Work Title: Violin Concerto No. 2: PULSE, composed for violinist Tessa Lark

Commissioning Consortium: The Louisville Orchestra (lead), Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica

Premiere Date: October 24-25, 2025 by the Louisville Orchestra

Lisa Bielawa’s new work supported by Amplifying Voices is her Violin Concerto No. 2: PULSE, composed for violinist Tessa Lark. The lead orchestra for the Amplifying Voices co-commissioning consortium is the Louisville Orchestra, which will give the world premiere performances of the concerto on October 24-25, 2025, led by Music Director Teddy Abrams. Additional consortium members are the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (to be scheduled, led by Artistic Director Gil Rose), Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (November 29-30, 2025, led by Music Director Cristian Măcelaru), and Santa Fe Pro Musica (to be scheduled). PULSE is co-commissioned by The Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress, and additional support was provided by James Rosenfeld and the Loghaven Artist Residency.

Composer, producer, and vocalist Lisa Bielawa is a Guggenheim Fellow and Rome Prize winner who takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations. She has received awards and fellowships from the Koussevitzky Foundation, American Academy of Arts & Letters, OPERA America, and American Antiquarian Society, Loghaven Artist Residency, and was part of the inaugural Louisville Orchestra’s Creators Corps. She received a Los Angeles Area Emmy nomination for her unprecedented, made-for-TV-and-online opera Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch’s Accuser. Her music has been premiered at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, SHIFT Festival, National Cathedral, Rouen Opera, MAXXI Museum in Rome, and Helsinki Music Center, among others. Orchestras that have championed her music include The Knights, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, ROCO, and the Orlando Philharmonic. Premieres of her work have been commissioned and presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Rider, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Radio France, Yerevan Concert Hall in Armenia, the Venice Architectural Biennale, American Music Week in Salzburg, the INFANT Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, and more. Bielawa consistently incorporates community-making as part of her artistic vision. She has created music for public spaces in Lower Manhattan, a bridge over the Ohio River in Louisville, KY, the banks of the Tiber River in Rome, on the sites of former airfields in Berlin and San Francisco, and to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. During the pandemic, Bielawa cultivated a virtual community using submitted testimonies and recorded voices from six continents through her work Broadcast from Home, now archived by the Library of Congress. Her next large-scale public work is Knoxville Broadcast, presented by the Big Ears Festival on October 17-18, 2025.

Visit Lisa Bielawa’s Website