Formation | 1987 |
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Founders | |
Founded at | New York City, New York, United States |
Focus | Presenting new concert music |
Official language | English |
Website | bangonacan |
Bang on a Can is a multi-faceted contemporary classical music organization based in New York City. It was founded in 1987 by three American composers who remain its artistic directors: Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon. Called "the country's most important vehicle for contemporary music" by the San Francisco Chronicle , [1] the organization focuses on the presentation of new concert music, and has presented hundreds of musical events worldwide. [2]
Bang on a Can is perhaps best known for its Marathon Concerts, [3] during which an eclectic mix of pieces are performed in succession over the course of many hours while audience members, who are encouraged to maintain a "jeans-and-tee-shirt informality," are welcome to come and go as they please. For the twentieth anniversary of their Marathon Concerts, Bang on a Can presented twenty-six hours of uninterrupted music at the World Financial Center Winter Garden Atrium in New York City.
Among Bang on a Can's early events were performances by John Cage, premieres of Glenn Branca’s epic symphonies for massed electric guitars, and fully staged operas by Harry Partch, featuring the composer's original instruments.
Bang on a Can Summer Festival | |
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Genre | Experimental music, contemporary classical music |
Location(s) | Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) |
Years active | 2002-present |
Founded by | Summer Institute of Music |
In 2002, Bang on a Can began the yearly Summer Institute of Music, [4] a program at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) for young composers and performers. This program is sometimes referred to by the nickname "Banglewood" in reference to the nearby but far more traditional Tanglewood Music Festival.
The three artistic directors occasionally collaborate by jointly composing large staged works, often without revealing which sections each contributed. Examples include:
Bang on a Can has commissioned and premiered pieces by composers including Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Michael Nyman, John Adams, Somei Satoh, Iva Bittová, Roberto Carnevale, Ornette Coleman, Donnacha Dennehy and Bun-Ching Lam. In 1998 the organization began the People's Commissioning Fund, [8] which supports the creation of new musical compositions by pooling contributions from numerous member-commissioners whose donations range from $5 to $5,000.
The Bang on a Can All-Stars is an amplified sextet formed by its parent organization in 1992. The All-Stars tour internationally and have received awards and public recognition for their work in the contemporary classical music field. [1] [12]
The instrumentation of the Bang on a Can All-Stars is clarinet, cello, electric guitar, piano/keyboard, percussion, double bass. Current members include Robert Black, Vicky Chow, David Cossin, Arlen Husklo, Mark Stewart and Ken Thomson.
Asphalt Orchestra is Bang on a Can's 12-piece marching band. The ensemble's premiere performance was in 2009 at the Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival, and featured new commissioned works by Tyondai Braxton (of experimental rock group Battles), Goran Bregovic, and Stew and Heidi Rodewald, alongside arrangements of songs by Björk, Meshuggah, Mingus, Nancarrow, and Zappa. [13]
The New York Times has called Asphalt Orchestra's members "12 top-notch brass and percussion players", and praised their performance as "coolly brilliant and infectious." [14]
An independent project founded in 2009 and produced by Bang on a Can, Found Sound Nation (FSN) engages at-risk youth and underrepresented communities producing original audio and video projects across the globe in economically disparate settings. The work of FSN emphasizes a mobile, accessible, collaborative way of recording and producing professional quality music, a technique developed by combining the art music traditions of Bang on a Can with traditions of musique concrète, hip hop, and contemporary composition. [15] [16]
FSN has led site-specific projects in New York City, India, Zimbabwe, Mexico, Italy, Switzerland and Haiti.
In 2012, the project received an award from the U.S. Department of State to produce OneBeat, [17] an international music exchange which will bring together innovative musicians from around the world to compose, produce and perform original music. [18]
Found Sound Nation was co-founded by Christopher Marianetti and Jeremy Thal. The project is directed by Marianetti, Thal and Elena Moon Park. [19]
In the past, Bang on a Can released recordings on Composers Recordings Inc. (CRI), Sony Classical, Point Music (Universal), and Nonesuch, but now the majority of its recordings are found on its own record label, Cantaloupe Music. In addition to releasing works by Gordon, Wolfe, and Lang, the label releases CDs of music by composers and musical groups affiliated with the organization, including Evan Ziporyn, Phil Kline, Alarm Will Sound, Icebreaker, Ethel, Gutbucket, R. Luke DuBois, and Don Byron among many, many others.
Below is a partial discography of released works performed by Bang on a Can: [20]
Samuel Conlon Nancarrow was an American-Mexican composer who lived and worked in Mexico for most of his life. Nancarrow is best remembered for his Studies for Player Piano, being one of the first composers to use auto-playing musical instruments, realizing their potential to play far beyond human performance ability. He lived most of his life in relative isolation and did not become widely known until the 1980s.
Evan Ziporyn is an American composer of post-minimalist music with a cross-cultural orientation, drawing equally from classical music, avant-garde, various world music traditions, and jazz. Ziporyn has composed for a wide range of ensembles, including symphony orchestras, wind ensembles, many types of chamber groups, and solo works, sometimes involving electronics. Balinese gamelan, for which he has composed numerous works, has compositions. He is known for his solo performances on clarinet and bass clarinet; additionally, Ziporyn plays gender wayang and other Balinese instruments, saxophones, piano & keyboards, EWI, and Shona mbira.
Julia Wolfe is an American composer and professor of music at New York University. According to The Wall Street Journal, Wolfe's music has "long inhabited a terrain of its own, a place where classical forms are recharged by the repetitive patterns of minimalism and the driving energy of rock". Her work Anthracite Fields, an oratorio for chorus and instruments, was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music. She has also received the Herb Alpert Award (2015) and was named a MacArthur Fellow (2016).
David Lang is an American composer living in New York City. Co-founder of the musical collective Bang on a Can, he was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion, which went on to win a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance by Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices. Lang was nominated for an Academy Award for "Simple Song #3" from the film Youth.
Michael Gordon is an American composer and co-founder of the "Bang on a Can" music collective and festival. He grew up in Nicaragua.
Cantaloupe Music is a Brooklyn-based record label that produces and releases contemporary classical music and other forms of avant-garde music. The label was founded in 2001 by Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Kenny Savelson. Gordon, Lang, and Wolfe are composers who founded the Bang on a Can music festival in New York City, while Savelson has worked as the festival's music director. Cantaloupe Music is distributed by Naxos in North America and worldwide by Naxos Global Logistics.
Frank Scheffer is a Dutch cinematographer and producer of documentary film, mostly known for his work Conducting Mahler (1996) on the 1995 Mahler Festival in Amsterdam with Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Muti and Simon Rattle.
The Festival Dancing in Your Head is a festival dedicated to commissioning, producing, and presenting new music and music films from around the world. The festival is produced by Headwaters Music, a non-profit music organization, led by composer Anthony Gatto. The 2005 festival at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis celebrated the 75th birthday of Ornette Coleman with nearly 100 international musicians, including an evening with The Ornette Coleman Quartet. Past festival performers include the Kronos Quartet, Bang on a Can All-stars, So Percussion, Alarm Will Sound, Iva Bittová, Ethel, Flux Quartet, The Bad Plus, Happy Apple, Low, Gao Hong, Dean Granros and Antigravity, Tibetan Monks of the Gyuto Wheel of Dharma Monastery, Dosh, Patrick Crossland, Douglas Ewart, Anthony Cox. Composers performed include Steve Reich, David Lang, Michael Gordon, John Adams, Arvo Pärt, György Ligeti, Martin Bresnick, Brian Ferneyhough, Annie Gosfield, John King, Phil Kline, Evan Ziporyn, Béla Bartók.
Joel Fan is an American pianist and Steinway Artist "who has won praise for his technical expertise, lyrical playing, and outstanding interpretation". The New York Times has described Joel Fan as an "impressive pianist" with a "probing intellect and vivid imagination." "Fan has a flourishing international career as a performing and recording artist, notable for his fluency in the standard repertoire and contemporary works." Consistently acclaimed for his recitals and appearances with orchestras, Mr. Fan scored two consecutive Billboard Top 10 Debuts with his solo CDs World Keys and West of the Sun, while Dances for Piano and Orchestra earned a Grammy nomination.
Merkin Hall is a 449-seat concert hall in Manhattan, New York City. The hall, named in honor of Hermann and Ursula Merkin, is part of the Kaufman Music Center, a complex that includes the Lucy Moses School, a community arts school, and the Special Music School, a New York City public school for musically gifted children. Merkin Hall hosts 70,000 concertgoers a year.
The Bang on a Can All-Stars is an amplified ensemble that was formed in 1992 by parent organization Bang on a Can.
Christopher Adler is a musician, composer and music professor at University of San Diego. A virtuoso player of the khaen, a reed instrument native to Laos and Thailand, he has been composing works for the khaen both as a solo instrument and in combination with western instruments since 1996. His works for solo piano include the three-part Bear Woman Dances, commissioned to accompany a dance depicting a Korean creation myth and largely based the Korean musical system nongak. Four of his compositions have been broadcast internationally on WGBH's Art of the States series. His composition for sheng, viola and percussion, Music for a Royal Palace, was commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project. An homage to Thailand's Bang Pa-In Palace, the work incorporates traditional Thai melody and embellishments. It was performed at Zankel Hall in 2006 and recorded at the Tanglewood Music Center that same year. His Serpent of Five Tongues for sheng and guanzi premiered at the 2011 MATA Festival.
Bryce David Dessner is an American composer and guitarist based in Paris, as well as a member of the rock band the National. Dessner's twin brother Aaron is also a member of the group. Together they write the music, in collaboration with lead singer / lyricist Matt Berninger.
MusicNOW is a contemporary music and arts festival founded in 2006 in Cincinnati, Ohio, by Chamber Music Cincinnati. President Audrey Luna and guitarist and composer Bryce Dessner curated this inaugural season. It was originally held at the Contemporary Arts Center and later moved to Memorial Hall, a small historic theater located in the city's historic Over-the-Rhine district. Festival performers have included contemporary music advocates Bang on a Can All-Stars and Kronos Quartet as well as indie rock groups such as Grizzly Bear, Dirty Projectors and The National. Two annual elements of the festival have been the inclusion of visual art, including installations by Karl Jensen, and new music commissions.
Judd Greenstein is an American composer of contemporary classical music, and an avid promoter of new music in New York City. He is also a co-director of New Amsterdam Records.
Anna Sigríður Þorvaldsdóttir is an Icelandic composer. She has been called "one of Iceland's most celebrated composers", and was the 2012 winner of the Nordic Council Music Prize. Her music is frequently performed in Europe and in the United States, and is often influenced by landscapes and nature.
Yotam Haber is a composer based in Kansas City. He is a 2005 Guggenheim fellow, a 2007 Rome Prize winner in Music Composition., and was named a 2023-2024 Fulbright Distinguished Senior Scholar, teaching and researching at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance.
The Calder Quartet (CQ) is a string quartet based in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1998 at the University of Southern California, the group takes its name from American sculptor Alexander Calder. The ensemble is currently composed of its founding members, including violinists Benjamin Jacobson and Tereza Stanislav, violist Jonathan Moerschel, and cellist Eric Byers. Los Angeles Times music critic, Mark Swed called the CQ "one of America's great string quartets." In 2014, the CQ was awarded one of Lincoln Center's prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grants for "professional assistance and recognition to talented instrumentalists who the Recommendation Board and Executive Committee believe have great potential."
Christine Southworth is an American composer of postminimal music and works with combinations of Western ensembles, electronics, and world music ensembles including Balinese gamelan and bagpipes. She performs Balinese gamelan and gender wayang with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Gamelan Galak Tika, as well as Galician Gaita and Great Highland Bagpipes. She co-founded Ensemble Robot, a cooperative of engineers, artists and musicians working together to invent robotic musical instruments. She was also the general manager of Gamelan Galak Tika from 2004 through 2013. Her own music incorporates her work with Balinese gamelan and with technology and electronics, as well as reaching beyond these influences with an expanded palette of contemporary classical, jazz and rock, and world music from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.
Lawrence Irving Wilde, is a composer, educator, violinist, and nyckelharpa player. Wilde has been commissioned by and collaborated with ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, JACK Quartet, ÆON Music Ensemble, Sō Percussion, Tesla Quartet, Aspen Music Festival Orchestra, Moscow String Quartet, Ensemble Mise-En, Juilliard Orchestra, and others.
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