Bang on a Can to Celebrate Summer at Lincoln Center Festival, MASS MoCA and More

Bang on a Can celebrates summer 2017, and continues its 30th anniversary landmark season, by showcasing the breadth of its adventurous curatorial vision with concerts June-September at three visual art institutions -The Noguchi Museum and the Jewish Museum in New York City, and the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA - plus a performance by the Bang on a Can All-Stars at the Lincoln Center Festival.

Now in its 30th year, Bang on a Can is committed more than ever to an increasing and inclusive world-wide community dedicated to innovation through music; a world where ideas flow freely across boundaries; musical, geographical, spiritual. Co-founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe explain, "Thirty years ago we started dreaming of the world we wanted to live in. It would be a kind of utopia for music: all the boundaries between composers would come down, all the boundaries between genres would come down, all the boundaries between musicians and audience would come down. Then we started trying to build it. Building a utopia is a political act - it pushes people to change. It is also an act of resistance to the things that keep us apart."

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Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA
Wednesday, July 19 - Saturday, August 5, 2017
MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA

From July 19 through August 5, 2017, the "relentlessly inventive" (New York Magazine) new music collective Bang on a Can collaborates with MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA to present the 16th annual Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA. The festival is a musical utopia for innovative musicians in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, dedicated entirely to the creation, study, and performance of adventurous contemporary music. Featuring public performances, recitals, and lectures, the festival will be attended by over 50 cutting-edge composers and performers from around the globe, including over 30 fellows selected from a pool of more than 250 applicants from around the world. This year's featured guest composers are Dutch master Louis Andriessen, and renowned American composer George Lewis.

Festival highlights include a tribute to Pauline Oliveros on the afternoon of Saturday, July 29, followed by a preview performance of the Bang on a Can All-Stars' Road Trip, their brand new evening-length work composed by Bang on a Can co-founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe to commemorate their 30-year collaborative journey and directed by Michael Counts with rock show lighting and projections designed by CandyStations. On Sunday, July 30, Mark Stewart and festival fellows perform on the spectacularly DIY instruments of Gunnar Schoenbeck and on Monday, July 31, over 40 young composers and performers from around the world debut nine new works written especially for the festival at the World Premiere Composer Concert. In Music from Central Asia on Tuesday, August 1, musicians from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan perform on traditional instruments from their countries, including the chopo choor, rubab, and dombra. On Wednesday, August 2, festival fellows will perform the chamber music version of Philip Glass' monumental Symphony #3, and on Thursday, August 3, they will perform works by pioneer of electronic and interactive music, George Lewis. Later on August 3, there will be a special concert with this year's guest composer, Dutch master Louis Andriessen, and on August 4, the festival fellows will perform a concert of music by Meredith Monk. Finally, on August 5 from 4-10pm, the legendary Bang on a Can Marathon will close out the Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA in suitably audacious style. The eclectic program includes works from Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Vanessa Lann, Julia Wolfe, Jeffrey Brooks, and many more.

Tickets: $12 Students & Bang on a Can Alumni, $12 Advance, $18 Day Of, $24 Preferred, $5 Museum Members at www.massmoca.org. MASS MoCA is located at 1040 Mass MoCA Way, North Adams, MA.

Cloud River Mountain: Bang on a Can All-Stars and Gong Linna at Lincoln Center Festival
Friday, July 14 - Saturday, July 15, 2017 at 8pm
Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College

A spectacular journey into Chinese myths and ancient poetry, Cloud River Mountain combines the stories of the past with the sounds of the future. In a rare U.S. appearance, Chinese vocal star Gong Linna joins the Bang on a Can All-Stars in a brilliantly staged new work co-composed by Lao Luo and Bang on a Can co-artistic directors Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe. Weaving together ancient Chinese storytelling and Western songwriting, Cloud River Mountain honors the "sound worlds" of both China and the West, fusing texts sung in both Mandarin and English with sophisticated chamber music, rock, folk, and jazz. Cloud River Mountain is inspired by the tales of gods, spirits and the world of the Shamans from the Chu Ci Anthology (also known as Songs of the South) by the famous Chinese poet Qu Yuan. It offers an inspiring, poignant, and ultimately contemporary answer to the question of what a new and authentic collaboration of Chinese and American art music may provide.

The "extraordinary" (The New York Times) and charismatic Gong Linna is a classically-trained Chinese singer from Beijing, passionate about creating a new "Chinese Art Music" but who is also a very recognizable pop star in China. In 2010, her performance of the song Tan Te on Chinese national television to billions of viewers made her an overnight sensation, vaulting her to celebrity status. Her stratospheric vocalizations and adventurous artistic range that embraces Chinese folk, pop, and avant-garde music has drawn comparisons to Björk. In recent years, she has starred on television in China - but she is virtually unknown to the Western World.

Bang on a Can co-founder and composer Michael Gordon became mesmerized by Gong Linna during visits to China, originally having seen her on Chinese television and then having subsequently met her and her partner, composer Lao Luo. The disparate compositional styles of Lao Luo, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe and David Lang as interpreted by Gong Linna and the Bang on a Can All-Stars meld together in this unique new work.

Tickets: $25-55 at www.lincolncenter.org/lc-festival. Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College is located at 524 W. 59th St., New York, NY.

Artists at Noguchi | Bang on a Can Music Series
Sunday, June 11 - Sunday, September 10, 2017 at 3pm
The Noguchi Museum, Long Island City, NY

Bang on Can celebrates its 30-year journey with a series of concerts at The Noguchi Museum featuring musicians who have made their own journeys from other shores, pointing out that just as America is made from the experiences of people from other places, so is American music. The concerts take place alongside the exhibition "Self-Interned, 1942," commemorating Isamu Noguchi's courageous journey to join his fellow Japanese-Americans in the internment camps during World War II. This innovative performance series is held in the Museum's outdoor sculpture garden. In case of rain or artist's preference, concerts take place in the galleries. Performances are free with Museum admission, and seating is available on garden benches and floor mats on a first-come, first-served basis.

June 11: Innov Gnawa
Innov Gnawa is a young musical collective dedicated to exploring Morocco's venerable gnawa music tradition in the heart of New York City. Formed in the summer of 2014 by Moroccan expat Samir LanGus, the group draws on the considerable talents and expertise of Hassan Ben Jaafer, a Maâlem, a master gnawa musician, originally from Fes, Morocco. Hailed by Brooklyn Magazine as one of the "5 Bands You Need to Know in Brooklyn's Arabic Music Scene," Innov Gnawa make great use of traditional repertoire, and add their own, contemporary spin with additional African and Latin percussion. For the uninitiated, gnawa music is the ritual trance music of Morocco's black communities, originally descended from slaves and soldiers once brought to Morocco from Northern Mali and Mauritania. Often called "The Moroccan Blues," gnawa music has a raw, hypnotic power that's played on an array of unique instruments - from the lute-like sintir that the Maâlem uses to call the tune, to the metal qarqaba (castinets) with which the kouyos (chorus) keep time and pound out clattering, hypnotic rhythms.

July 9: Yuka Honda & Susie Ibarra
Yuka C. Honda is a Japanese composer/musician and producer residing in New York City. She is best known for the band Cibo Matto, which she co-founded with Miho Hatori in 1994. Her recent project Revert to the Sea, inspired by one of Honda's favorite books, "Coin Locker Babies," written by the Japanese writer Ryu Murakami in the 1980s, is a new work in collaboration with Nels Cline (Wilco), Alex Cline, and Zeena Parkins where the musicians showcase the entire spectrum of sound. Susie Ibarra is known for her innovative style and cultural dialogue as a composer, improviser, percussionist and humanitarian. She is interested in the intersection of tradition and avant-garde and how this informs and inspires interdisciplinary art, education and public service. Ibarra creates live and immersive music that explores rhythm, Indigenous practices, and interaction with the natural world.

August 13: Alsarah & the Nubatones
Alsarah is a Sudanese-born singer, songwriter and ethnomusicologist. Born in the capital city of Khartoum where she spent the first eight years of her life, she relocated to Taez, Yemen with her family to escape the ever-stifling regime in her native country. She abruptly moved to the US in 1994, when a brief civil war broke out in Yemen. Alsarah started her musical training at the age of 12 upon arriving in the US. After attending the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter High School, in Hadley MA, she spent the next 4 years at Wesleyan University studying music with a concentration in Ethnomusicology. Residing in Brooklyn, NY she is a self-proclaimed practitioner of East-African Retro-Pop working on various projects. She has toured both nationally and internationally with critically acclaimed groups such as the Nile Project, where she was featured on their debut CD, Aswan (named in the top 5 must hear international albums by NPR). She has also released 1 full-length album with French producer Débruit titled Aljawal (Soundways Recordings), as well as 1 full-length album with her current band, Alsarah & the Nubatones, titled Silt (Wonderwheel Recordings).

Sept 10: Trina Basu and Arun Ramamurthy Quartet
Trina Basu and Arun Ramamurthy join forces to create a musical dialogue between improvising string traditions. Well-versed in the rhythmic and melodic concepts of South Indian classical music and the harmonic language of Western classical, jazz, and folk music, the duo presents original compositions that explore the beauty found at the intersections of their creative backgrounds. The intuitive nature of two violinists allows for moments of unbridled spontaneity and intimate connection. Their sound has been described as raga meets fiddle meets experimental.

Tickets: Performances are free with Museum admission and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. More information available at 718.204.7088 or www.noguchi.org/bangonacan. The Noguchi Museum is located at 9-01 33rd Road (at Vernon Boulevard), Long Island City, NY.

Bang on a Can at The Jewish Museum
Tuesday, June 13 from 6-9pm & Thursday, July 20, 2017 at 7:30pm
The Jewish Museum, NYC

June 13: Museum Mile Festival
Bang on a Can and the Jewish Museum kick off their annual series outside the Museum at this summer's Museum Mile Festival celebration, presenting Banda de los Muertos, a Mexican brass band from Brooklyn. Now celebrating its 39th year, the Museum Mile Festival takes place on Tuesday, June 13, 2017, from 6-9pm. Festival attendees can walk the Mile on Fifth Avenue between 82nd Street and 105th Street while visiting seven of New York City's finest cultural institutions, which are open free to the public throughout the evening.

July 20: Bang on a Can presents Kaki King
Bang on a Can continues its partnership with the Jewish Museum pairing innovative music with the Museum's exhibitions. The summer 2017 edition begins the 2017-18 season of concerts which will feature pioneering female artists. First up: the distinctive and exceptional indie-guitarist Kaki King. Much like Florine Stettheimer, who created her own individual universe through her unique sensibilities and playful imagery as demonstrated in the exhibition Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry, King uses extended techniques to create her own musical universe outside the mainstream. Hailed by Rolling Stone as "a genre unto herself," Brooklyn-based composer and guitarist Kaki King has released 8 albums over the past 13 years, performed multiple world tours, and has presented her work in a variety of prestigious arts centers, including the Kennedy Center, MoMA, LACMA and The Met. She has created music for numerous film and TV soundtracks, including "August Rush" and Sean Penn's "Into the Wild", for which received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Score.

Additional performances in fall 2017, winter and spring 2018 to be announced.

Tickets: Free admission for the Museum Mile Festival on June 13. Other performances at the Jewish Museum, $18 General; $15 Students and Seniors; $12 Jewish Museum and Bang on a Can Members at www.thejewishmuseum.org. The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY.

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 30 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, 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.