2012 COMPOSERS

Four world premieres commissioned by the people! New York’s electric chamber ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars are premiering new works by Mira Calix, Florent Ghys, Christian Marclay, and Nick Zammuto as part of their new multimedia performance Field Recordings premiereing as the feature presentation of Bang on a Can @ 25, April 28, 2012 at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.

Field Recordings features 9 hot-off-the-press commissioned works by: Tyondai Braxton, Mira Calix, Florent Ghys, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Christian Marclay, Julia Wolfe, Nick Zammuto, and Evan Ziporyn.

ABOUT THE COMPOSERS

MIRA CALIX 
Mira Calix is an award winning composer, artist and performer based in the United Kingdom. She is signed to Warp Records, on which she has released five albums. Although her earlier music is almost exclusively electronic in nature, in more recent years, she has incorporated classical orchestration into her work for installation pieces, film soundtracks, theatre and opera. Mira has been commissioned to write new works for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Aldeburgh Festival, Opera North and The Manchester International Festival amongst others. In the autumn of 2009 she won a British Composer Award for her composition, ‘My Secret Heart’. The installation, commissioned by Streetwise Opera, and featuring the voices of a 100 strong choir, was also the recipient of a Royal Philharmonic Society Award in 2009 and was a finalist in the arts category of the National Lottery Award in 2010. Mira regularly collaborates with musicians and artists from other disciplines. Her collaboration with United Visual Artists on ‘Chorus’ an installation commissioned by Opera North received an Award of Distinction in the Interactive Category at Prix Ars Electronica 2010. Her score for the recent collaboration with visual artists Flat-E, ‘Fables – A Film Opera’ was nominated for a British Composer Award in 2011

FLORENT GHYS 
Florent Ghys is a composer and upright bass player from Bordeaux, France. He studied ethno-musicology with a focus on Arabic contemporary music in Université de Bordeaux 3, and classical contrabass in Paris with Thierry Barbé. He is currently a graduate student at New York University, studying composition with Julia Wolfe. As a solo bass player he played his own music at Le Poisson Rouge (MATA 2011), Winter Garden (Bang on a Can Festival 2010), WNYC (Soundcheck May 2010), Carlsbad Music Festival, the Gershwin Hotel, and has been featured on NBC's website. His new album ''Baroque Tardif'' (2011 Cantaloupe music) has been reviewed by John Schaefer in his ''New Sounds'' in February 2012.

''Ghys is one of a new breed of composer/performers. He creates highly contrapuntal, post-minimalist chamber music showcasing intelligent multi-tracking and inventive use of electronics and sampled speech. On the surface, his music is lighthearted and easily engaging, with whimsical loops and repetitions dancing around each other, creating clever and pleasing rhythms. These seemingly simple elements are carefully crafted, however, and pieced together very deliberately.'' - WQXR

CHRISTIAN MARCLAY 
Christian Marclay is well known for his work in a wide range of media, including sculpture, video, photography, collage, performance, and music. Born in San Rafael, California and raised in Geneva, Switzerland, Marclay studied at the Ecole Supérieure d'Art Visuel in Geneva, the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and Cooper Union in New York, and for more than 30 years, has been exploring the connections between the visual and the audible, creating works in which these two distinct sensibilities enrich and challenge each other. Marclay has been performing and recording music since 1979. Using phonograph records as his "musical instruments," he mixes altered records on multiple turntables in a display of precise and abusive manipulations. He has performed throughout Europe, Japan, Canada and the United States, collaborating with many composers and musicians, such as Elliott Sharp, John Zorn, Butch Morris, Zeena Parkins, Christian Wolff, Ikue Mori, Shelley Hirsch, Günter Müller, Kronos Quartet, and Sonic Youth, among many others. More recently he has been creating graphic scores and “video scores” for others to interpret. Marclay's work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally including solo exhibitions at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2012), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2010), Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2010), Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow (2011), Barbican Art Gallery, London (2005), MAMCO, Geneva (2008), SFMoMA, San Francisco (2002), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2001), Kunsthaus, Zurich (1997), Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva (1995), among others.

NICK ZAMMUTO 
Nick Zammuto, well known for his experimental folktronica outfit 'The Books', currently lives and works in Vermont. Since the retirement of 'the Books' in 2011, Nick has founded a new four piece band simply called 'Zammuto', and recently debuted new songs from their forthcoming album on the Brooklyn based label Temporary Residence to a sold out crowd at 92Ytribeca in early February. In parallel with producing his own records, he has done soundtrack work for films, most recently for 'Achante', a film about Haitian Vodou practices. His musical performances often involve tightly synched visuals, usually as sample based videos or interactive sound sculpture. He lives with his wife and three sons in the Green Mountains of Southern Vermont, in a house they designed and constructed themselves.