Breakfast in New York Plays Galapagos Art Space

Composer Lisa Bielawa's Breakfast in New York will have its world premiere tonight at 8pm at Galapagos Art Space (16 Main Street, Brooklyn). Presented by Five Boroughs Music Festival, this concert initiates the festival's Five Borough Songbook, a series of 20 new songs by 20 composers on themes that celebrate New York City. The Five Borough Songbook will make its way around the entire city, with a premiere in each borough (additional performances to be announced). The October 6 concert marks the program's world premiere and in addition to Bielawa's Breakfast in New York includes new pieces by Christopher Berg, Tom Cipullo, Christina Courtin, Mohammed Fairouz, Renée Favand-See, John Glover, Ricky Ian Gordon, Yotam Haber, Daron Hagen, Gabriel Kahane, Gilda Lyons, Jorge Martín, Russell Platt, Glen Roven, Matt Schickele, Richard Pearson Thomas, Christopher Tignor, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Scott Wheeler. Several of these composers, including Bielawa, will be on hand for a Composer Chat preceding the concert at Galapagos Art Space at 6:30pm. The performers for Breakfast in New York include soprano Martha Guth, mezzo-soprano Blythe Gaissert, tenor ALex Richardson, baritone David Adam Moore, and violinist Harumi Rhodes. Other artists include pianists Thomas Bagwell and Jocelyn Dueck.

Lisa Bielawa says, "This year I am celebrating 21 years of living in New York City, which is exactly half my life. During those years I have lived (or couch-surfed) in 14 different apartments in four boroughs. Breakfast in New York weaves together conversations I overheard in diners and coffee shops in all five boroughs this summer. Whenever possible, I revisited places that were regular breakfast joints for me at various times of my life. You will hear voices from: George's Coffee Shop in Washington Heights; Tom's Restaurant on 112th & Broadway; Riverdale Diner in the Bronx; Mike's Place in New Dorp, Staten Island; Cobble Hill Diner on Smith St. in Brooklyn; New Post Coffee Shop on Queens Blvd.; Alpha Donuts on Queens Blvd.; Westway Diner in Hell's Kitchen; Hungarian Pastry Shop on Amsterdam Ave.; and Kitchenette in TriBeCa."

About Lisa Bielawa: Born in San Francisco into a musical family, Lisa Bielawa played the violin and piano, sang, and wrote music from early childhood. She moved to New York two weeks after receiving her B.A. in Literature in 1990 from Yale University, and became an active participant in New York musical life. She began touring with the Philip Glass Ensemble in 1992, and in 1997 co-founded the MATA Festival, which celebrates the work of young composers. She is a 2009 Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition.

Bielawa often takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations. Gramophone reports, "Bielawa is gaining gale force as a composer, churning out impeccably groomed works that at once evoke the layered precision of Vermeer and the conscious recklessness of Jackson Pollock," and The New York Times describes her music as, "ruminative, pointillistic and harmonically slightly tart."

Recent highlights include performances of Bielawa's chamber music in New York at the Weill Recital Hall, City Winery, Merkin Concert Hall and Trinity Church. Her music is also frequently performed at concert venues in Paris, Italy, the UK and Rome. World premieres of Emerald Waltz, Graffiti dell'amante, Portrait-Elegy, The Project of Collecting Clouds, Chance Encounter, and In medias res have been performed in cities across the United States.

Bielawa's discography includes Chance Encounter (Orange Mountain Music); In medias res (BMOP/sound), A Handful of World (Tzadik 8039), The Trojan Women on a disc entitled First Takes (TROY941), Hildegurls: Electric Ordo Virtutum (Innova), a 1998 re-envisioning of 12th-century German abbess Hildegard von Bingen's musical drama The Order of the Virtues, and The Trojan Women in a version for string quartet performed by the Miami on The NYFA Collection (Innova). Another album, The Lay of the Love, will be the inaugural disc of Premiere Commission Recordings.

In addition to a 2009 Rome Prize, Bielawa has received fellowships and awards from the Alpert-Ucross Foundation, Creative Capital, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy, the Fund for U.S. Artists at International Festivals, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Joyce Dutka Arts Foundation, ASCAP, and the Fondation Royaumont in France. In 2007-2008, Lisa Bielawa was a Radcliffe Institute Fellow.

An enthusiastic advocate for the field, Bielawa now serves on the board of the MATA Festival. In addition, she has served on the board of the American Music Center and taught composition through the New York Youth Symphony Making Score program. In addition to her work as a vocalist with the Philip Glass Ensemble, she tours and records with John Zorn and has premiered and recorded works by numerous other composer colleagues. For more information, visit www.lisabielawa.net.

More about Five Boroughs Music Festival: Five Boroughs Music Festival was founded in 2007 by baritone Jesse Blumberg. Under his leadership, along with Executive Director Donna Breitzer, 5BMF seeks to bring musical performances of the highest caliber to all parts of New York City. In a day when more and more artists and music fans are living in the so-called ‘outer boroughs,' it is their goal to equally serve audiences in every part of the city by presenting diverse, intimate, and affordable programs throughout the year. For more information, visit www.5BMF.org.