violin and voice

Carla Kihlstedt has played the violin for most of her years on this planet. It is the vehicle that has brought her through many approaches to music-making from her beginnings in the classical world, through various music schools — Peabody Institute, Oberlin and San Francisco Conservatories — and on to her present hydra-headed musical life. She is a composer, an improviser, a singer, and a member of several ongoing projects, including 2 Foot Yard, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Tin Hat, The Book of Knots, and Causing A Tiger, each of which has its own very particular and distinct logic. She has written scores for dance and theater companies (inkBoat, The Joe Goode Performance Group, Flyaway Productions), and on her new label, 12 Cups, has just released a cd of several such scores written with Matthias Bossi and Dan Rathbun (Ravish and Other Tales for the Stage).

In 2009, Carla will put several new recordings into the world: a new Minamo cd (Tzadik), debut cds of Cosa Brava, Causing a Tiger, Necessary Monsters, and Lisa Bielawa's Double Violin Concerto. Thanks to a generous grant from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, she will also be working on a new piece for the ROVA Saxophone Quartet.

Performances

The Brooklyn Lyceum | April 1, 2008
Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory | March 29, 2008
Moonshine Room at Club Café | March 26, 2008

News and Press

[CD Review] American Record Guide reviews Lisa Bielawa: In Media Res

Prix de Rome recipient Lisa Bielawa (b. 1968, daughter of composer Herbert) has recently been composer in residence with Gil Rose’s Boston Modern Orchestra Project (2006-09). Ms. Bielawa (brought up in San Francisco but now living in Manhattan) is a Yale graduate, but her degrees are in literature and critical studies; she is also a performing soprano, making for an interesting and quite striking list of accomplishments. This collection documents the product of the three Boston seasons and includes some earlier music.

American Record Guide Full review
[CD Review] CLOFO reviews Lisa Bielawa: In Media Res

RECOMMENDED

Classical Lost and Found Full review
[CD Review] Composer-vocalist Lisa Bielawa's solo and orchestral music on 2-cd set

Composer-vocalist Lisa Bielawa’s solo and orchestral music will be released as a 2-CD set entitled In medias res by BMOP/sound in June 2010. 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).

Interchanging Idioms Full review
[Press Release] BMOP/sound releases Lisa Bielawa: In medias res

Composer-vocalist Lisa Bielawa's solo and orchestral music will be released as a 2-CD set entitled In medias res by BMOP/sound in June 2010. 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).

BMOP Full review
[Concert Review] With orchestral offerings, festival passes a milestone

The MATA Festival is celebrating its 10th season, partly by showing off how far it has come since its early days as Music at the Anthology, a new-music series resident at the Anthology Film Archives. Since the Anthology days the festival has traveled a circuit of churches and small halls, but for the last couple of years it has been ensconced at the Brooklyn Lyceum, an old public bath converted into a concert hall.

The New York Times Full review
[Concert Review] Star quality

In the Times, Allan Kozinn provided a typically sagacious and deftly written account of the first major concert of the MATA—Young Composers Now! series at the Brooklyn Lyceum (on April 1). The concert closed with the New York premiere of Lisa Bielawa’s Double Violin Concerto, which was played with saintly elegance by Carla Kihlstedt and Colin Jacobsen, backed by Gil Rose and the excellent Boston Modern Orchestra Project.

The New Yorker, Goings On Blog Full review
[Concert Review] Five things about BMOP @ MATA

I caught the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) at the MATA Festival Tuesday night in Brooklyn.

1. Gil Rose and BMOP played a varied concert with conviction and panache Tuesday night. While there were wonderful soloists on the program, the ensemble really held the spotlight the entire night in the best possible sense - always blending well and making the most of lines, accompaniment and ensemble.

Sequenza21 Full review
[Concert Review] Bielawa, BMOP: performance provocateurs

On Saturday night the New England Conservatory’s teal and gilt Jordan Hall enjoyed the premiere of no fewer than four new works by living, breathing composers and performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, which parties where symphony orchestras fear to tread. Bucking both contemporary and traditional expectations, provoking appreciation and conversation, this was a night of risks that paid off handsomely.

The Boston Herald Full review
[Concert Review] For modern orchestra, a night of premieres

Four world premieres in one night is ambitious even by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s standards, but Saturday’s novelty at Jordan Hall was also an old-fashioned Boston tryout for a New York opening: This week, conductor Gil Rose and the group bring the program to Brooklyn’s MATA Festival, an annual new-music showcase previously run by BMOP’s current composer-in-residence, Lisa Bielawa.

The Boston Globe Full review
[Interview] A handful of world

That’s the title of Lisa Bielawa’s impressive debut CD. Long known as a singer in Philip Glass’s ensemble, she is now making her mark as a composer, one expansive collaboration at a time.

The Boston Globe Full review
[Press Release] BMOP celebrates musical collaborations in its Double Entendre concert

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the nation's leading orchestra dedicated exclusively to performing, commissioning, and recording new music of the 21st century, honors some of its long-standing cherished collaborations in a special Double Entendre concert at Jordan Hall (30 Gainsborough Street), Saturday, March 29th @ 8:00pm.

Full review
[Press Release] BMOP 07|08

BMOP's 11th season features Gil Rose's innovative programming, pairing 20th-century mavericks with today's foremost composers and performers.

World Premieres
Lisa Bielawa, Composer in Residence
Martin Boykan
Michael Colgrass
Derek Hurst
David Rakowski
Alejandro Rutty
Ezra Sims
Ken Ueno

Featured Guests
Firebird Ensemble
Colin Jacobsen
Kim Kashkashian
Carla Kihlstedt
Joanne Kong
Marilyn Nonken

Club Concerts
BMOP returns to downtown Boston, featuring new works by Lisa Bielawa composed in residence for solo artists.

Full review
[Press Release] Composer in Residence, Lisa Bielawa

BMOP is proud to announce that New York-based composer Lisa Bielawa will be in residence for three yeas beginning in October 2006. BMOP was one of six orchestras nation-wide selected for an extended Music Alive residency, a program of Meet the Composer and the American Symphony Orchestra League.

Full review
[Press Release] BMOP announces 10th anniversary season

BMOP announces that its 10th anniversary season will open on November 3, 2006 at Jordan Hall. For 10 years BMOP has been Boston's only orchestra dedicated exclusively to performing and recording new music. Led by founding Artistic Director Gil Rose, BMOP is considered to be the premier orchestra for new music in the country.

Full review