June 10: American Composers Orchestra Presents Creative Spark with Lisa Bielawa - Interactive Online Event Celebrating Creativity

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: Christina Jensen, Jensen Artists
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christina@jensenartists.com

American Composers Orchestra Presents Creative Spark with Lisa Bielawa 

An Interactive Online Event Celebrating Creativity & Curiosity
Benefiting ACO’s Sonic Spark Education Programs 

Thursday, June 10, 2021 at 6pm ET – Online
Tickets & Information: http://bit.ly/ACOCreativeSparkBielawa

Photo of Lisa Bielawa by Carlin Ma. Crissy Broadcast Map, courtesy of Bielawa

ACO Continues its Online Professional Development Panels

Film Composition – June 16 at 3pm ET
Registration & Information: http://bit.ly/ACOProfessionalDevelopment 
Free, registration required.

New York, NY – American Composers Orchestra (ACO) presents Creative Spark, led by ACO-commissioned composer Lisa Bielawa on Thursday, June 10, 2021 at 6pm ET. The event will be held online via Zoom. Tickets start at $25 and benefit ACO’s Sonic Spark education programs. Participants will have the chance to create, experiment, and play with Bielawa and the ACO community.

Creative Spark with Lisa Bielawa is an interactive, hour-long interactive event that celebrates and unlocks the creativity and curiosity that lives in each of us. Do you delight in making things up? Are you ready to explore how to spark new vitality in your life through your natural creativity? Join ACO for a unique opportunity to energize your imagination through prompts, Surrealist games and interactive idea-making, while supporting ACO’s Sonic Spark education programs. 

ACO’s Sonic Spark education programs help students fulfill their potential through engagement with the creative arts and performing music. In schools, in collaboration with some of New York’s most impactful arts programs, and in private group study, ACO makes composition into a platform for creativity, and creativity into a platform for achievement in all areas. In the 2020-21 season, ACO is serving 250 students who are enrolled in virtual and in-person sessions, planned through three classes: Sonic Spark Ensembles, instrumental & voice instruction for 4^th-12^th graders, Sonic Spark Lab, an integrated arts program to spark curiosity in 4^th-8^th graders as they create original projects in small groups, and Compose Yourself, composition classes for 9^th-12^th graders, interested in pursuing composition as a career. 

Composer Lisa Bielawa is known for her participatory works including Broadcast from Home, Voters’ Broadcast and her current project, BFH Radio – Broadcast from Here. Described by The Washington Post as “spellbinding,” Broadcast from Home was realized online throughout the period of the coronavirus lockdown, featuring over 500 submitted testimonies and recorded voices from six continents. Voters’ Broadcast’s mission was to stimulate voter engagement, political awareness, and community participation in challenging lockdown conditions, through the act of giving voice to the concerns of fellow citizens, during the lead-up to the 2020 Presidential election. Bielawa is currently at work on BFH Radio, a continuous and evolving soundscape incorporating words, voices, and found audio from participants all over the world which gathers the sounds of people’s first experiments with narrowing social distance or re-engaging with formerly familiar activities, as well as their encounters with new lockdowns or new challenges, and weaves these together with musical materials.

Upcoming Professional Development Panels:

ACO also continues its series of free Professional Development Panels co-presented with the American Composers Forum, featuring panel discussions by esteemed professionals in the industry about topics including Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Entrepreneurship and Creating an Ensemble; Film Composition; Fundraising via Supportive Individuals; Programming and Digital Curation; Publishing, Self-Publishing, and Management; Recording Law and Practice; Project Production and Recording; and more. All panels are free and open to the public; registration is required.

Film Composition – June 16, 2021 at 3pm

Established film composers talk about the film industry and the essentials of being a film composer. Composer Laura Karpman moderates a panel of experts, which will include composers Terence Blanchard, Kathryn Bostic, and Rachel Portman. The panel will be followed by a Q&A session with the audience.

About American Composers Orchestra

Founded in 1977, American Composers Orchestra (ACO) is dedicated to the creation, celebration, performance, and promotion of orchestral music by American composers. With commitment to diversity, disruption and discovery, ACO produces concerts, middle school through college composer education programs, and emerging composer development programs to foster a community of creators, audience, performers, collaborators, and funders.

ACO identifies and develops talent, performs established composers, champions those who are lesser-known, and increases regional, national, and international awareness of the infinite variety of American orchestral music, reflecting gender, racial, ethnic, geographic, stylistic, and age diversity. To date, ACO has performed music by 800 American composers, including over 350 world premieres and newly commissioned works. ACO recordings are available on ARGO, CRI, ECM, Point, Phoenix USA, MusicMasters, Nonesuch, Tzadik, New World Records, InstantEncore, Amazon, Spotify, and Apple Music. 

ACO offers an array of programs for emerging composers including its own annual New Music Readings in New York City, which has served over 150 composers since its inception in 1991, and EarShot Readings, which since 2008 have been offered in partnership with orchestras across the country in collaboration with the League of American Orchestras, New Music USA and American Composers Forum. These Readings provide the rare opportunity for emerging composers to hear their original works played by a professional orchestra; the residencies, performances and composer-development programs speak directly to the orchestras’ communities and leverage local resources. Annually, ACO-produced Readings support 15-20 emerging composers, who receive mentorship and a professional orchestra reading and recording of their work. ACO’s New Music Readings in New York include a multi-performance commission awarded to the most promising participant through the Composing a New Orchestra Audience platform. Readings composers have gone on to win every major composition award, including the Pulitzer, Grammy, Grawemeyer, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Rome Prizes. 

Since 1999, ACO has brought composers and musical teaching artists into New York City public schools through Sonic Spark (formerly known as Music Factory). Sonic Spark aims to leverage composition as a platform for creativity, and creativity as a platform for achievement in all areas of student’s life. Students in Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan and Queens, work directly with professional composers to create and perform original music. ACO also offers the intensive Compose Yourself! seminars, during which high school and college composers participate in hands-on composition classes, culminating in a performance of student compositions played by ACO’s professional musicians.

ACO has received numerous awards for its work, including those from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and from BMI recognizing the orchestra’s outstanding contribution to American music. ASCAP has awarded ACO its annual prize for adventurous programming 35 times, singling out ACO as “the orchestra that has done the most for new American music in the United States.” ACO received the inaugural MetLife Award for Excellence in Audience Engagement, and a proclamation from the New York City Council. 

More information about American Composers Orchestra and resources about American orchestral composers is available online at www.americancomposers.org. 

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Institutional Support for American Composers Orchestra is provided by Herb Alpert Foundation, American Orchestras’ Futures Fund, Amphion Foundation, Inc., ASCAP, ASCAP Foundation, BMI Foundation, BMI, Inc., Cheswatyr Foundation, Edward T. Cone Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, Jean and Louis Dreyfus Foundation, Baisley Powell Elebash Fund, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Ford Foundation’s Good Neighbor Committee, Fromm Music Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts, G. Schirmer, Hearst Foundations, Richard R. Howe Foundation, Jephson Educational Trusts, Edward and In-Aie Kang Foundation, The J. M. Kaplan Fund, Kettles and Company, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas), Morgan Stanley, Neiman Marcus Group Associates Giving Program, Network for Good, NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund in The New York Community Trust, Pacific Harmony Foundation, Paypal, Rexford Fund, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rolex Institute, Schlam Stone & Dolan LLP, Sphinx Organization, and Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.

Public funds are provided by National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. 

American Composers Orchestra
Derek Bermel, Artistic Director | George Manahan, Music Director | Melissa Ngan, President

Dennis Russell Davies, Conductor Laureate | Robert Beaser, Artistic Director Laureate
494 8th Avenue, Suite 503 | New York, NY 10001
Phone: 212.977.8495 | Web: www.americancomposers.org