News
Sky on Swings nominated for Best World Premiere in the 2019 International Opera Awards.
Rave reviews for Sky on Swings in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Wall Street Journal, Broadway World, Parterre, Schmopera, New York Times, and Opera News.
Sophia’s Wide Awake Dreams video (Four/Ten Media) released by the Aizuri Quartet
“Sophia’s Wide Awake Dreams” will be featured on the Aizuri Quartet’s debut album Blueprinting, to be released on September 28, 2018 on New Amsterdam Records.
“One Hundred Years Grow Shorter Over Time,” a new commission from the Juilliard Quartet, will be premiered at South Mountain Concerts on September 23, 2018, and featured in the quartet’s programming across the season.
“Sky on Swings,” featuring Frederica von Stade and Marietta Simpson, will be premiered during Opera Philadelphia’s 018 Festival in September 2018.
The Conference of the Birds and Sophia’s Forest featured on best of 2017 lists in the Boston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer.
Sophia’s Forest, “a refugee opera where the trees are wired,” previewed by David Patrick Stearns in the Philadelphia Inquirer
The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra will feature The Conference of the Birds and several of Lembit’s chamber works on their 2017-18 season.
Lembit named composer-in-residence of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, joining a cohort of five composer and orchestra pairs receiving three-year Music Alive residency grants from New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras.
Lembit selected as a member of the American Composers Forum delegation to the Havana Contemporary Music Festival, joining the ensemble Third Sound and three other composers in Cuba in November.
A Far Cry’s 10th Anniversary Season announced, featuring the premiere of Lembit’s The Conference of the Birds. Full preview in the Boston Globe.
Chopin’s Ocean chosen for the American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings in June.
Lembit chosen as the Grand Prize Winner of the S&R Foundation Washington Award.
Lembit will be in residence at the Penn Museum of Archeology and Anthropology this spring, writing a piece for solo cello and percussion quartet inspired by the museum’s collection and beautiful interior spaces. The residency is a collaboration between the museum and the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Composers Forum.
Opera Philadelphia announces its O17 Festival, featuring Lembit’s I Have No Stories To Tell You, coming to the Great Stair Hall of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in September 2017.
Lembit receives a project grant from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage to develop and produce “To Hide in a Tree of Sound,” a chamber opera featuring a large, modular, music generating sculpture.
Lembit is the winner of the Col Legno Duo Composition Competition and will write a new bassoon and marimba work for the Col Legno Duo.
Lembit is awarded a Macdowell Colony Fellowship for a residency during the summer of 2015.
Gregory Isaacs calls Three Immigrant Songs “marvelous” in a Theater Jones review of Laura-Mercado Wright’s Voces Intimae recital.
Interviews/Previews
Profile of Lembit and preview of One Hundred Years Grows Shorter Over Time and Sky on Swings in the Times Union (September, 2018).
New Music Box profiles Lembit:
The Conference of the Birds and Sophia’s Forest featured on best of 2017 lists in the Boston Globe (Zoe Madonna) and Philadelphia Inquirer (David Patrick Stearns).
Charles Downey lists the Diderot Quartet premiere of Small Infinities as one of his “most promising new music” events of 2016 in the Washington Classical Review. (December 20, 2016)
Joshua Kosman previews the Del Sol Quartet’s performance of the “hauntingly lovely” These Memories May Be True in the San Francisco Chronicle. (October 17, 2016)
Opera Philadelphia’s new festival format and its inaugural O17 Festival, featuring I Have No Stories To Tell You, is previewed in the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, News Works, Opera News, Broadway World and Phindie (October 20, 1015)
I Have No Stories To Tell You featured in Matthew Sigman’s article for American Theater Magazine, “Adventures in Indie Music Land” (July 2014)
Open rehearsal review/preview article in the Times Argus for Scrag Mountain Music’s premiere of Looking at Spring: Meditations on Aging (June 1, 2014)
Amy Lilly describes the collaborative genesis of Looking at Spring: Meditations on Aging in Seven Days (April 2, 2014)
David Patrick Stearns writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer about Opera Philadelphia’s Double Exposure, featuring scenes by Lembit and Missy Mazzoli (March 28, 2014)
Michael Cooper previews I Have No Stories To Tell You in the New York Times (February 25, 2014)
George Grella previews I Have No Stories To Tell You in an article about Gotham Chamber Opera in the New York Classical Review (February 24, 2014)
Gotham Chamber Opera interviews Lembit about I Have No Stories To Tell You (February 4, 2014)
The Sound of Opera Today: Lembit interviewed along with Missy Mazzoli and Ana Sokolovic by Marty Moss-Coane on WHYY’s RadioTimes.
Heidi Waleson previews I Have No Stories To Tell You in a Classical Voice North America article about the Met Museum’s ambitious series of site-specific concerts (September 18, 2013)
International Composer interviews Lembit Beecher, focusing on Music for Bayside and the Quintet of the America’s Memory Project. (Summer 2013)
The Prufrock’s Dilemma blog profiles Lembit (October 22, 2012)
Anne Midgette introduces Lembit’s Piano Trio in a Washington Post blog post. (April 5, 2012)
Writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Peter Dobrin announces Lembit Beecher as Opera Philadelphia’s first composer in residence. (September 13, 2011)