Rebecca Lawrence + Isaac Roth Blumfield – live at Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik

Rebecca Lawrence – double bass
Isaac Roth Blumfield – modular synthesizer, laptop

live at Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, September 20, 2025

recorded by Christina Bauer
mixed by Isaac Roth Blumfield

Based in Berlin, Germany, Rebecca Lawrence (b. 1995) is known for her collaborative work as a contemporary and early music double bassist in Europe and the USA. Most at home in creative small ensemble environments, Rebecca is passionate about working with living composers and providing a solid ensemble foundation while imagining new possibilities for the double bass and its predecessors in various contexts. Rebecca has performed with Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Modern, ensemblekollektiv Berlin, Tempus Konnex, Ensemble Experimental, the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, and appeared at many of Europe’s most important music festivals including ManiFeste, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, and Time of Music. Additionally, Rebecca studies historical double bass and viola da gamba at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt. She combines her interest in contemporary and baroque music with individual projects involving improvisation on early instruments.

As a soloist, Rebecca has had the opportunity to bring new works of various composers to their premieres. In the prizewinner’s concert of the Deutcher Musikwettbewerb 2023, Rebecca performed Patrick Schäfer’s “Umarmungen”, winner of the Deutschlandfunk Prize, as well as premiering the other finalist compositions for solo double bass in the competition’s final round. In 2023, she presented solo recitals at the Contemporary Insights Concert Salon (Leipzig), Naxoshallenkonzerten (Frankfurt) and Wayward Music Series (Seattle).

Rebecca was raised in Seattle, Washington, and holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles, California, where she studied double bass with David Allen Moore and Paul Ellison. In Los Angeles, Rebecca played with orchestras, small ensembles and in film recording studios, and attended festivals where she played with members of the International Contemporary Ensemble and the Bang on a Can collective. In 2018, she was granted a residency at the Fondation des États-Unis in Paris, France, to study with bassist and pedagogue François Rabbath. In the 2021/2022 season Rebecca was the double bassist of the International Ensemble Modern Akademie.

As an activist and educator, Rebecca has worked with various initiatives promoting accessibility and equality in the arts. She collaborates frequently with LA’s Street Symphony, led by activist Vijay Gupta. Additionally, she is a founding member of the commissioning collective Bass Players for Black Composers, and the Project for All Gender Equality, working with the International Society of Bassists to lead discussions about gender discrimination among double bassists.

https://www.rebeccalawrencebass.com/

Isaac Roth Blumfield is a composer from Saint Paul, Minnesota, currently based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He writes experimental music for acoustic and electronic instruments, exploring resonance, materiality, and affect through expanded approaches towards instruments, objects, and electronics. His music looks for uncanny places and expressions that embrace the beauty, pain, and strangeness of life.

His music has been influenced through work with performers such as Schallfeld Ensemble, Ensemble Proton Bern, SWR Symphonieorchester, Yarn/Wire, Ensemble Multilatérale, line upon line percussion trio, Ensemble Modern, and Quartetto Maurice at programs such as the Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, Darmstädter Fereinkurse, Klangspuren Schwaz, Impuls, the Banff Centre for Creativity, New Music on the Point, and Ticino Musica Festival. His music has been broadcast on Swiss, Austrian, and Southwest German public radio and has received scholarships and residencies from the Hirschmann Stiftung, Fondation Nicati- De Luz, and the SWR Experimentalstudio. Recent awards include a Protonwerk commission from Ensemble Proton Bern, the 2025 Adelbert W. Sprague Prize (Harvard University), and honorable mentions for the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis (Darmstadt) and Ensemble Écoute competition (Paris).

In addition to instrumental music, he is active as a performer of improvised electronic music, performing in duos with Rebecca Lawrence, Alec Toku Whiting, and as a solo artist. He studied composition and electronics in Boston, Basel, and Vienna with Stratis Minakakis, Timothy McCormack, Caspar Johannes Walter, Svetlana Maraš, and Clara Iannotta. He is currently pursuing a PhD at Harvard University, studying with Chaya Czernowin and Hans Tutschku.

https://www.isaacrothblumfield.com/