Bang on a Can Announces Fifth Bang on a Can Marathon Live Online

Bang on a Can teams up with WNYC's New Sounds, hosted by John Schaefer to present its fifth Bang on a Can Marathon - Live Online - on Sunday, February 21, 2021 from 1-5pm ET.

All 16 pieces on the program will be world premiere performances of newly commissioned works, streamed from musicians' homes around the country and across the world. On its first four live online Marathons in 2020 (May 3, June 14, August 1, and October 18) Bang on a Can presented a total of 95 performances, including 31 world premieres of new commissions and over 130 composers and performers. Bang on a Can plans to continue these Marathons, streaming online at live.bangonacan.org, as long as the closure of presenting venues continues, and perhaps beyond. The 4-hour live Marathon will be hosted in part by New Sounds' John Schaefer along with Bang on a Can Co-Founders and Artistic Directors Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe, who say:

New Year! New Hope! New Commissions! On February 21, Bang on a Can presents an entire marathon of PREMIERES! 16 brand new works by 16 pioneering composers. Tune in to hear 4 hours of nonconformist, noncommercial, mind-blowing music. Alvin Lucier! Jennifer Walshe! Matthew Shipp! Ingrid Laubrock! Gabriel Kahane! and many many more.

This concert is FREE! But please do consider purchasing a ticket. That helps us pay more players, commission more composers, and make more music.

The pandemic is still here. An entire ecosystem of composers and performers needs our attention, our love, and our financial support! All Marathon performers and composers are participating live and being paid by Bang on a Can.

Every piece on the program is a world premiere of a newly commissioned work:

Alvin Lucier new work performed by Mark Stewart

Amir ElSaffar new work performed by Ken Thomson

Bora Yoon new work performed by herself

Eve Beglarian new work performed by Lara Downes

Gabriel Kahane new work performed by Arlen Hlusko

Gregory Spears new work performed by David Byrd-Marrow

Ingrid Laubrock new work performed by herself

Jakhongir Shukur new work performed by Robert Black

Jennifer Walshe new work performed by herself

Joel Thompson new work performed by Anthony Roth Costanzo

John Hollenbeck new work performed by David Cossin

Kristina Wolfe new work performed by Molly Barth

María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir new work performed by Chi-chi Nwanoku

Matthew Shipp new work performed by himself

Molly Herron new work performed by Maya Stone

Rohan Chander new work performed by Vicky Chow

Bang on a Can Marathon February 21, 2021 featuring:

Alvin Lucier, Amir ElSaffar, Bora Yoon, Eve Beglarian, Gabriel Kahane, Gregory Spears, Ingrid Laubrock, Jakhongir Shukur, Jennifer Walshe, Joel Thompson, John Hollenbeck, Kristina Wolfe, María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, Matthew Shipp, Molly Herron, Rohan Chander, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Arlen Hlusko, Chi-chi Nwanoku, David Byrd-Marrow, David Cossin, Ken Thomson, Lara Downes, Mark Stewart, Maya Stone, Molly Barth, Robert Black, Vicky Chow.

Marathon Program Info [Full Schedule to be announced soon]

Celebrating (just a bit early) Alvin Lucier's 90th(!) birthday! With such iconic works as I Am Sitting in a Room, Lucier has spent a lifetime laying bare the foundations of what music is and how it works. A pioneer of experimentation, his work lives at the intersection of ambient music, sound installation and conceptual art. He is writing a new work for the Bang on a Can All-Stars' guitarist Mark Stewart.

The music of composer, trumpeter and bandleader Amir ElSaffar flows seamlessly between cultures and genres. Born in Chicago, immersed in the sound and architecture of jazz, his music began to change as he explored the melodies and modes of his Iraqi heritage. This performance features his new piece written especially for the Bang on a Can All-Stars clarinetist/saxophonist Ken Thomson.

Bora Yoon sings like the high priestess of some other planet. Intensely theatrical, in performance she often collides everyday objects with electronics, using technology to send her voice through ordinary things that she makes resonate with meaning.

A few years ago, downtown mainstay composer Eve Beglarian wrote a tiny work for pianist Lara Downes that was so delicate and exquisitely beautiful that Bang on a Can wished it would go on forever. Or at least - a little while longer. They commissioned her to take this little gem and make it last.

Composer Gabriel Kahane is an avant storyteller. And his music goes wherever the stories lead - to wry songs about our modern lives, deep and serious investigations of who Americans really are right now, and tunefully exploring the way forward for American song. His new work will be performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars cellist Arlen Hlusko.

Gregory Spears looks forward and back at the same time - he is a modern composer with a flair for the Baroque. The elegance of his music comes from how contemporary harmonies and tunes become delicately inflected with the ornaments of music from long ago. His new work will be performed by French hornist David Byrd-Marrow.

Since moving to New York from her native Germany, composer and sax player Ingrid Laubrock has been a big presence on the downtown avant-improv scene. Her compositions - like her playing - are restless and unpredictable, merging explosiveness and subtlety with sophistication and fire.

All the way from Uzbekistan, Jakhongir Shukur is a composer, conductor and a tireless advocate for the new. In 2004 he co-founded the Omnibus Ensemble, one of the most engaged and important avenues for new music in Central Asia, helping to make Tashkent into a center of musical activity and exploration. He is composing a new work for Bang on a Can All-Stars bassist, Robert Black.

Irish composer and singer Jennifer Walshe is a force of nature, a blast of energy and innovation. Much of the music she writes is for herself, for her own dramatic and virtuosically edgy persona, and because of this she ends up questioning the nature of identity itself, often inventing her own "composers" to write the music and then inventing the characters to perform it.

Composer Joel Thompson burst on the scene with his searing Seven Last Words of the Unarmed, a work for chorus and orchestra memorializing African American men killed by police. His music shows us the world around us, using sound to help us see it better. His new work written for this performance will be sung by Anthony Roth Constanzo.

Drummers, unite! Composer, bandleader and virtuosic drum set player John Hollenbeck transfers his angular and energetic style of playing to Bang on a Can's own virtuosic drummer David Cossin.

Danish / American composer Kristina Wolfe is a sound archeologist, wandering the world and listening closely, recording found sounds, transforming them, presenting them to us simply and directly and letting us hear them as music. Her new work will be performed by passionate flutist Molly Barth.

María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir has performed on the Bang on a Can Marathon before - in 2006 she came as a member of Amiina, Iceland's ensemble that looks like a string quartet and tours like a band. As a composer she brings her sensitive ear and exquisite timing to this new work for double bass, performed by UK-based bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE.

Matthew Shipp is spontaneity itself. He is a deeply probing composer and virtuoso pianist whose work is almost wholly improvised - he is an improviser's improviser, and the thrill of his performance is that his thoughtful, searching music is made right in front of us.

Composer Molly Herron makes music that often begins in the place of questioning things we take for granted in Western classical instruments. What could be a better example of something we take for granted than the bassoon? In this piece we will find out, through the premiere performance by bassoonist Maya Stone.

Young renegade composer Rohan Chander challenges the avant garde with loud aggressive gestures, digital corruption, and performative electronics. All his interests merge in this new work for the Bang on a Can All-Stars' powerhouse pianist Vicky Chow.

Anthony Roth Costanzo is a spectacular singer, actor, producer, and educator equally at home as a leading performer on the world's top opera festivals and stages, Broadway, and local theater productions. He'll be singing a new work by composer Joel Thompson.

Bang on a Can All-Star Arlen Hlusko, a brilliant cellist with a powerful sound and a deep commitment to community engagement through music, teams up with songwriter and composer Gabriel Kahane for his new work.

London-based bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE is an internationally renowned music citizen - performer, educator, BBC radio host, and more. Chi-chi is the Founder, Artistic and Executive Director of the Chineke! Foundation, which supports, inspires and encourages Black, Asian and ethnically diverse classical musicians working in the UK and Europe. She will premiere a new work by Icelandic composer María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir.

Bang on a Can All-Star percussionist-drummer-producer David Cossin is a superstar specialist in new and experimental music. For this performance he premieres a new work by fellow drummer John Hollenbeck.

David Byrd-Marrow, virtuoso horn player, avid advocate for new sounds, and core member of International Contemporary Ensemble, premieres a new work by Gregory Spears.

Bang on a Can All-Star and reed guru Ken Thomson is a passionate performer and also a composer increasingly known for his harmonic and rhythmic complexity and a punk-rock aesthetic. He will be tapping into his jazz chops for this new work by Amir ElSaffar.

Pianist Lara Downes is a trailblazer on and off-stage whose musical roadmap seeks inspiration from the legacies of history, family, and collective memory. Downes' fierce commitment to arts advocacy and education has led her to collaborate with countless genre-defying artists worldwide. Lara is the creator and curator of Rising Sun Music and host of the NPR Music video interview series AMPLIFY with Lara Downes. She'll premiere a new work by longtime Bang on a Can collaborator Eve Beglarian.

Bang on a Can All-Star and musical wizard Mark Stewart is a virtuoso guitarist, singer, instrument inventor, who plucks, bows, beats, and breathes life into countless sound-making devices. For this performance he will premiere a new work by the conceptual/ambient/experimental pioneer Alvin Lucier.

Based in both Troy, NY and Nashville, TN, bassoonist Maya Stone is a woodwind wonder woman. A lifelong advocate for new works, she has commissioned and premiered new solo works for bassoon ranging from contemporary, classical, gospel, and the in-between. She will be performing a brand new work by Molly Herron.

Molly Barth is a fierce flutist fueled by a passion for new sounds, new works, and new experiences. She has premiered innumerable new works for flute as a soloist and in chamber ensembles including as a longtime collaborator with Eighth Blackbird. Here she'll be performing a new work by Kristina Wolfe.

Founding and current Bang on a Can All-Star bassist Robert Black tours the world constantly creating unheard of music for the solo double bass. For this performance he will premiere a new work by Uzbeki composer Jakhongir Shukur.

Vicky Chow, powerhouse pianist of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, premieres a brand new work by innovative composer Rohan Chander.

To post a comment, you must register and login.