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This year, Lisa Bielawa is the Eastman School of Music’s Howard Hanson Visiting Professor. Her activities at the school have included teaching composition and orchestration, as well as performing her own music with Musica Nova. She’s an accomplished singer of early music and contemporary repertoire, and has long been part of the Philip Glass Ensemble.
But Bielawa’s biggest, and perhaps most fun, activity has been the composition of a “spatial symphony” called “Rochester Broadcast.” It will be performed next weekend (April 18, with a rain date of April 19), not at Eastman, but on East Main Street, at Parcel 5.
Bielawa has composed vocal and orchestral music of many different kinds, but her “Broadcasts” have become her signature piece. In them, Bielawa brings together different musical groups within a community to perform—not on the radio or streaming, but outdoors, performing music written especially for them. Previous cities for whom she has composed “Broadcasts” include Berlin, Louisville, and San Francisco. Each one is tailored to the chosen space and the performers in that city.
“I like to define ‘broadcast’ in its pre-radio sense,” says Bielawa, “of casting off or settling in all directions.” Each “Broadcast” is different, but they do follow the same general plan. The group join together to sing and play, before expanding outwards–“broadly casting” themselves, their sounds, and their words.
There are a few previous examples of “spatial symphonies.” In 1932, the pragmatic Paul Hindemith composed a complete “day of music” to be performed by and for the citizens of the German town of Plön. Earlier, the un-pragmatic Russian composer Alexander Scriabin conceived “Mysterium,” a weeklong ceremony to be performed in the Himalayas by orchestra, voices, and dancers, with visuals, mists, and incense, and climaxing with the end of the world. (He didn’t finish it.)
Compared to her grandiose predecessors, Bielawa’s “Rochester Broadcast” is almost modest–but the composer estimates it will still involve between 200 and 250 musicians from the community, “professional, student, amateur, and everything in between.” Bielawa’s “Broadcasts” bring together musicians who ordinarily wouldn’t get together, but in a welcome side effect, sometimes do perform together afterward.
“Of course, Eastman is a huge presence here,” she says, “but you also have student and amateur music making at a high level.”
The performers, all volunteers, are a cross-section of Rochester’s musical life: Eastman School of Music’s Brass Guild, Saxology, Tuba Mirum, and Chorale; Eastman Community Music School’s Klezmer Ensemble, Gamelan Ensemble, and Chorus; the University of Rochester’s Marching Pep Band and Concert Choir, and the community groups All-In Brass Band, Rochester Mandolin Orchestra, Rochester Medical Orchestra, and School of the Arts Band and Orchestra.
And, perhaps, you: “Rochester Broadcast” will include a pick-up chorus led by Lee Wright, director of choirs at the University of Rochester. The music is designed for singers of all ages and abilities.
“The groups rehearse the music entirely on their own time,” says Bielawa. She visits three rehearsals: one to get acquainted and hear the musicians play; a second to present the music she’s written for them; and a third to hear their progress. In between rehearsals two and three is a “mental rehearsal,” a walk-through of each group at Parcel 5.
Bielawa toured Rochester months earlier, in search of the right venue for our Broadcast. She was pleased to find Parcel 5 “acoustically protective” because of the surrounding buildings downtown: “It’s a smaller space than I’ve used before, but I think it will sound good.”
In her preparation, Bielawa also attempts “to create a snapshot of the local culture.” For example, the words for the chorus parts include references to snow days, canals, and local landmarks. They were created by the participants in answers to questions like “What question would you ask the Genesee River?” and “What’s your earliest memory of your neighborhood?”
The process of creating a “Broadcast” requires Bielawa to plan and compose not only music, but also movement. The musicians begin playing en masse but soon break off into smaller groups to begin “broadly casting,” seemingly wandering around the space and among the listeners. But only seemingly: the groups, their music, and all their moves have been painstakingly planned (and color-coded) by Bielawa.
It’s a huge task, but she says: “My job is to absorb the complexity and work to create an environment that’s magical.” She adds a favorite quotation from Goethe: “The sight of a difficult task accomplished lightly gives us the sense of the impossible.”
Eastman School of Music presents “Rochester Broadcast” by Lisa Bielawa, Saturday, April 18, from 12-12:30 and 2-2:30 p.m. at Parcel 5, 285 E. Main Street. (Rain date Sunday, April 19.) Free admission. The “Rochester Broadcast” pick-up community chorus will rehearse April 12 from 3 to 5:30 p.m. in the Eastman School of Music’s Ray Wright Room.
David Raymond is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer.
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