Violinist Jennifer Koh to Perform Lisa Bielawa’s Violin Concerto 

American composer Lisa Bielawa’s Violin Concerto titled Sanctuary is a three-movement violin concerto and is the fifth concerto work to be commissioned for “The New American Concerto” project, which Koh launched in 2017. 

Also co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, this piece examines the multi-layered and culturally charged meaning of the word “sanctuary” within the American consciousness.  Koh gave the world premiere of Sanctuary in 2020 with the Orlando Philharmonic as co-commissioner. 

“Definitions of the word ‘sanctuary’ center around sacredness, but also around safety,” Bielawa said in the press release. “In all cases, ‘sanctuary’ carries a sense of the inviolable… It appears in the rhetoric of both sides of every important American struggle: Abolition, Suffrage, Secession, Manifest Destiny, Temperance, Marriage Rights, Civil Rights, and the foundational thinking of the Founding Fathers.”

“So many people on our stages and in our audiences are immigrants and refugees,” she continued. “Personal journeys and tribulations also find us urgently seeking new ground. Music provides a sanctuary; through it we create sacredness and refuge for ourselves and for each other.”

The upcoming concert on March 25, 2022, will see Sanctuary's New York premiere by the American Composers Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop.

To be performed at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, the concert program will also highlight other women composers with two world premieres and an additional pair of New York premieres.

Alongside Bielawa’s Sanctuary will be Anna Clyne’s Restless Oceans; Hannah Kendall’s Tuxedo: Vasco ‘De’ Gama; Dai Wei’s Invisible Portals; and Paula Matthusen’s Prophecy In Reverse.

To attend the concert, click here. 

Additionally, the world premiere of Koh’s sixth and latest commission, Procession by Missy Mazzoli, occurred this month at the Kennedy Center, where Koh performed with the National Symphony Orchestra under conductor Gemma New. Koh will perform Mazzoli’s violin concerto again on March 11 and 12 with Louis Langrée and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Koh made her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age 11. A top prize winner at Moscow’s International Tchaikovsky Competition, winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition, and a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, Koh has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from Oberlin College and studied at the Curtis Institute with Jaime Laredo and Felix Galimir.

Bielawa is a Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition, recipient of the 2017 Music Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, 2020 OPERA America Grant for Female Composers, and was 2020-2021 Artist-in-Residence at Kaufman Music Center. 

Her music has been premiered at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, SHIFT Festival, Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, National Cathedral, Rouen Opera, MAXXI Museum in Rome, and Helsinki Music Center, among others.