Lisa Bielawa

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

Composer Lisa Bielawa takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations. In September 2007, her site-specific piece for soprano Susan Narucki and twelve instruments, Chance Encounter, a project of Creative Capital, will premiere in the streets of lower Manhattan. Bielawa’s The Lay of the Love and Death, based on an epic poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, was written for violinist Colin Jacobsen and baritone Jesse Blumberg and premiered at Alice Tully Hall in 2006. Her 2004 work Hurry, for soprano and chamber ensemble, was commissioned by Carnegie Hall as part of Dawn Upshaw's Perspectives series.

Bielawa is composer-in-residence with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), which is performing and recording her orchestral works over three years. During her fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute, Bielawa will compose a double concerto for two violins—to be premiered by BMOP and violinists Jacobsen and Carla Kihlstedt in March 2008—as well as numerous solo works that will premiere at the BMOP Club Concerts series throughout 2007 and 2008.

A 2001 Aaron Copland Award recipient, Bielawa has also received grants, fellowships, and awards from the Alpert Award/Ucross Foundation; the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy; the Fondation Royaumont in France; the Fund for US Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions; the Joyce Dutka Arts Foundation; the New York Foundation for the Arts; and the New York State Council on the Arts. Bielawa holds a BA in literature from Yale University.