Lisa Bielawa (Liz Linder)

Composer-vocalist Lisa Bielawa is a 2009 Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition. She is currently spending a year composing at the American Academy in Rome, situated on the Janiculum, Rome's highest hill. The New York Times describes her music as, "ruminative, pointillistic and harmonically slightly tart."

Bielawa joins 14 other artists as well as 15 scholars in the Academy’s multi-disciplinary, collegial environment. While there, she will compose an extended, modular work inspired by Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse for the Brooklyn Rider string quartet and herself as vocalist.

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

In addition, she tours and records with John Zorn and has premiered and recorded works by numerous composer colleagues.