Bang on a Can Presents 2013 People's Commissioning Fund Concert, 3/14

On Thursday, March 14, 2013 at 7:30pm, Bang on a Can will present the 2013 Bang on a Can People's Commissioning Fund concert, one of the most anticipated and reliable launching pads for emerging composers in New York and beyond, as part of Kaufman Music Center's Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall (Kaufman Music Center, 129 W. 67th St.).

This year, the Bang on a Can All-Stars will give the world premieres of works by four PCF-commissioned composers: cutting-edge multimedia musician Anna Clyne (A Wonderful Day, incorporating the spoken and sung words of Chicago street musician Wooly), hypnotic electronic guru Dan Deacon (Sago An Ya Rev, a textural morphing transcription of a NASA Voyager featuring audience participation via the smart phone "Dan Deacon App"), electro-acoustic experimentalist and installation artist Paula Matthusen (ontology of an echo, built around sounds recorded inside New York sites of historic infrastructure), and electronic minimalist Jóhann Jóhannsson (Hz, inspired by a hydroelectric power plant in the composer's native Iceland). All pieces will go on to be included in Field Recordings, Bang on a Can's growing multimedia project featuring hot-off-the-press commissioned works by Mira Calix, Florent Ghys, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Christian Marclay, Todd Reynolds, Julia Wolfe, Nick Zammuto, and more.

The concert will also include world premieres of new music by avant-indie rocker Tyondai Braxton (TREMS) and cross-genre composer/singer Fay Kueen Wang (Weltinseln), who will join the All-Stars on stage. John Schaefer of WNYC-FM will host the evening for future radio broadcasts on his program, "New Sounds Live;" the concert will be streamed live on Q2 Music and will be available for on-demand listening at Q2Music.org.

Created in 1997, PCF is a radical partnership between artists and audiences to commission works from adventurous composers and is one of the first pre-social media, crowd-sourcing art-creating platforms. The fund began when Bang on a Can co-founders Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe recognized a need to go beyond the usual sources of support to create new, groundbreaking music. Each year, Bang on a Can pools together the contributions of hundreds of individuals to fund the commissions. Donations range from $5 to $5,000. To date, over 50 new pieces have been created through PCF, and nearly $300,000 has been raised.

Past PCF commissions have gone to Nik Bärtsch, Eve Beglarian, Oscar Bettison, Nick Brooke, Jeffrey Brooks, Bryce Dessner, Sussan Deyhim, James Fei, Yoav Gal, Annie Gosfield, Erdem Helvacioglu, John Hollenbeck, Cynthia Hopkins, Karsh Kale, Carla Kihlstedt, John King, Lukas Ligeti, Annea Lockwood, David Longstreth, Keeril Makan, Ingram Marshall, Miya Masaoka, Marc Mellits, Kate Moore, Thurston Moore, Virgil Moorefield, Joshua Penman, Tristan Perich, Dan Plonsey, Ed Ruchalski, Matthew Shipp, Christine Southworth, Lok Yin Tang, Jim Thirwell, Ken Thomson, Toby Twining, Stefan Weisman, and Pamela Z.