Uploaded November 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
American composer and vocalist Lisa Bielawa is a 2009 Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition and spent a year composing as a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She is the recipient of the 2017 American Academy of Arts and Letters' Music Award and a 2020 Discovery Grant from OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Female Composers. She was named a William Randolph Hearst Visiting Artist Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society for 2018 and is Artist-in-Residence. Her most ambitious musical project is the "Broadcasts" series of works for performance in public spaces. Bielawa’s Broadcasts are broadly participatory musical asynchronous performances for any combination of voices and instruments.
This is her "Incessabili Voce" for soprano and a chamber ensemble of alto or tenor saxophone, Bb or bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano. This recording features Lisa herself as the soprano soloist. She writes in the program notes:
"As vocal soloist in my own work, I wanted to explore some of the performance implications of these various texts that had entered my process. In designing material for the voice, I thought about singing in church, the ecstatic singing of angels, the roar of soldiers, the mannerisms of Greek storytelling in the great oral tradition, the traditions of Gregorian and Anglican chant. The vocal part coaxes cries of various sorts out of the instruments. The texture of the ensemble writing bears witness to my preoccupation, still as lively as when I was six years old, with the sloppy joyfulness of a multitude crying ceaselessly all together – whether angels or soldiers. I let all of these images, texts, traditions and energies enter the piece and mingle together, without strict dramatic intent. It is more of a dreamscape than a story, more cry than word."
COMPOSER: Lisa Bielawa
SOPRANO: Lisa Bielawa
ENSEMBLE: Ensemble Echappé
NOTE: This is a live performance!
Please be aware that all of the music (and images) featured in this video belong to their respective owners, and I or this channel does not claim any right over them. I upload these solely for archiving purposes, and for the sharing and enjoyment of great music. Monetization is not enabled. If you are the rightful owner of copyrighted material used and would like the video removed from YouTube, please, instead of reporting/striking my channel, leave a comment below with your statement and I will take the video down effective immediately.
American composer and vocalist Lisa Bielawa is a 2009 Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition and spent a year composing as a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She is the recipient of the 2017 American Academy of Arts and Letters' Music Award and a 2020 Discovery Grant from OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Female Composers. She was named a William Randolph Hearst Visiting Artist Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society for 2018 and is Artist-in-Residence. Her most ambitious musical project is the "Broadcasts" series of works for performance in public spaces. Bielawa’s Broadcasts are broadly participatory musical asynchronous performances for any combination of voices and instruments.
This is her "Incessabili Voce" for soprano and a chamber ensemble of alto or tenor saxophone, Bb or bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano. This recording features Lisa herself as the soprano soloist. She writes in the program notes:
"As vocal soloist in my own work, I wanted to explore some of the performance implications of these various texts that had entered my process. In designing material for the voice, I thought about singing in church, the ecstatic singing of angels, the roar of soldiers, the mannerisms of Greek storytelling in the great oral tradition, the traditions of Gregorian and Anglican chant. The vocal part coaxes cries of various sorts out of the instruments. The texture of the ensemble writing bears witness to my preoccupation, still as lively as when I was six years old, with the sloppy joyfulness of a multitude crying ceaselessly all together – whether angels or soldiers. I let all of these images, texts, traditions and energies enter the piece and mingle together, without strict dramatic intent. It is more of a dreamscape than a story, more cry than word."
COMPOSER: Lisa Bielawa
SOPRANO: Lisa Bielawa
ENSEMBLE: Ensemble Echappé
NOTE: This is a live performance!
Please be aware that all of the music (and images) featured in this video belong to their respective owners, and I or this channel does not claim any right over them. I upload these solely for archiving purposes, and for the sharing and enjoyment of great music. Monetization is not enabled. If you are the rightful owner of copyrighted material used and would like the video removed from YouTube, please, instead of reporting/striking my channel, leave a comment below with your statement and I will take the video down effective immediately.
![Edie Hill — From the Wingbone of a Swan (2014) [w/ score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Q17tGyJ-CnI/mqdefault.jpg "Edie Hill — From the Wingbone of a Swan (2014) [w/ score]
This is Edie Hills gorgeous work for SATB choir and a trio of flute, cello, and percussion, From the Wingbone of a Swan.
Hill wrote in the program notes for full context:
“I believe that possessing a musical sense is inherent to being human, and that human beings, from their very beginnings, were musical before they expressed themselves with formal language. We embody counterpoint in the most basic way by virtue of simultaneous voice and heartbeat. Thus the first movement: ‘Prelude to Speech.’ The poem itself is only a portion of what the listener hears. I use vocalisms and simple “calls” that ultimately lead to the words that are the poem. The cello and drum accompany this movement. I chose the cello because it is the instrument that is most like the human voice. The ‘shape’ of the movement is a gradual transition from pure sound and melody to language – a discovery of speech through music. Flowing directly out of newly-found speech is ‘Source.’ When I gave a lecture about the origins of music at Delft University, I made reference to an ‘underground river.’ To me, music is born from this so-called river. The river is the source that is tapped and from it comes music that is as basic as water is to human beings. It IS life blood. And it is always there – now – then. It is a constant that connects us all. Finally, I believe that instruments (such as a flute) are extensions of the human voice. We make them so that we can “sing” in ways beyond the physical constraints of the human voice – so that we can sing in all manner of timbers, dynamics, and ranges. I was inspired by an article entitled ‘Magic Flute: Primal Find Sings of Music’s Mystery’ by Robert Lee Holtz, which appeared in a 2008 edition of the Wall Street Journal. The article talks about ‘the discovery of the world’s oldest musical instrument – a 35,000 year-old flute made from a (swan’s) wing bone.’ I thought, ‘what a beautiful thing!’ – a flute made from the wingbone of a swan. In this movement, I wanted to conjure imagery of this ancient instrument, and again, draw attention to music as a thread that connects us as human beings in ancient times and in the present moment. As a way of conveying progression, I add instruments movement by movement. The cello and drum accompany the first. In the second movement, marimba is added. The sound of the marimba adds a texture that conjures water and flow. And in the third, the flute joins the texture. It is the ‘Breath of Silver,’ the ‘Ribbon of Light.’”
COMPOSER: Edie Hill
POETS: Edie Hill & Tim O’Brien
CONDUCTOR: Donald Nally
CHOIR: The Crossing
ENSEMBLE:
Ted Babcock, percussion
Arlen Hlusko, cello
Mimi Stillman, flute
TRACKLIST:
0:00 - Introduction
0:15 - I. Prelude to Speech
4:04 - II. Source
10:05 - III. Paleolithic Flute
TEXTS:
————————————
(I. Prelude to Speech)
say:
I know
say:
I feel
say:
I am
————————————
(II. Source)
beneath me, a river
unseen
under skin of stone
earth blood
infusion of gold
in body of human
always
and now
gently
persuaded
to sing
————————————
(III. Paleolithic Flute)
from the wing bone of a swan:
music
breath of silver
ribbon of light
from the wingbone of a swan:
music
`ancient as stone
present as living
flesh on bone
Please be aware that all of the music (and images) featured in this video belong to their respective owners, and I or this channel does not claim any right over them. I upload these solely for archiving purposes, and for the sharing and enjoyment of great music. Monetization is not enabled. If you are the rightful owner of copyrighted material used and would like the video removed from YouTube, please, instead of reporting/striking my channel, leave a comment below with your statement and I will take the video down effective immediately.
#scorefollower #contemporaryclassical #classicalmusic")
![Stephen Michael Gryc — Evensong (2000) [w/ score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RjkxJwB3VK4/mqdefault.jpg "Stephen Michael Gryc — Evensong (2000) [w/ score]
This is Stephen Michael Gryc’s beautiful “Evensong” for solo trumpet and wind ensemble (score shown here is the piano reduction), commissioned and performed here by former Principal Trumpet of the New York Philharmonic, Philip Smith, and the University of New Mexico Wind Symphony. Gryc writes in the program notes:
“Evensong was commissioned by trumpeter Philip Smith and the University of New Mexico Wind Symphony, Eric Rombach-Kendall conductor. The work was started in August of 1999 and completed in January of 2000. The commissioning artists premiered Evensong on April 18, 2000 in Albuquerque. The piece is dedicated to the memory of my father-in-law, publisher Robert King, who died at the age of 85 after a lifetime of invaluable service to the worldwide community of brass players. Evensong is the English name for the church service celebrated shortly before sunset and may also mean any song sung in the evening. The work uses two ancient church modes, dorian and mixolydian. The dorian mode is based on the pitch D, but the mixolydian mode is transposed from its usual base of G up to A flat. The diminished fifth interval between D and A flat is the source of harmonic tension and richness as well as harmonic motion in the work. The piece ends with repeated cadences on Ab by the low brass while the solo trumpet, flutes, and bells reiterate D. The elegiac character of Evensong demonstrates the lyricism of which the trumpet is capable and, more particularly, the great artistry of Philip Smith.”
COMPOSER: Stephen Michael Gryc
TRUMPET: Philip Smith
BAND: University of New Mexico Wind Symphony
Please be aware that all of the music (and images) featured in this video belong to their respective owners, and I or this channel does not claim any right over them. I upload these solely for archiving purposes, and for the sharing and enjoyment of great music. Monetization is not enabled. If you are the rightful owner of copyrighted material used and would like the video removed from YouTube, please, instead of reporting/striking my channel, leave a comment below with your statement and I will take the video down effective immediately.
#scorefollower #contemporaryclassical #classicalmusic")
![Sarah Kirkland Snider — The Reserved, The Reticent (2004) [w/ score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ULDvP2jDTIo/mqdefault.jpg "Sarah Kirkland Snider — The Reserved, The Reticent (2004) [w/ score]
Snider writes in the program notes of this wonderful work for solo cello:
I wrote this piece in my first year of graduate study at Yale. I wanted to create a lyrical, ruminative, single-movement narrative for solo cello, an instrument I had studied as a child and often longed to play. The music was inspired by this passage from As One Put Drunk Into the Packet-Boat, a poem by John Ashbery.
COMPOSER: Sarah Kirkland Snider
CELLO: Hrant Parsamian
Please be aware that all of the music (and images) featured in this video belong to their respective owners, and I or this channel does not claim any right over them. I upload these solely for archiving purposes, and for the sharing and enjoyment of great music. Monetization is not enabled. If you are the rightful owner of copyrighted material used and would like the video removed from YouTube, please, instead of reporting/striking my channel, leave a comment below with your statement and I will take the video down effective immediately.
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![John Mackey — Juba (2003) [w/ score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/UbW689sEazc/mqdefault.jpg "John Mackey — Juba (2003) [w/ score]
John Mackey’s intense, rhythmically driving “Juba,” for electric string quartet and percussion, was commissioned by and written in collaboration with dancer, choreographer, and Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Robert Battle. Mackey and Battle have had many music-dance collaborations over the years, with many other pieces in Mackey’s catalog created in this collaboration like “Strange Humors” and “Mass.”
Mackey writes in the program notes of this work:
“Robert wanted something aggressive. His only specific musical request was that the work have a ‘Rite of Spring’ sort of nastiness, with repeated eighth-notes and featuring syncopated accents. Robert also wanted percussion, and although I was initially reluctant to incorporate it – almost all of our works have featured percussion – I relented, and Robert was, as usual, completely right. As you’ll hear, this piece wouldn’t be the same without the percussion, and specifically, the amazing playing of Damien Bassman. (Yes, these are real, live musicians. No synths here.) The first movement is full of ‘power chords,’ with those repeated eighth-notes that Robert requested. The second movement allows the dancers to catch their breath briefly before the final movement, a rhythmically dense and virtuosic 7-minute crescendo of raw energy.”
COMPOSER: John Mackey
ENSEMBLE:
Vesselin Gellev, violin
Annaliesa Place, violin
Ralph Farris, viola
Rebecca Patterson, cello
Damien Bassman, percussion
TRACKLIST:
0:00 - Introduction
0:13 - I.
5:18 - II.
7:30 - III.
Please be aware that all of the music (and images) featured in this video belong to their respective owners, and I or this channel does not claim any right over them. I upload these solely for archiving purposes, and for the sharing and enjoyment of great music. Monetization is not enabled. If you are the rightful owner of copyrighted material used and would like the video removed from YouTube, please, instead of reporting/striking my channel, leave a comment below with your statement and I will take the video down effective immediately.
#scorefollower #contemporaryclassical #classicalmusic")
