Heart Shadow (Sono Luminus, DSL-92137)

Bruce Levingston, piano

The world premiere recording of Lisa Bielawa's Elegy-Portrait has been recorded by pianist Bruce Levingston as part of his album, Heart Shadow, on the Sono Luminus label. The album features two other major piano works: the world premiere recording of Pulitzer Prize winner Charles Wuorinen's Heart Shadow and Schumann's brilliant and beloved masterpiece Kreisleriana.

These three pieces reflect the deep influences that literature and music have upon one another. The inspiration for Elegy-Portrait comes from a work of Rainer Maria Rilke. Heart Shadow derives its genesis from a novella by Salman Rushdie. Kreisleriana is a work inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann's novel Kater Murr.

Lisa Bielawa's Elegy-Portrait was built from the materials for an unfinished song. It was originally intended to be part of Bielawa's song cycle The Lay of the Love and Death, which had its world premiere during a concert at Lincoln Center in 2006 that brought Bielawa, Bruce Levingston and mezzo-soprano Alexandra Montano together. A few years later, Bielawa decided to revisit the fragments of the unfinished song.

Lisa states, "The piece grew and grew-it took on a much broader, wordless form and kept opening itself up to new directions and emotional terrains. Intending to write a proper elegy-in memory of a friend-I discovered that, while an elegy is all about our own feelings of loss, therefore always cycling back to ourselves, a portrait in memoriam can bring us out of ourselves and into a clearer appreciation of those we loved (and still love). So-the piece started out as an elegy and ended up being a portrait of Alexandra's unique musical spirit." Elegy-Portrait is dedicated to the memory of Alexandra Montano.

 

Chance Encounter (Orange Mountain Music, 2010)


Susan Narucki, soprano
The Knights

Chance Encounter was co-conceived with soprano Susan Narucki, and comprises songs and arias constructed of speech overheard by Lisa Bielawa and Narucki in transient public spaces. These spaces included airports around the world, sidewalks and streets, parks and cafes, and public transportation. The 35-minute piece is written for Narucki and a migrating ensemble of 12 instruments, and is meant to be performed in a public place. A project of Creative Capital, Chance Encounter has captivated audiences in Manhattan parks, at New York's Whitney Museum, outside the Zaha Hadid-designed MAXXI museum in Rome, on the banks of the Tiber River, in Vancouver, and at the Venice Architectural Biennale.

Bielawa explains, “In 2006, I began carrying a notebook with me everywhere, jotting down utterances that begged to be proclaimed, sung. I noticed over time that people often say things in transient spaces that help them locate themselves in space and time. Susan and I collected hundreds of such utterances, many of them in Lower Manhattan where the piece was premiered. I have organized the text into categories –Topos Nostalgia; Drama/Self-Pity; Nothing; Aimlessness Song – and have created free-form arias or songs that animate the particular mood of each collective topic.

 

In medias res (BMOP/sound, 2010

In medias res is a 2-CD set that includes Lisa Bielawa’s solo and orchestral music. Performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), conducted by Artistic Director Gil Rose, the first disc, an SACD, includes four orchestral works: Roam (2001); Double Violin Concerto (2008) featuring violinist/vocalist Carla Kihlstedt and violinist Colin Jacobsen; unfinish’d, sent (2000) featuring the composer as soprano soloist; and In medias res, Concerto for Orchestra (2009). Disc two comprises fifteen short solo works, Synopses #1-15, written by Lisa Bielawa over the course of three years for individual members of BMOP. Ms. Bielawa was Composer in Residence with the orchestra from 2006 to 2009. The album was produced by Gil Rose, and engineered by Joel Gordon with David Corcoran.

The NYFA Collection - 25 Years of New York New Music

The NYFA Collection comprises works by 52 New York Foundation for the Arts fellows and includes Lisa Bielawa’s quartet, The Trojan Women, recorded by the Miami String Quartet. Lisa Bielawa’s The Trojan Women is written in three movements, each based on the particular sufferings of women who lost husbands and sons in the notorious brutality of the Trojan War – “Hecuba,” “Cassandra,” and “Andromache.” This version for string quartet was composed in 2000 based on musical materials from Lisa Bielawa’s 1999 score for Euripides’ tragedy, The Trojan Women, and was premiered by the Miami String Quartet at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Bielawa says that the piece was inspired by “the nature of public and private grieving.”

 

 

Hildegurls: Electric Ordo Virtutum (Innova 712, 2009)

The Hildegurls – Eve Beglarian, Lisa Bielawa, Kitty Brazelton, and Elaine Kaplinsky – each took one act of the Ordo Virtutum by Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) and re-envisioned it for the 20^th century. The piece premiered at the Lincoln Center Festival in 1998, directed by Grethe Barrett Holby. Of the CD, The Philadelphia Inquirer raved, “The Hildegurls is a particularly impressive band of performer/composers .....who obviously revere this cloistered feminist cult figure, who had visions and enough talent to portray them in song and this liturgical drama, Ordo Virtutum.” The San Francisco Chronicle reported, “. . . the inventiveness and musical variety here are potent.”

Electric Ordo Virtutum – Act 1 by Lisa Bielawa Hildegurls: Electric Ordo Virtutum (Innova 712, 2009)

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD COMPLETE TEXTS FROM A HANDFUL OF WORLD

A Handful of World (Tzadik 8039, 2007)

Includes Lisa Bielawa’s Kafka Songs, written in 2001-2003 and performed by violinist/vocalist Carla Kihlstedt; Lamentations for a City, written in 2004 and performed by the Cerddorion Vocal Ensemble; and A Collective Cleansing from 2000, sung by the composer.

“Witty, dramatic and poignant by turns, the songs offer a probing take on Kafka's texts, and the scoring - for one performer simultaneously singing and playing the violin - makes possible all kinds of tonal resonances and multipart counterpoint. The other music by Bielawa, a San Francisco native, is no less arresting or literarily astute.” – The San Francisco Chronicle

Kafka Songs - "Ghosts"

Kafka Songs - "This Time"

Kafka Songs - "Finally"

Lamentations for a City

A Collective Cleansing

 

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD PROGRAM NOTE FOR THE TROJAN WOMEN

First Takes (Albany Records TROY941, 2007)

Features world premiere recordings of four new works by outstanding American composers from the younger generation: Chris Theofanidis; Paul Moravec; Lisa Bielawa; and Michael Gatonska, beautifully performed by the String Orchestra of New York City (SONYC). It includes Lisa Bielawa’s 2003 work, The Trojan Women.

The Trojan Women

LIVE RECORDINGS:

Hurry (18.7mb)

Dawn Upshaw-John Harbison Workshop, Carnegie Hall Institute

CAMI Hall, NYC, October 9, 2004

Natalie Janssen, soprano; Colin Jacobsen, violin; Priscilla Lee, cello; Lance Suzuki, alto flute & piccolo; Carol McGonnell, clarinets; Molly Morkoski, piano

unfinish'd, sent (2.47mb)

Boston Modern Orchestra Project, conducted by Gil Rose

Jordan Hall, Boston

Roam (2.78mb)

Boston Modern Orchestra Project, conducted by Gil Rose

Jordan Hall, Boston