World Premiere of composer Lisa Bielawa’s Voters’ Litany presented by the Cathedral Choral Society

World Premiere of Composer Lisa Bielawa’s Voters’ Litany

Presented by the Cathedral Choral Society to Mark the 100^th Anniversary of the 19^th Amendment

Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 5pm

Washington National Cathedral | 3101 Wisconsin Ave NW

Tickets $25 – $82.50 (Discounts available for students, groups, and military) at www.cathedralchoralsociety.org/marchofthewomen

 “[Lisa Bielawa has a] prodigious gift for mingling persuasive melodicism with organic experimentation” – Time Out New York 

Lisa Bielawa: www.lisabielawa.net 

Washington, DC – On Sunday, March 22 at 5pm, the world premiere of Lisa Bielawa’s Voters’ Litany is presented by the Cathedral Choral Society and Orchestra, led by Steven Fox, at Washington National Cathedral (3101 Wisconsin Ave NW). The Cathedral Choral Society has commissioned three of today’s leading composers – Lisa Bielawa, Jessie Montgomery, and Augusta Read Thomas – to write new works in celebration of the 19th Amendment's centennial. This performance is the culmination of “March of the Women,” a weekend of events presented by the Cathedral Choral Society which aims to celebrate the contributions of women composers to the field.

Bielawa explains of Voters’ Litany, “While it has been 100 years since women in the United States got the vote with the historic passage of the 19^th Amendment in 1920, Voters’ Rights is still a vital issue in our country today. The diversity of American citizenry is storied, issuing out of complexity and struggle as well as freedom and opportunity.”

The texts for Voters’ Litany are excerpted from postcards created through Sheryl Oring’s ongoing project I Wish to Say. Launched in 2004, I Wish to Say consists of performances where Oring and sometimes a pool of typists set up stands in well trafficked public areas where people can walk up and dictate their messages to the current President, or – in election years – to the next President.

Bielawa clarifies, “The piece does not focus on the qualities or identities of the Presidents and candidates addressed (these encompass all sitting Presidents and Presidential candidates in primary and general elections since 2004), but on the emotional reality of American people in relation to their elected leaders. In German when one votes, one ‘gives one’s voice’ (‘I voted’ = ‘Ich habe gestimmt’ [I gave my voice]). Voters’ Litany is dedicated to all of those who give their voices, through singing and by voting. 

Featuring a range of powerful female compositional voices, the March 22 program also includes Ruth Crawford Seeger's ethereal Three Chants and famed British suffragette and composer Ethel Smyth's rousing March of the Women.

On Saturday, March 21 at 11am at Live! At 10th and G (945 G St NW) Lisa Bielawa will be on a panel discussion with fellow composers Jessie Montgomery and Augusta Read Thomas, covering topics from the compositional process to working in the #MeToo era in a male-dominated field. Joy-Leilani Garbutt from the Boulanger Initiative adds her perspective as a leader in research on women composers. The panel will be moderated by Jenny Bilfield, CEO of Washington Performing Arts. This event is free of charge, but reservations are required. Complete schedule information for all events on March 21 & 22 is available at www.cathedralchoralsociety.org/marchofthewomen

About Lisa Bielawa: Composer, producer, and vocalist Lisa Bielawa is a Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition and takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations. Her music has been described as “ruminative, pointillistic and harmonically slightly tart,” by The New York Times. She is the recipient of the 2017 Music Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters and was named a William Randolph Hearst Visiting Artist Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society for 2018.

Bielawa consistently executes work that incorporates community-making as part of her artistic vision. She has created music for public spaces in Lower Manhattan, the banks of the Tiber River in Rome, on the sites of former airfields in Berlin in San Francisco, and to mark the 30^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1997 Bielawa co-founded the MATA Festival, which celebrates the work of young composers, and for five years she was the artistic director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus.

She received a 2018 Los Angeles Area Emmy nomination for her unprecedented, made-for-TV-and-online opera Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch's Accuser, created with librettist Erik Ehn and director Charles Otte. Vireo was filmed in twelve parts in locations across the country and features over 350 musicians. The Los Angeles Times called Vireo an opera, “unlike any you have seen before, in content and in form.” Vireo was produced as part of Bielawa’s artist residency at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, California and in partnership with KCETLink and Single Cel. In February 2019, Vireo was released as a two CD DVD box set on Orange Mountain Music and it is coming to the stage in 2021 as VIREO LIVE, a hybrid film-opera 90-minute experience.

In addition to Voter’s Litany, Bielawa’s recent and current work includes concertos for violinist Jennifer Koh (Sanctuary) and cellist Joshua Roman (Heart Land) and an orchestral song cycle for mezzo-soprano Laurie Rubin (Centuries in the Hours); and Voters’ Broadcast, a series of 20-minute public-space musical performances, developed at Kaufman Music Center and designed to stimulate voter registration, political awareness, and community fellowship. Her latest work for public spaces, Mauer Broadcast, was a series of pop-up choral performances for the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall at locations including the Brandenburg Gate and Alexanderplatz in November 2019. She will have her second residency as a performer/composer at John Zorn’s venue The Stone in March 2020.

Her work has been premiered at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, SHIFT Festival, Town Hall Seattle, and Naumburg Orchestral Concerts Summer Series, among others. Orchestras that have championed her music include the The Knights, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, American Composers Orchestra, the Orlando Philharmonic, and ROCO (River Oaks Chamber Orchestra). Premieres of her work have been commissioned and presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Rider, Seattle Chamber Music Society, American Guild of Organists, and more. She is recorded on the Tzadik, TROY, Innova, BMOP/ sound, Supertrain Records, Cedille, Orange Mountain Music and Sono Luminus labels.

For more information, please visit www.lisabielawa.net.

About Cathedral Choral Society: The Cathedral Choral Society presents masterworks of choral-orchestral repertoire in the majestic glow of Washington National Cathedral. Led by Music Director Steven Fox, CCS is the oldest symphonic choral group in Washington, D.C. and one of the most prominent choruses in the United States. The Cathedral Choral Society has presented numerous world premieres and maintains a tradition of showcasing emerging artists alongside internationally renowned soloists.