidence of the power public spaces hold in bringing our community together. As we continue our work to make our waterfront accessible to everyone, we are excited to support Louisville Orchestra in its mission to make the arts more accessible in our community.”

About Lisa Bielawa’s Broadcast Projects

Composer Lisa Bielawa’s Louisville Broadcast is the latest in a series of broadly inclusive Broadcast works, starting with her large-scale piece Airfield Broadcasts, a massive 60-minute work for hundreds of musicians that premiered on the tarmac of the former Tempelhof Airport in Berlin (Tempelhof Broadcast, May 2013) and Crissy Field in San Francisco (Crissy Broadcast, October 2013). Bielawa turned these former airfields into vast musical canvases as professional, amateur, and student musicians executed a spatial symphony. The series continued with Mauer Broadcast at the site of the former Berlin Wall, commissioned for the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by Kulturprojekte Berlin in 2019; Broadcast from Home, developed remotely during the early days of the pandemic lockdown in 2020, which included the testimonies and home-recorded voices of over 500 people from six continents worldwide; and Brickyard Broadcast, developed with the city and university in Raleigh, North Carolina, partnering with their libraries to create a performance site entirely in virtual reality.

The San Francisco Chronicle wrote after the Broadcast performances at Crissy Field in San Francisco, “All the boundaries we take for granted in musical life - including those marking the beginning and end of a performance, or separating performers from an audience - are casually obliterated in Crissy Broadcast, composer Lisa Bielawa's magical and heartbreakingly beautiful exercise in public art. What's left is a heightened aesthetic sense of the world around us.”

Now in its inaugural year, the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps transcends traditional commissioning and composer-in-residence paradigms with a radically new model for collaborating with symphony orchestras in the 21st century. Each year, the orchestra will invite three creators to move to Louisville and live in the Shelby Park neighborhood for at least 30 weeks, serving as staff members with an annual salary of $40,000, health insurance, provided housing, and studio equipment. Throughout their residencies, they will compose new works to be performed by the orchestra, participate in educational and community engagement activities, and be engaged citizens of their neighborhood. Funding for the program comes from a three-year, $750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and individual donors to the LO.

Join Louisville Broadcast

For more information about participating in The Town Criers or to submit text to be sung in the event, please visit: www.louisvilleorchestra.org/louisville-broadcast