Lembit Beecher

Estonian-American composer and animator Lembit Beecher writes “hauntingly lovely and deeply personal” music (San Francisco Chronicle) that stems from a fascination with the ways memories, histories, and stories permeate our contemporary lives. Recent premieres include Tell Me Again for cellist Karen Ouzounian and the Orlando Philharmonic, Sky on Swings, an opera tracing the relationship of two women diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and string quartets for the Juilliard, Aizuri, and Lydian quartets.

Lembit Beecher will develop a series of pieces for cello and electronics for cellist Karen Ouzounian. Exploring multi-generational legacies of migration, the pieces will combine recorded interviews and a custom-built, surround-sound speaker array in which small speaker cones will be embedded into family heirlooms from Lembit and Karen’s families and placed throughout the audience.