Bang on a Can

BANG ON A CAN ALL-STARS The 2010 People’s Commissioning Fund (PCF) Concert. Wednesday, February 24, at 7:30pm

Three world premieres commissioned by the people! New York’s electric chamber ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars take on new works by Nik Bärtsch, Oscar Bettison, and Christine Southworth, plus more in their anticipated annual celebration at Merkin Hall.

The PCF is a radical partnership between artists and audiences to commission works from adventurous composers. For more info: www.bangonacan.org

“Merkin Hall was a mob scene…At five minutes to 8, the line of ticket buyers snaked out the door…It was an evening that was packed in every sense: with people, with ideas, with music.” —New York Times

A special edition of WNYC’s New Sounds® Live John Schaefer, host

THE COMPOSERS:

Oscar Bettison's work demonstrates a willingness to work within and outside the confines of concert music. He likes to work with what he calls cinderella instruments, either by making percussion instruments (in the case of Junk) or by re-imagining other instruments (Krank, Cibola) as well as writing for instruments more common in rock music. More recent pieces have featured some electro-acoustic elements. His recent, evening-long work O Death is concerned with bringing all these strands together.

Oscar Bettison was born in Jersey, UK. After studying in London with Simon Bainbridge and Robert Saxton he went to the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague where he studied with Louis Andriessen. He was awarded a fellowship to attend Tanglewood in summer 2001 and holds PhD from Princeton University where his advisor was Steve Mackey. He was a fellow at the Aspen Music Festival in the summer of 2007 and was selected to be a participant in Luca Francesconi's Earlab 2008 project in Norway and Italy in the summer of 2008. He is on the composition faculty at the Peabody Conservatory.

He is the recipient of the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music Pianist/Composer Commissioning Project (2009) a Jerwood Foundation Award (1998) the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize  (1997) and the first BBC Young Composer of the Year Prize (1993). He was a Naumberg fellow at Princeton University from 2003-2007.

He has received commissions from the BBC (1996), the London Sinfonietta (1997), the New London Children’s Choir (1998) the Oxford Contemporary Music Festival (2001) the Eliza Miller Dance Company (2004) the Orkest De Ereprijs (2004) and Ensemble Klang (2006) as well as receiving commission grants from the Rockefeller New York State Music Fund (2007), the New York State Council on the Arts (2007) F.A.P.K. (The Netherlands, 2007) The Netherlands America Foundation (2006) and the Danspace Project 2006-2007 Commissioning Initiative.

In addition to having works premiered on three continents (Europe, North America and Australia), his work has received press coverage in the UK, the US, the Netherlands, Italy and Australia and has been featured on British Radio, BBC Television, Australian Radio and New York Public Radio as well as being profiled in The Times (London). His work Cadence is available on NMC Records.Upcoming projects include a new work for the combined forces of the Percussion Group of The Hague and the Aurelia Saxophone Quartet. A recording of O Death by Ensemble Klang is due to be released in early 2010.

Nik Bärtsch is a pianist and composer, born in Zurich 1971. After instructions in piano and percussion especially in Jazz from the age 8 he studied classical piano and graduated from the 'Musikhochschule Zurich' in 1997. 1989-2001 he studied philosophy, linguistics and musicology at the University of Zurich (without graduation). From 2003-04 he stayed in Japan for half a year.

Ongoing work on his RITUAL GROOVE MUSIC. Leader of MOBILE (since 1997; with Kaspar Rast, Mats Eser & Sha) and the zen-funk quintet RONIN (since 2001; with Kaspar Rast, Björn Meyer, Andi Pupato & Sha). Instructor for Practical Aesthetics at the 'Musikhochschule Zrich/Winterthur' (2000-2003). Co-founder of the Music club EXIL in Zurich (2009).

He was Instructor for Practical Aesthetics at the 'Musikhochschule Zrich/Winterthur' from 2000 to 2003 and developed a special interest in body movement techniques, especially in Aikido, Feldenkrais and Gyrotonic. He gives workshops which combine musical and body movement training since 2005. Since 2005 Nik Bärtsch records exclusively for ECM records.

Christine Southworth (b. 1978), through her work with robots and automated music systems as co-founder and Director of Ensemble Robot, is making groundbreaking music based on the interaction between technology and creativity. Compared to Thurston Moore (Boston Phoenix) and Laurie Anderson (Boston Globe), Southworth is introducing a brand new genre of music to Boston, born out of the area’s complex community of scientists and artists. Her 2005 & 2007 performances of Zap! overfilled the Boston Museum of Science’s Theater of Electricity with energized crowds of students, professors, artists, children, and adults. The Boston Phoenix called the show “truly electrifying,” describing that “Ever since Bob Dylan, ‘going electric’ has had many connotations, but this was something different: though Zap! utilized the talents of a flutist, two keyboardists, a cellist, a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, a vocalist, a double-helix-shaped robotic xylophone, sound engineers, and computer programmers, the centerpiece of Southworth’s performance was electricity itself, as millions of volts buzzed, fizzled, and sparked in deafening cracks that punctuated her music.” (Will Spitz, Boston Phoenix)

Southworth received a B.S. from MIT in 2002 in mathematics and music and M.A. in Computer Music & Multimedia Composition from Brown University in 2006. She composes for Western ensembles, Balinese gamelan, and mixed ensembles of gamelan, western instruments, electronics, and robots. Her compositions draw from her interests in modern American and European music, jazz, Balinese music, and rock and roll, and have received awards and recognition from the LEF Foundation, American Composers Forum, Meet the Composer, New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), the MIT Eloranta Fellowship, and Bang on a Can. Her music has been played throughout the U.S., Europe, and Indonesia by ensembles including Gamelan Galak Tika, the Calder Quartet, and Ensemble Robot.

Southworth recently released her debut recording, "Zap!" which features several members of the Bang on a Can All-Stars and was named "Pick of the Week" by WNYC's prestigious Soundcheck program in August 2008. Currently, she is writing for string quartet and tesla coils, just intonation gamelan and rock band, and working on a new Gamelan Galak Tika album featuring her "Heavy Metal."