Aug. 9: West Coast Premiere of Lisa Bielawa’s PULSE Feat. Violin Soloist Tessa Lark Conducted by Music Director Cristian Măcelaru – Presented by The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

Photo of Tessa Lark by Lauren Desberg available here & Lisa Bielawa by Shawn Poynter available here.

West Coast Premiere of Lisa Bielawa’s Violin Concerto PULSE on August 9, 2026

Featuring Violin Soloist Tessa Lark
with The Cabrillo Festival Orchestra

Conducted by Music Director Cristian Măcelaru
Presented by The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music

Sunday, August 9, 2026 at 7pm
Civic Auditorium | 307 Church St. | Santa Cruz, CA
Tickets and More Information

Lisa Bielawa: www.lisabielawa.net | Tessa Lark: www.tessalark.com

Santa Cruz, CA – Composer Lisa Bielawa’s new violin concerto, PULSE, will receive its West Coast premiere performed by The Cabrillo Festival Orchestra conducted by Music Director Cristian Măcelaru on Sunday, August 9, 2026 at 7pm at the Civic Auditorium (307 Church St). The performance is presented as part of The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, for its Grand Finale night, Hope As Our Banner.The featured violin soloist will be Tessa Lark, for whom the piece was written. The program will also include Ascending Creatures (West Coast premiere) byEunike Tanzil, Rainbow Promise (U.S. premiere) by Elena Kats-Chernin, and Wanderlust (West Coast premiere) by Sean Shepherd.

Of her new violin concerto, Bielawa writes, “This concerto was conceived as a way of keeping my finger on the pulse of American life during a period of seismic change and self-examination. Composed over a six-month period starting just before the 2024 presidential election, it is also informed by my immersion during this time in our sentimental history as told through our traditional musics. Tessa Lark’s artistry draws from multiple musical traditions, from Old-time to jazz to the classical avant-garde. I have had the enviable opportunity to hear Tessa play in the Smoky Mountains with Appalachian traditional musicians, at the Blue Note in midtown Manhattan, and on concert stages in concertos and chamber music both new and old.”

Lark, for whom Bielawa wrote this concerto, is one of the most captivating artistic voices of our time, consistently praised by critics and audiences for her astounding range of sounds, technical agility, and musical elegance. Increasingly in demand in the classical realm, in 2020 she was nominated for a GRAMMY® in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category. She is also a highly acclaimed fiddler in the tradition of her native Kentucky, delighting audiences with programming that includes Appalachian and bluegrass music and inspiring composers to write for her.

PULSE was co-commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation, Library of Congress; Boston Modern Orchestra Project; and Louisville Orchestra; with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Santa Fe Pro Musica. Support has also been provided by James Rosenfield, Justus Schlichting, Kari and Jon Ullman, New Music USA's Amplifying Voices Program, and the Loghaven Artist Residency.

In addition to PULSE, Lisa Bielawa’s 2025-2026 season has featured more bold programming, new collaborations, and world premieres of several new works. Knoxville Broadcast, a new installment in Bielawa’s Broadcast series, premiered on October 17 and 18, 2025 in Knoxville, TN in three site-specific performances at Knoxville’s World’s Fair Park presented by Big Ears. On February 26, 2026, Miller Theatre at Columbia University in New York presented a Composer Portrait concert dedicated exclusively to Bielawa’s music, including the world premiere of Balloon Variations, a new work, all performed by Contemporaneous led by David Bloom, with Bielawa singing. She is currently at work on her Guggenheim Fellowship project, a hybrid film and live action opera called La Ballonniste or Balloon: A Hot Air Opera – a heartfelt comedy centering on 18th century French opera singer Élisabeth Tible, the first woman to fly in a hot air balloon. Bielawa is also a Howard Hanson Visiting Professor at the Eastman School of Music for this academic year. Her newest “spatial symphony,” Rochester Broadcast, was performed outdoors at Parcel 5 in Rochester on April 18, 2026.

Lisa Bielawa is a Guggenheim Fellow and Rome Prize winner who takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations. She has received awards and fellowships from the Koussevitzky Foundation, American Academy of Arts & Letters, OPERA America, American Antiquarian Society, Loghaven Artist Residency, and was part of the inaugural Louisville Orchestra’s Creators Corps. She received a Los Angeles Area Emmy nomination for her unprecedented, made-for-TV-and-online opera Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch's Accuser. Bielawa’s music has been premiered at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, SHIFT Festival, National Cathedral, Rouen Opera, MAXXI Museum in Rome, and Helsinki Music Center, among others. Orchestras that have championed her music include The Knights, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, ROCO, and the Orlando Philharmonic. Premieres of her work have been commissioned and presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Rider, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Radio France, Yerevan Concert Hall in Armenia, the Venice Architectural Biennale, American Music Week in Salzburg, the INFANT Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, and more. Bielawa consistently incorporates community-making as part of her artistic vision. She has created music for public spaces in Lower Manhattan, a bridge over the Ohio River in Louisville, KY, the banks of the Tiber River in Rome, on the sites of former airfields in Berlin and San Francisco, and to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. During the pandemic, Bielawa cultivated a virtual community using submitted testimonies and recorded voices from six continents through her work Broadcast from Home, now archived by the Library of Congress.

For Calendar Editors:

Description: Composer Lisa Bielawa’s new violin concerto, PULSE, will have its West Coast premiere as part of The Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music, performed by The Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, conducted by Music Director Cristian Măcelaru with violin soloist Tessa Lark. The program will also include Ascending Creatures (West Coast premiere)Eunike Tanzil, Rainbow Promise (U.S. premiere) by Elena Kats-Chernin, and Wanderlust (West Coast premiere) by Sean Shepherd.

Concert details:

What: PULSE - a new violin concerto by Lisa Bielawa - West Coast Premiere
Presented by The Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music
Who: The Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, conducted by Music Director Cristian Măcelaru with Violin Soloist Tessa Lark
When: Sunday, August 9, 2026 at 7pm
Where: Civic Auditorium, 307 Church St, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Tickets More information: cabrillomusic.org/events-calendar/hope-as-our-banner-grand-finale-2026-cabrillo-festival