Composer Lisa Bielawa’s Tempelhof Etude World Premiere by The Knights, Presented by Naumburg Orchestral Concerts June 20, 2011

On June 20 at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park, New Yorkers will have the chance to hear the first musical chapter, Tempelhof Etude for orchestra, from composer Lisa Bielawa's massive new work, Tempelhof Broadcast. The Knights, conducted by Eric Jacobsen, will give the piece its world premiere as part of a FREE concert that also includes Morton Feldman’s Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. Bielawa's Tempelhof Broadcast will be premiered by 600 musicians in Berlin on the tarmac of the former Tempelhof Airport in Berlin in 2012. Currently being used as a public park, the unaltered Tempelhof Airport will be transformed by Bielawa into a canvas where professional, amateur and student musicians will gather together to perform a spacialized symphony. A prelude to the larger piece, Tempelhof Etude is Bielawa's exploration of “ways to make musical experiences unfold organically, according to mnemonics, rules and games.” Bielawa is often inspired by literary sources and close artistic collaborations. A winner of the 2009 Rome Prize for Musical Composition, she has been hailed by Gramophone as, "a composer gaining gale force, churning out impeccably groomed works that at once evoke the layered precision of Vermeer and the conscious recklessness of Jackson Pollock." The New York Times describes her music as, “ruminative, pointillistic and harmonically slightly tart.”

Official Website: http://www.naumburgconcerts.org