Bang on a Can Sets 2015-16 Season

Bang on a Can's 2015-2016 season continues the "relentlessly inventive" (New York Magazine) new music collective's mission to create an international community dedicated to innovative music, wherever it is found, with performances in cities including New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Nashville, Istanbul, Malmo, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, London, and many more. Bang on a Can has appeared annually throughout the U.S. and Europe's most prestigious concert halls and festivals, as well as in Argentina, Australia, China, Korea, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Russia. The New York Times reports, "[Bang on a Can's] impact has been profound and pervasive. The current universe of do-it-yourself concert series, genre-flouting festivals, composer-owned record labels and amplified, electric-guitar-driven compositional idioms would probably not exist without their pioneering example."

The 2015-2016 season begins with Julia Wolfe's Steel Hammer in a new dramatic reincarnation by director Anne Bogart, performed by SITI Company, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and singers Emily Eagen, Katie Geissinger, and Molly Quinn at the Krannert Center (September 26), UCLA (October 23-24), Virginia Tech (November 17), OZ Arts Nashville (November 20-21), and BAM Next Wave Festival (December 2-6). Wolfe's text in Steel Hammer is culled from the many iterations of the century-old John Henry ballad and her music incorporates elements of minimalism, Appalachian folk music, and rock. Deconstructing and resetting more than 200 versions of the famous ballad, Steel Hammer examines not only the subject of human vs. machine, but delves into the richly populated mythos of American folklore and roots music. Intersecting the music in this production is text commissioned from four remarkable American playwrights - Kia Corthron, Will Power, Carl Hancock Rux and Regina Taylor - based on heresay, recollection, and tall tales. Performers in Steel Hammer take on wooden bones, mountain dulcimer, step dancing, and more as they explore the human impulse to tell stories and this quintessential tale of an American folk hero who worked on the railroad. The concert version of Steel Hammer featuring Trio Mediaeval will be performed in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in April 2016. Steel Hammer, a Carnegie Hall and Maria and Robert A. Skirnick commission, was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and the studio recording, featuring the Bang on a Can All-Stars and Trio Mediaeval, was released on Cantaloupe Music in 2014. Listen to the album here (Not for publication. Press-only password: Steel2001).

Julia Wolfe's Pulitzer-Prize winning oratorio for chorus and instruments, Anthracite Fields, will be released on Cantaloupe Music on September 25, 2015. Anthracite Fields will have its West Coast premiere at Los Angeles' Disney Hall on March 6, 2016 with LA Master Chorale, conducted by Grant Gershon, and its European premiere performances in Malmo, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark with the Danish Radio Vocal Ensemble in April 2016. Wolfe wrote the piece after doing extensive research about the coal-mining industry in an area very near where she grew up in Pennsylvania. Her text draws on oral histories, interviews with miners and their families, speeches, geographic descriptions, children's rhymes, and coal advertisements. The recording features the Bang on a Can All-Stars and The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, under the direction of Julian Wachner. The New York Times wrote of the New York premiere of the work, which was a centerpiece of the first NYPHIL BIENNIAL in 2014, "In Ms. Wolfe's polished and stylistically assured cantata, the overall coherence of the musical material helped her expressions of outrage to burn cleanly and brightly." Listen to the album here (Not for publication. Press-only password: Anthra2015)

Bang on a Can's exhilarating marching band Asphalt Orchestra brings its latest radical performance, Asphalt Plays Pixies: Surfer Rosa to Rockwood Music Hall on September 24, 2015 as part of David Douglas' FONT Festival. The New York Times praised Asphalt Orchestra's "inventive, idiomatic arrangements" of Surfer Rosa in a review of the world premiere at Lincoln Center Out of Doors in July 2013. Taking the originals both literally and inspirationally, Asphalt Orchestra's rendition transforms screaming electric guitars into brass exhortations, searing vocals into a chorus of saxophones, while percussion thrashes and grooves. Asphalt Orchestra released its recording of Surfer Rosa in November 2014 on Cantaloupe Music. Listen to the album here (Not for publication. Press-only password: Pixie2015). The band will also perform an inventive street set including Pixies material, music by Bulgaria's infamous Ivo Papasov, plus music by Tom Ze and Thomas Mapfumo on the much anticipated opening weekend festival of National Sawdust in Brooklyn, New York, October 4. Asphalt also joins Israeli pop-sensations The Young Professionals in concert at the Park Avenue Armory on October 15, 2015.

In October, the Bang on a Can All-Stars visit UCLA for three performances at Royce Hall, including Steel Hammer on October 23 and 24, and Field Recordings on October 25, 2015. Field Recordings will also be performed this season by the All-Stars in Istanbul at Borusan Music House on December 21, 2015 and in London at the Barbican on April 17, 2016. Field Recordings features music commissioned from composers including Bang on a Can co-founders Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, as well as Tyondai Braxton, Mira Calix, Anna Clyne, Bryce Dessner, Florent Ghys, Jo?hann Jo?hannsson, Todd Reynolds, Steve Reich, and Nick Zammuto. For 135 years recorded sound has permeated every corner of our lives, changing music along with everything else. Bartók and Kodály took recording devices into the hills of central Europe and modern music was never the same; rock and roll's lineage comes from artists revealed to the world by the Lomaxes, the Seegers, and other archivists. Hip-hop culture democratized sampling - popular music today is a form of musique concrète, the voices and rhythms of the past mixing with the sound of machinery and electronics. For its own Field Recordings, Bang on a Can asked composers to go into the field of recorded sound itself - to find something old or record something new, and to respond with their own music, in dialogue with what they found. Field Recordings taps into film, found sound and obscure audio-visual archives, bridging the gap between the seen and the unseen, the present and the absent, the past and the future, all channeled through the Bang on a Can All-Stars. The All-Stars' recording of Field Recordings was released by Cantaloupe Music in May 2015. Listen to the album here (Not for publication. Press-only password: Field2015).

The Bang on a Can All-Stars bring their landmark live performance of Brian Eno's Music for Airports to San Diego International Airport Terminal 2 on October 27, 2015, presented by Art Power at UC San Diego. This will be the first performance of the work in an airport in the U.S. In 1978 Eno redefined music in everyday life with this mesmerizing, dreamy, intense sonic landscape. In his analog studio, looping bits of tape, Eno never imagined that a new generation of musicians would take his music out of the studio and perform it live. New York's electric chamber ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars bring this masterpiece to life. Since their celebrated 1998 recording of Brian Eno: Music for Airports, Bang on a Can All-Stars have brought this work to live audiences across the globe with concerts at many of the most prestigious festivals and venues including Lincoln Center, Royal Festival Hall in London, the Sydney Opera House, and even public performances at Brussels International Airport, Schipol Airport in Holland, and John Lennon Airport in Liverpool. The All-Stars also bring Music for Airports to the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington, Vermont on February 19, 2016.

Also on the West Coast this October, Bang on a Can's Found Sound Nation partners with the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs for OneBeat, an adventurous new model of cultural diplomacy which brings 25 musicians (ages 19-35) from 17 countries and territories around the world, including Russia, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Egypt, and Venezuela, to the U.S. for one month from October 12-November 11, 2015 to create collaborative cross-genre works, record innovative music, produce short form videos, engage with local communities and practice music as civic engagement to promote resilient civil societies. OneBeat begins with a two-week residency at Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, CA followed by a two-week tour that includes stops at Caldera Arts in central Oregon, venues in Portland, OR and culminating in an unprecedented collaboration with the city of Seattle, WA, in partnership with the Seattle Arts Commission, Seattle Music Commission and with producing support by Compound, in celebration of the city's revolutionary music culture. At each location, OneBeat fellows present audiences with a dynamic series of public performances, artistic innovations and educational events. People of all ages and backgrounds have the rare opportunity to experience live what it sounds like when adventurous musicians from different parts of the world combine forces, and learn first-hand about the process of cross-cultural dialogue and creative collaboration. Learn more about these events and upcoming workshops here.

In February and March 2016, Bang on a Can's Found Sound Nation will partner with the US Embassy in Islamabad for the second annual Dosti Music Project. The project will bring together ten musicians from Pakistan, India, and the US to collaboratively create new works and develop arts-based projects that contribute to peace-building, dialogue, and economic cooperation in the region. A sister program to OneBeat, Dosti will showcase the extraordinary capacity of music to connect people across cultural and geographic divides, while celebrating our cultural diversity and common humanity. Dosti begins with a two-week residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida, and continues with a two-week tour to Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

In New York on February 6, 2015 the All-Stars take the stage at Kaufman Music Center's Merkin Concert Hall during the Ecstatic Music Festival for the 2016 People's Commissioning Fund Concert, one of the most anticipated and reliable launching pads for emerging composers in New York and beyond, hosted again this year by John Schaefer of WNYC's New Sounds and streamed as a live audio webcast by Q2 Music at q2music.org. Founded in 1997, long before crowd-funding became the norm through Kickstarter and similar sites, Bang on a Can's PCF has pooled contributions of all sizes from hundreds of friends and fans, and since its inception has commissioned over 40 works of music. This year, Bang on a Can's PCF commissions include new works by 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winner Caroline Shaw, Gabriella Smith, and Rene Lussier.

On April 23, 2016 Bang on a Can takes its signature event, the Bang on a Can Marathon, to De Doelen in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. This will be the first-ever presentation of Bang on a Can's renowned boundary-busting music festival in Rotterdam. The Marathon will feature a world premiere commission by Pete Harden for Bang on a Can All-Stars and Ensemble Klang, music by Kate Moore, Michael Gordon, David Lang, and more.

Throughout the 2015-2016 season, Bang on a Can advances its curatorial tradition of partnering the musical and visual art worlds, continuing its relationship with The Jewish Museum in New York. The series features dynamic musical performances at the Museum from November 2015 to May 2016, inspired by the Museum's diverse slate of exhibitions. On November 5, 2015, Robert Black, The Hartt Bass Band, and Friends perform in The Power of Pictures corresponding to the Museum's exhibition The Power of Pictures: Early Soviet Photography, Early Soviet Film. On February 4, 2016, MIVOS Quartet performs Steve Reich's Different Trains, Triple Quartet, and Violin Phase (live) in Unorthodox, during the Museum's exhibition of the same title which features 50 contemporary artists from around the world. And on May 12, 2016 Arto Lindsay performs Brazil Gardens & Beyond, alongside the Museum's exhibition The Art of Roberto Burle Marx: Brazil Gardens and Beyond. Bang on a Can will further expand its collaborative partnerships in visual arts with its first visit to the Tang Art Gallery at Skidmore College on February 18, 2016.

Summer 2016 will bring Bang on a Can's signature Bang on a Can Marathon at Brookfield Place Winter Garden in partnership with Arts Brookfield and the River to River Festival in June; and the three-week Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA in North Adams in July. (Details will be announced in the spring.)

About Bang on a Can

Bang on a Can is dedicated to making music new. Since its first Marathon concert in 1987, Bang on a Can has been creating an international community dedicated to innovative music, wherever it is found. With adventurous programs, it commissions new composers, performs, presents, and records new work, develops new audiences, and educates the musicians of the future. Bang on a Can is building a world in which powerful new musical ideas flow freely across all genres and borders. Bang on a Can plays "a central role in fostering a new kind of audience that doesn't concern itself with boundaries. If music is made with originality and integrity, these listeners will come" (The New York Times).

Over 28 years, Bang on a Can has grown from a one-day New York-based Marathon concert (on Mother's Day in 1987 in a SoHo art gallery) to a multi-faceted performing arts organization with a broad range of year-round international activities. "When we started Bang on a Can in 1987, in an art gallery in SoHo, we never imagined that our one-day, 12-hour marathon festival of mostly unknown music would morph into a giant international organization dedicated to the support of experimental music, wherever we would find it," write Bang on a Can Co-Founders Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe. "But it has, and we are so gratified to be still hard at work, all these years later. The reason is really clear to us - we started this organization because we believed that making new music is a utopian act-that people needed to hear this music and they needed to hear it presented in the most persuasive way, with the best players, with the best programs, for the best listeners, in the best context. Our commitment to changing the environment for this music has kept us busy and growing for the last 28 years, and we are not done yet."

Current projects include the annual Bang on a Can Marathon; The People's Commissioning Fund, a membership program to commission emerging composers; the Bang on a Can All-Stars, who tour to major festivals and concert venues around the world every year; recording projects; the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival - a professional development program for young composers and performers led by today's pioneers of experimental music; Asphalt Orchestra, Bang on a Can's extreme street band that offers mobile performances re-contextualizing unusual music; Found Sound Nation, a new technology-based musical outreach program now partnering with the State Department of the United States of America to create OneBeat, a revolutionary, post-political residency program that uses music to bridge the gulf between young American musicians and young musicians from developing countries; cross-disciplinary collaborations and projects with DJs, visual artists, choreographers, filmmakers and more. Each new program has evolved to answer specific challenges faced by today's musicians, composers and audiences, in order to make innovative music widely accessible and wildly received. Bang on a Can's inventive and aggressive approach to programming and presentation has created a large and vibrant international audience made up of people of all ages who are rediscovering the value of contemporary music.

Bang on a Can 2015-2016 Season Schedule (subject to change, updates at www.bangonacan.org/events)

Thursday, September 24, 2015 at 8:30pm
Asphalt Orchestra | Asphalt plays Pixies
David Douglas' FONT Festival | Rockwood Music Hall 3 | New York, NY
Information: http://fontmusic.org/

Saturday, September 26, 2015 at 7:30pm
Bang on a Can All-Stars | SITI Company | Julia Wolfe: Steel Hammer
Directed by Anne Bogart
Colwell Playhouse | Krannert Center for the Performing Arts | University of Illinois | Champaign-Urbana, IL
Information: http://www.krannertcenter.com/performance.aspx?id=20157211038416712817410782

October 4, 2015 at 4pm
Asphalt Orchestra
National Sawdust Community Day | Brooklyn, NY
Information: http://nationalsawdust.org/event/community-day/

October 15, 2015 at 6pm
Asphalt Orchestra | Park Avenue Armory GALA with The Young Professionals & Contemporaneous
Park Ave Armory | New York, NY
Information: http://www.armoryonpark.org/get_involved/2015_gala

Monday, October 12, 2015 - Wednesday, November 11, 2015
OneBeat 2015
Montalvo Center for the Arts | Saratoga, CA
Plus tour concerts in Oakland, Santa Cruz, Portland, and Seattle
Information: http://1beat.org/2015/about

October 23-24, 2015 at 8pm
Bang on a Can All-Stars | SITI Company | Julia Wolfe: Steel Hammer
Directed by Anne Bogart
Royce Hall | Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA | Los Angeles, CA
Information: http://cap.ucla.edu/calendar/details/653

October 25, 2015 at 7pm
Bang on a Can All-Stars | Field Recordings
Royce Hall | Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA | Los Angeles, CA
Information: http://cap.ucla.edu/calendar/details/656

October 27, 2015 at 9pm
Bang on a Can All-Stars | Brian Eno: Music for Airports
San Diego International Airport Terminal 2
Presented by Art Power at UC San Diego | San Diego, CA
Information: http://artpower.ucsd.edu/events/2015/10/27/9PM/bang-on-a-can-all-stars-brian-eno-music-for-airports#.VbqBZEWcwWE

Thursday, November 5, 2015 at 7:30pm
Robert Black, The Hartt Bass Band, and Friends | The Power of Pictures
The Jewish Museum | New York, NY
Information: http://thejewishmuseum.org/calendar/events/2015/11/05/concert-bang-on-a-can-the-power-of-pictures

November 17, 2015 at 7:30pm
Bang on a Can All-Stars | SITI Company | Julia Wolfe: Steel Hammer
Directed by Anne Bogart
Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre, Street and Davis Performance Hall | Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech | Blacksburg, VA
Information: http://bit.ly/VirginiaTechSteelHammer

November 20-21, 2015 at 7:30pm
Bang on a Can All-Stars | SITI Company | Julia Wolfe: Steel Hammer
Directed by Anne Bogart
OZ Arts Nashville | Nashville, TN
Information: http://www.ozartsnashville.org/steel-hammer/

December 2-5, 2015 at 7:30pm, December 6, 2015 at 3pm
Bang on a Can All-Stars | SITI Company | Julia Wolfe: Steel Hammer
Directed by Anne Bogart
BAM Next Wave Festival | BAM Harvey Theater | Brooklyn, NY
Information: http://www.bam.org/theater/2015/steel-hammer

Monday, December 21, 2015
Bang on a Can All-Stars | Field Recordings
Borusan Music House | Istanbul, Turkey
Information: http://www.borusanmuzikevi.com/en/Default.aspx

Thursday, February 4, 2016 at 7:30pm
Mivos Quartet | Unorthodox | Steve Reich's Different Trains, Triple Quartet, and Violin Phase (live)
The Jewish Museum | New York, NY
Information: http://thejewishmuseum.org/calendar/events/2016/02/04/concert-bang-on-a-can-unorthodox

Saturday, February 6, 2016
People's Commissioning Fund Concert, Part of the Ecstatic Music Festival
Bang on a Can All-Stars | World Premieres by Caroline Shaw, Gabriella Smith, Rene Lussier and more
Kaufman Music Center's Merkin Concert Hall | New York, NY

Thursday, February 18, 2016
Bang on a Can All-Stars
Tang Museum | Skidmore College | Saratoga Springs, NY

Friday, February 19, 2016 at 7pm & 9:30pm
Bang on a Can All-Stars | Brian Eno: Music for Airports
Flynnspace | Flynn Center Performing Arts | Burlington, VT
Information: http://www.flynncenter.org/press-room/details.html?perf_no=12402&perf_code_prefix=FSX16B

Saturday, February 20, 2016
Bang on a Can All-Stars
University of Hartford | West Hartford, CT

February 22 -March 22, 2016
The Dosti Music Project
Information: http://www.dostimusic.org

Saturday, February 27, 2016 at 7:30pm
Bang on a Can All Stars
Jack H. Miller Performance Hall | Hope College | Holland, MI
Information: http://hope.edu/arts/gps/1516/Bang-on-a-Can-All-Stars.html

Monday, February 29, 2016
Bang on a Can All-Stars
Ohio State University | Columbus, OH

Sunday, March 6, 2016 at 7pm
Bang on a Can All Stars | LA Master Chorale | Julia Wolfe: Anthracite Fields (West Coast Premiere)
Disney Hall | Los Angeles, CA
Information: http://www.lamc.org/performances/2016-03-06-music-of-the-coal-miner

Friday, April 15, 2016
Bang on a Can All Stars | Danish Radio Vocal Ensemble | Julia Wolfe: Anthracite Fields (European Premiere)
Konserthus, Malmö | Malmo, Sweden
Info: http://malmolive.se/

Saturday, April 16, 2016
Bang on a Can All Stars | Danish Radio Vocal Ensemble | Julia Wolfe: Anthracite Fields (Denmark Premiere)
Black Diamond | The Royal Library of Denmark | Copenhagen, Denmark
Info: http://www.kb.dk/en/dia/

Sunday, April 17, 2016
Bang on a Can All Stars | Field Recordings, Volume 2
Barbican Centre | London, UK

Wednesday, April 20, 2016 at 8:30pm
Bang on a Can All-Stars | Trio Mediaeval | Julia Wolfe: Steel Hammer
Laurenskerk | De Doelen | Rotterdam, Netherlands
Info: https://www.doelen.nl/agenda/6101/Trio_Mediaeval/zingt_Steel_Hammer_van_Julia_Wolfe/

Thursday, April 21, 2016 at 8:15pm
Bang on a Can All-Stars | Trio Mediaeval | Julia Wolfe: Steel Hammer
Grote Zaal | Muziekgebouw | Amsteram, Netherlands
Info: https://www.muziekgebouw.nl/agenda/Concerten/4346/Bang_on_a_Can/Steel_Hammer/

Saturday, April 23, 2016 at 3pm
Bang on a Can Marathon | Bang on a Can All-Stars | Ensemble Klang
Grote Zaal | De Doelen | Rotterdam, Netherlands
Info: http://dedoelen.nl/nl/concerten/agenda/6258/david_lang_julia_wolfe_michael_gordon/bang_on_a_can_marathon/

Sunday, April 24, 2016
Bang on a Can All-Stars
Budapest, Hungary

Thursday, May 12 at 7:30pm
Arto Lindsay | Brazil Gardens & Beyond
The Jewish Museum | New York, NY

June 2016
Bang on a Can Marathon
Brookfield Place Winter Garden | New York, NY

July 12-30, 2016
Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival @ MASS MoCA
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art | North Adams, MA