Tours
Past Shows (view list of upcoming shows)
'where you go' performed by LA Master Chorale (west coast premiere)
Life, love, and loss are the momentous themes addressed by Brahms in his lush, romantic, and heartfelt Requiem. The composer himself said an equally relevant title for this work would be the “Human Requiem,” and this remarkable music of consolation and contemplation puts the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s strengths on full display, ready to sweep you away. The program opens with two equally touching and reflective works imbued with friendship and love by Pulitzer Prize-winning composers Caroline Shaw and David Lang.
'a house', 'statement to the court', 'just (after song of songs)' performed by The Crossing
Rooted in the need to speak about our political environment, we usher in summer and our Month of Moderns festival with a concert of thought-provoking, timely music for strings, percussion, piano and choir.
'where you go' performed by LA Master Chorale (west coast premiere)
Life, love, and loss are the momentous themes addressed by Brahms in his lush, romantic, and heartfelt Requiem. The composer himself said an equally relevant title for this work would be the “Human Requiem,” and this remarkable music of consolation and contemplation puts the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s strengths on full display, ready to sweep you away. The program opens with two equally touching and reflective works imbued with friendship and love by Pulitzer Prize-winning composers Caroline Shaw and David Lang.
MUTED performed by Monica Germino (world premiere)
Inspired by Germino’s courage and determination, four of the world’s leading composers - Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe and David Lang (co-founders of Bang on a Can) - have embarked on a collaborative composition, joining forces to create “the quietest violin piece ever written.” Shortly after making this commitment to Germino, they invited Louis Andriessen to join in the experiment, fulfilling a long-held wish to collaborate. Gordon is fascinated by a quieter world, as are Wolfe and Lang. Their collective composition, MUTED, features what Germino calls ‘whisperviolin’ (fluisterviool), and will skirt the limits of audibility for solo violin and voice. MUTED also includes a part for Monica’s singing voice (in settings of texts from the 1930’s New York Post cult column Archy and Mehitabel.)
'the little match girl passion' performed by Soundstreams
“What drew me to The Little Match Girl,” explained Lang, “is that the strength of the story lies not in its plot but in the fact that all its parts – the horror and the beauty – are constantly suffused with their opposites. The girl’s bitter present is locked together with the sweetness of her memories, her poverty is always suffused with her hopefulness. There is a kind of naive equilibrium between suffering and hope.”
'light moving' performed by Da Capo Chamber Players
Tapping into the many currents in the New York new-music scene, Da Capo offers a smorgasbord of minimalism, maximalism, jazz-influenced chamber music, timbrel explorations, eminent established composers and budding young hotshots -- a daunting task but well-suited to Da Capo’s diversity!
'ark luggage', 'simple song #3', 'where the bee sucks' performed by Soundstreams Canada
David Lang was the one-time enfant terrible of the new music community, beginning his career as a founding member of the ground-breaking Bang on a Can, (“the country’s most important vehicle for contemporary music,” San Francisco Chronicle) and is still its artistic director. Lang is also one of the mentors for the Soundstreams’ 2018 Emerging Composer Workshop. He joins us, days ahead of the opening of his The Little Match Girl Passion at Crow’s Theatre, for a late afternoon discussion, Q&A and musical interlude.
'the little match girl passion' performed by the Macadam Ensemble
With "The Little Match Girl", Macadam Ensemble makes an original show based on Hans-Christian Andersen's famous tale. From the descriptive elements of the tale and its symbolism, the music of David Lang, Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, Michael Gordon and Arvo Pärt participate in the construction of a magnificent choral painting, supported by the video creation of Nathalie Guimbretière. Around the composer David Lang's masterpiece "The Little Match Girl Passion", the works of this concert contribute to the construction of an incredible soundscape, from the streets of Copenhagen to the most intimate corners of the psychology of the little girl matches. The 12 solo voices of Macadam Ensemble, directed by Étienne Ferchaud, and the images of Nathalie Guimbretière,
Bang on a Can Marathon 2018
Bang on a Can returns to downtown Manhattan with its annual incomparable super-mix of boundary-busting music from around the corner and around the world! The 2018 Bang on a Can Marathon will feature 10 hours of rare performances by some of the most innovative musicians of our time side-by-side with some of today’s most pioneering young artists.
Its FREE!!!
Music By:
Jeffrey Brooks, Tom Chiu, Fjola Evans, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Nicole Lizee, Dylan Mattingly, Jessie Montgomery, Brendon Randall-Myers, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Gabriella Smith, Galina Ustvolskaya, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Alex Weiser, Julia Wolfe
Performances by:
Terry Riley, Bang on a Can All-Stars with special guests Eric Berryman, Todd Reynolds, and Gyan Riley, Contemporaneous, David Friend, Ethel, FLUX Quartet, Maya Beiser and Kate Valk, Mazz Swift and Therese Workman, NYU Contemporary Ensemble/Jonathan Haas, Robert Osborne, So Percussion, Stephin Merritt (Magnetic Fields) and Sam Davol, Val Jeanty and Ravish Momin, Vicky Chow, Xenia Rubinos, and MORE!
Maya Beiser performs Julia Wolfe's Spinning
Composer Julia Wolfe and cellist Maya Beiser honor the essential labor of spinning thread. “Spinning” celebrates the work once performed by hand. Music has long been a vital part of the craft — both as a propelling force and as a distraction. To pay homage to the human dignity of this work, Wolfe and Beiser create a sonic universe for three cellos and voice performed by Beiser with Melody Giron and Lavena Johanson featuring multimedia projections imagined by the innovative artist Laurie Olinder. In Beiser’s words, “I found in Julia’s music a rare quality — combining folk, rock and classical elements in a distinct and relentless energy. This collaboration is one that has been in our minds for many years, and we are thrilled to now embark on this journey together.”
Maya Beiser Performs Julia Wolfe's Spinning
Spinning performed by Maya Beiser
with cellists Melody Giron and Lavena Johanson
Laurie Olinder, projection art and design
Netta Yerushalmy, choreographer
Aaron Copp, lighting
Composer Julia Wolfe and cellist Maya Beiser honor the essential labor of spinning thread. “Spinning” celebrates the work once performed by hand. Music has long been a vital part of the craft — both as a propelling force and as a distraction. To pay homage to the human dignity of this work, Wolfe and Beiser create a sonic universe for three cellos and voice performed by Beiser with Melody Giron and Lavena Johanson featuring multimedia projections imagined by the innovative artist Laurie Olinder. In Beiser’s words, “I found in Julia’s music a rare quality — combining folk, rock and classical elements in a distinct and relentless energy. This collaboration is one that has been in our minds for many years, and we are thrilled to now embark on this journey together.”
Icebreaker: Velocity
In his 1983 classic, De snelheid, Louis Andriessen demonstrated the acoustic phenomenon of an ever-accelerating woodblock being subsumed into the stubbornly-held slower tempo of another instrumental group. Two works by Bang-on-a-Can composers David Lang and Michael Gordon provide a prelude, Gordon’s witty, electric-guitar-driven Yo Shakespeare and David Lang’s ‘wall of sound’ Slow Movement, once described as ‘perched somewhere between Jimi Hendrix and Iannis Xenakis’. Anna Meredith’s propulsive ‘Nautilus’ from her recent album Varmints and Whitty’s nature is a language… offer contemporary notes.
Anna Meredith – Nautilus
Michael Gordon – Yo Shakespeare
Paul Whitty – nature is a language – can’t you read?
David Lang – Slow Movement
Louis Andriessen – De snelheid (‘Velocity’)
Kronos Quartet: Michael Gordon’s Clouded Yellow Album Release
Over the course of a decade, Bang on a Can founding composer Michael Gordon has collaborated with the world-renowned Kronos Quartet on a series of provocative works that have sought to stretch, bend and otherwise reshape the boundaries of modern classical music. Clouded Yellow assembles these works for the first time, perfectly encapsulating the breadth and complexity of this long-standing creative partnership. On May 5, Kronos and Gordon celebrate the album’s release with an intimate performance at Joe’s Pub.
Clouded Yellow features four pieces written for Kronos by Gordon: the title track (composed in 2010), Exalted (2010), The Sad Park (2006) and Potassium (2000). The title of the first refers to the clouded yellow butterfly, which is known in England for its mass migrations; the word “clouded” is also meant to describe the blurred harmonies and melodies of the piece.
Clouded Yellow will be released on May 4 on Cantaloupe Music.
Ensemble Offspring performs Lang's cheating, lying, stealing
Program:
Hikaru Sawai – Rock Garden
Hikaru Sawai – Okoto
Alice Chance – The Audience Choir (World Premiere)
Liz Jigalin – Sound Parcels (World Premiere)
Michael Smetanin – Ladder of Escape
Christopher Fox – Reeling
Guillime Connessons – Scenes de la vie contemporaine
Erik Griswold – Action Music 2 (Australian Premiere)
Ciaran Frame – Listeners as Spectators
David Lang – Cheating, Lying, Stealing
FREE EVENT
Ensemble Signal performs David Lang's darker
Scored for 12 strings, darker is a slow exploration of sound. At times, it gives the ensemble the feel of a giant pipe organ or, with the aid of visual artist Suzanne Bocanegra’s live projections, the feel of splattering rain on an immoveable wall. As much a hypnotic sonic and visual object as it is a piece of music, darker weaves its intricate solo lines into a delicate and subtly emotional fabric.
Lang notes that “darker is in many ways more like an object than a piece of music. It is a long, slow passing from something mostly even and pleasant to something a little less pleasant. My piece, like life, expends a lot of effort to go a very short distance, from beautiful to a little less beautiful, from a little light to something a little darker.”
Bang on a Can and the Jewish Museum present the Tomeka Reid Quartet
Performing alongside the exhibition Scenes from the Collection, cellist, composer, and improviser Tomeka Reid brings in her own remarkable collection of leading Chicago and New York based musicians to perform a set of music combining her love for groove along with freer concepts.
The Tomeka Reid Quartet is: Tomeka Reid, cello; Jason Roebke, bass; Mary Halvorson, guitar; Tomas Fujiwara, drums
Cincinnati Ballet dances to music by David Lang performed by Eighth Blackbird
Eighth Blackbird joins the Cincinnati Ballet for five performances as part of the Ballet’s “Bold Moves” series.
Program:
David Lang: learn to fly (2008)
Robert Honstein: Conduit, II. Pulse (2014)
Nico Muhly: Doublespeak (2012)
Missy Mazzoli: Still Life with Avalanche
Jacob Cooper: Cast (2015)
Intermission/set change, (curtain down)
Bryce Dessner: Murder Ballades (2013, rev. 2015)
I. Omie Wise
II. Young Emily
III. Dark Holler
IV. Wave the Sea
V. Brushy Fork
VI. Pretty Polly
VII. Tears for Sister Polly
Dublin Guitar Quartet performs Michael Gordon's Amplified
Ensemble Klang & Dublin Guitar Quartet
Michael Gordon, Pete Harden, Louis Andriessen
m.mv guitarists from Academy of Music and Performing Arts (AMPA), Tilburg
Dublin Guitar Quartet
Brian Bolger guitar
Patrick Brunnock guitar
Tomas O'Durcain guitar
Chien Buggle guitar
16.00-17.00: Part I: Dublin Guitar Quartet
Michael Gordon Amplified (2015)
18.00-19.30: Red Sofa Table music: dinner in Stadsbrasserie with the musicians (€ 32.50)
8.00 pm: Part II: Ensemble Klang & guitarists AMPA
Pete Harden Forgiveness
Louis Andriessen Hoketus
Spatial pieces for 15 guitarists (world premieres) of Maya Verlaak, Marina Poleukhina and Barbara Ellison
The Jacksonville Symphony Performs Become Ocean
“Life on this earth first emerged from the sea. As the polar ice melts and sea levels rise, we humans find ourselves facing the prospect that once again we may quite literally become ocean.” John Luther Adams’ words convey his inspiration in composing this luscious score, performed by the Symphony to commemorate Earth Day 2018.
Dr. Quinton White, Professor of Biology and Marine Science at Jacksonville University, will give a presentation before the concert on the history of human impact on the Florida environment and especially on the St. Johns River.
John Luther Adams' Become Ocean at the AMNH
The Chelsea Symphony presents the Pulitzer and Grammy Award-winning piece Become Ocean by American composer John Luther Adams in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life at the American Museum of Natural History.
In conjunction with this special performance, TCS will perform Alan Hovhaness’ And God Created Great Whales and the world premiere of TCS composer Michael Boyman’s world premiere piece, The Howling Wilderness.
FREE WITH MUSEUM ADMISSION
John Luther Adams – The Light Within
Program:
John Luther Adams – The Light Within
Torke – Adjustable Wrench
Schubert – String Quintet
Sharon Robinson, cello
Photon Vocal Ensemble Peforms David Lang's oh graveyard
Photon Vocal Ensemble performs "Songs from the New World," a varied a cappella program with music from the USA. In addition to compositions by Copland and Barber, listeners can look forward to work by contemporary composers such as Whitacre, Lang, and Gjeilo, and some spirituals.
CAP UCLA PRESENTS EIGHTH BLACKBIRD FT WILL OLDHAM (BONNIE "PRINCE" BILLY)
Program
David Lang: learn to fly
Bryce Dessner: Murder Ballades
Frederic Rzewski: Coming Together (speaker: Will Oldham)
Will Oldham: Songs
'the passing measures' performed by Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra and the Bienen Contemporary Vocal Ensemble
Choral-orchestral works by three of today’s most creative compositional minds. George Benjamin brings extraordinary color to Caliban’s dream speech from The Tempest. Thomas Adès takes a dramatic look at an American cataclysm that could happen again. David Lang’s expansive elegy invites contemplation and reflection.
George Benjamin, Sometime Voices
Thomas Adès, America: A Prophecy
David Lang, the passing measures
Donald Nally, conductor
Steve Reich Celebration with Sō Percussion and NEXUS Percussion @ Princeton University
Sō Percussion, Princeton University’s Edward T. Cone Artists-in-Residence, host a celebration—free and open to all—of iconic American composer Steve Reich. The program samples works from each decade of the composer’s prolific career. Sō Percussion will be joined onstage by vocalist Beth Meyers, soprano Daisy Press, guitarist Grey McMurray, pianists Orli Shaham and Corey Smythe, and cellist Maya Beiser. Ms. Beiser will perform Cello Counterpoint, written for her by Reich in 2003. The concert will culminate with Reich’s breakthrough masterpiece, Drumming, which Sō Percussion had performed at the Lincoln Center Festival in Fall 2017 to critical acclaim.
David Lang's 'when we were children' performed by Hamer Singers
Program:
Arvo Pärt – I am the true vine
Anna Thorvaldsdottir – Heyr þú oss himnum á
David Lang – when we were children
Thomas Tallis – Missa puer natus est: Agnus Dei
Pēteris Vasks – Laudate Dominum
Coastal Concerts present: Sō Percussion
Sō Percussion is a percussion-based music organization that creates and presents new collaborative works to adventurous and curious audiences and educational initiatives to engaged students, while providing meaningful service to its communities, in order to exemplify the power of music to unite people and forge deep social bonds.
Their repertoire ranges from “classics” of the 20th century, by John Cage, Steve Reich, and Iannis Xenakis, et al, to commissioning and advocating works by contemporary composers such as David Lang, Steve Mackey, and Paul Lansky, to distinctively modern collaborations with artists who work outside the classical concert hall, including vocalist Shara Nova, electronic duo Matmos, the groundbreaking Dan Deacon, legendary drummer Bobby Previte, jam band kings Medeski, Martin, and Wood, Wilco’s Glenn Kotche, choreographer Shen Wei, and composer and leader of The National, Bryce Dessner, among many others.
'the little match girl passion' performed by Houston Chamber Choir
In this program the Chamber Choir performs David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Little Match Girl Passion,” a groundbreaking work praised for its unique purity and beauty inspired by Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Hans Christian Anderson’s short story. Tales by the Brothers Grimm, Lewis Carroll and fanciful depictions of mythological creatures complete this evening of rare sights and sounds.
'the little match girl passion' performed by Facility Theatre
David Lang's 'the little match girl passion'
April 13 - April 29, 2018
Fridays, Saturdays, at 8pm and Sundays at 4pm
So Percussion Living at the Intersection Symposium at Princeton University
The Council on Science and Technology (CST) is pleased to announce its inaugural Living at the Intersection Symposium to be held April 12-13, 2018 on the Princeton University campus. The 2018 Symposium focuses on the intersection of Engineering and the Arts and is co-hosted by Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science and by Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts.
The Symposium will open with a performance of There Might Be Others and showcase of works on Thursday evening April 12, 2018 and will continue throughout the day on Friday April 13, 2018, with four panel sessions and a keynote lecture by American sculptor and fiber artist Janet Echelman. The Symposium will engage participants in an exploration of “living at the intersection” of engineering and the arts with thought leaders, researchers, artists, faculty, students, and professionals who create at or near this intersection.
CST is launching the biennial Living at the Intersection Symposium series in service to its mission to broaden and deepen participation in STEM. The Symposium series facilitates engagement that is unconstrained by disciplinary labels by cultivating opportunities for new and meaningful study, exploration, and collaboration, at intersections of the sciences, engineering, humanities, arts, and social sciences.
So Percussion with the University of Kentucky Percussion Ensemble
Asphalt Jungle by Sergio Asad, performed by the UK Percussion Ensemble, James Campbell, conductor, and featuring soloists Dieter Hennings (University of Kentucky) and Andrew Zohn (Columbus State University) on guitar.
Amid the Noise by So Percussion, performed by So Percussion with the UK Percussion Ensemble and Kollective.
The Louisville Orchestra Performs Gordon, Wolfe, and more
Jim James, lead and founder of the indie-rock band My Morning Jacket, joins with Teddy Abrams to create a set of 7 songs for band and orchestra. Including his top hits, selections from his latest album and new material — a brand new collaboration between James and Abrams.
Teddy Abrams premiered Natural History by Michael Gordon at the 2016 Britt Festival. Requiring a massive array of musicians and dancers, the piece is an homage to the grandeur of the Pacific Northwest region of our country. Together with his wife Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon are founders of the acclaimed Bang on a Can Festival and contemporary music organization in New York City.
JULIA WOLFE: rIse and sHiNe
JIM JAMES: Song Set
MICHAEL GORDON: Natural History
TEDDY ABRAMS, conductor
JIM JAMES, special guest
Michigan Percussion Ensemble Performs Lang and Crumb
The UMPE performs two masterworks for chamber percussion: David Lang's The So Called Laws of Nature, and selections from George Crumb's The River of Life.
John Luther Adams: Become Ocean
Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Performs Become Ocean
John Luther Adams’ Become Ocean has won a Pulitzer Prize and mesmerized audiences. “Like the sea at dawn, it presents a gorgeous surface, yet its heaving motion conveys overwhelming force…tonally centered, almost to the point of lushness,” wrote Alex Ross in The New Yorker. “Its three huge crescendos suggest a tidal surge washing over all barriers. It may be the loveliest apocalypse in musical history...Whether orchestras will be playing it a century hence is impossible to say, but I went away reeling.”
Seattle Symphony Performs: Become Desert & Become Ocean
Program A (April 7)
JOHN LUTHER ADAMS Become Desert (California Premiere)
(featuring Volti San Francisco; Robert Geary, artistic director)
SIBELIUS Symphony No. 2
Program B (April 8)
SIBELIUS The Oceanides
BRITTEN Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from Peter Grimes
JOHN LUTHER ADAMS Become Ocean
The Louisville Orchestra Performs Michael Gordon's Natural History and more
Teddy Abrams premiered Natural History by Michael Gordon at the 2016 Britt Festival. Requiring a massive array of musicians and dancers, the piece is a homage to the grandeur of the Pacific Northwest region of our country.
Jim James, lead and founder of the indie-rock band My Morning Jacket, joins with Teddy Abrams to create a set of 7 songs for band and orchestra. Including his top hits, selections from his latest album and new material — a brand new collaboration between James and Abrams.
John LutherJohn Luther Adam's Become Desert
Following up on his 2014 Pulizer Prize-winning Become Ocean, John Luther Adams returns to Seattle for the world premiere of SSO-commissioned work Become Desert.
Ludovic Morlot, Conductor
Seattle Symphony Chorale
Seattle Symphony
New World Symphony Performs Adams, Lang, & more
Program:
J. Adams – Tromba lontana
Lang – mountain
Andres – The Blind Banister
Marshall – Flow
S. Adams – many words of love
John Luther Adam's Become Desert (World Premiere)
Following up on his 2014 Pulizer Prize-winning Become Ocean, John Luther Adams returns to Seattle for the world premiere of SSO-commissioned work Become Desert.
Ludovic Morlot, Conductor
Seattle Symphony Chorale
Seattle Symphony
Saskia Lankhoorn Performs JLA, Lang, Moore, Wolfe, & more
Dutch pianist Saskia Lankhoorn is performing for the first time as part of the Ankara Piano Festival at Ankara Palas.
Program:
Piet-Jan van Rossum (1966): Accessoir
Julia Wolfe (1958): Earring
John Luther Adams (1953): Nunataks (Solitary Peaks)
David Lang (1957): This was written by hand, Spartan Arcs
Missy Mazzoli (1980): Orizzonte
Kate Moore (1979): Stories for Ocean Shells, The Body is na Ear, Spin Bird
John Luther Adams' Three Canticles of the Birds
Three Canticles of the Birds will be performed by Muge Hendekli (piano) and Amy Salsgiver (Percussion) as part of the piano festival put on by Istanbul Technical University’s Center for Advanced Research (ITU MIAM).
The Crossing Performs Michael Gordon's Anonymous Man
Anonymous Man (premiered July 2017) is a concert-length work from Bang on a Can composer Michael Gordon. The text is drawn from real life—Gordon's experiences living in a changing neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, meeting his future wife (the composer Julia Wolfe), raising a family, and especially his encounters with two homeless men who lived across the street. The journey includes personal accounts of September 11, the death of one of the homeless men, and the outpouring of sympathy from the community following that loss, finally reaching an epiphany that evokes Lincoln's funeral train arriving on Desbrosses Street, the first stop on its visit to the streets of Manhattan. The interplay of personalities is beautifully rendered in music, springing from Michael’s conversations with the homeless men—serious, funny, mysterious, poetic, and mundane.