Lembit Beecher

Estonian-American composer, pianist 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. A childhood filled with family stories of displacement and his mother’s Estonian homeland led to an interest in documentary, and beginning with his documentary oratorio “And Then I Remember,” Lembit has created numerous song cycles, cantatas, and chamber works incorporating interviews, personal testimonies, and historical writings, both as sung text and recorded audio. Lembit has served three-year terms as the Music Alive composer-in-residence of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the inaugural composer-in-residence of Opera Philadelphia, working with devised theater actors, poets, ethnographers and engineers, and incorporating Baroque instruments, electronically-controlled sound sculptures, homemade speaker systems, and stop-motion animation into his projects. His three operas with noted Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch have drawn particular acclaim. Starring Frederica von Stade and Marietta Simpson and directed by Joanna Settle, his opera “Sky on Swings,” exploring the relationship of two women diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, was praised as “a shattering musical and theatrical evocation of what it feels like to have Alzheimer’s disease” (Wall Street Journal). Recently Lembit has been developing a trilogy of projects with his wife, composer and cellist Karen Ouzounian, a cello concerto “Tell Me Again” premiered by Karen and the Orlando Philharmonic, a duo recital program, “Mayrig,” weaving interviews with Karen’s mother and grandmother with music for solo cello, piano and electronics, and “Dear Mountains” a co-composed piece for solo cello, oud, percussion and choir premiered by Cantori New York in November 2024. Other recent premieres include “A Year to the Day,” a song cycle with Mark Campbell featuring tenor Nicholas Phan and violinist Augustin Hadelich, quartets for the Juilliard, Aizuri and Lydian String Quartets, and works for saxophonist Timothy McAllister, cellist Seth Parker Woods, mezzo Sasha Cooke, and bassoonist Martin Kuuskmann. Lembit has been in residence at the Copland House, Bogliasco Foundation, and MacDowell, taught at Denison University and the Hartt School, and will be visiting faculty at SUNY Binghamton in the Spring of 2025.