American Composers Orchestra Presents Creative Spark With Lisa Bielawa

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 4th-12th graders, Sonic Spark Lab, an integrated arts program to spark curiosity in 4th-8th graders as they create original projects in small groups, and Compose Yourself, composition classes for 9th-12th 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.

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