Bang on a Can

Gregg August (Bass)

Gregg August lives in New York and is actively involved in the classical as well as latin and jazz scenes. He performs with the Orchestra of St. Luke's and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and is the assistant principal bass of The Brooklyn Philharmonic. He has performed chamber music with The Brentano Quartet, the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, and for 2 years was the principal bassist of La Orquesta Ciutat de Barcelona in Spain. At the same time he has played and recorded with Ray Barretto, Paquito D'Rivera, James Moody and Kenny Burrell. At present heps the bassist with Ray Vega and his Latin Jazz Sextet. Gregg will be releasing a record of original music in the spring of 2004 featuring Ray Barretto and Frank Wess. He received his Bachelor and Masterps degrees from The Eastman School of Music and The Juilliard School respectively.

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Michael Gordon (Composer, Bang on a Can Co-Artistic Director)

Michael Gordon's compositions demonstrate a deep exploration into the possibilities and nature of rhythm and what happens when rhythms are piled on top of each other, creating a glorious confusion. John Adams, who has conducted Gordon's works with the London Sinfonietta and Ensemble Modern, calls these raw and complicated sounds "irrational rhythms." Gordon's special interest in adding dimensions to the concert experience has led to frequent collaborations with artists in other media. For example, in DECASIA, a multimedia orchestra piece with films by Bill Morrison and spectacle by Ridge Theater, the audience stands in the middle of a three-tiered, triangular structure surrounded by an orchestra and large projection scrims. DECASIA was commissioned by the Basel Sinfonietta and premiered at European Music Month 2001. Gordon's most significant recent project is a new CD for Nonesuch, "Light is Calling". The music here is sonic and sensual with layers of violins, electric guitars and voice in counterpoint with studio-based electronic creations. Other recent works include POTASSIUM for the Kronos Quartet, TRANCE for Icebreaker, and WEATHER, written for the young Hamburg-based string orchestra Ensemble Resonanz. Gordon's music has been presented at BAM, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Royal Albert Hall, the Bonn Oper, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival, and the Holland, Rotterdam, Edinburgh, St. Petersburg, and Settembre Musica festivals, and in choreography of The Royal Ballet, Eliot Feld, Emio Greco/PC, among others. His CDs include LIGHT IS CALLING (Nonesuch), DECASIA (Cantaloupe), WEATHER (Nonesuch) and LOST OBJECTS (Teldec).

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David Lang (Composer, Bang on a Can Co-Artistic Director)

"There is no name yet for this kind of music," writes Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed, but audiences around the globe are hearing more and more of David Lang's work: in performances by such organizations as the Santa Fe Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, and the Kronos Quartet; at BAM, Tanglewood, the BBC Proms, The Munich Biennale, the Settembre Musica Festival, the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival and the Almeida, Holland, Berlin, and Strasbourg Festivals; in theater productions in New York, San Francisco and London; in the choreography of Twyla Tharp, La La La Human Steps, The Nederlands Dans Theater and the Paris Opera Ballet. Lang's music was recently heard at BAM in The Most Dangerous Room in the House for choreographer Susan Marshall, for which he received a Bessie Award in 1999. Lang is composer-in-residence at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Recent projects include monumental musical environments like the dark and meditative amplified orchestra piece THE PASSING MEASURES; THE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A FIELD - an opera for the Kronos quartet with libretto by Mac Wellman and direction by Carey Perloff; the critically acclaimed opera MODERN PAINTERS about the curious and tragic life of art critic John Ruskin and the evening-length piano solo PSALMS WITHOUT WORDS. He is currently working on ANATOMY THEATER, an opera with visual artist Mark Dion, director Bob McGrath and the Ridge Theater, and concertos for percussionist Evelyn Glennie and pianist Andrew Zolinsky. The CD recording of THE PASSING MEASURES (Cantaloupe) was named one of the best CD's of 2001 by The New Yorker magazine. Other CDs include the introspective chamber work CHILD (Cantaloupe) and other works on Sony Classical, BMG, Point, Chandos, Argo/Decca, Caprice, CRI and Cantaloupe labels.

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Brad Lubman (Conductor)

Conductor/composer Brad Lubman has played a vital role in modern music for two decades. He has worked with a great variety of illustrious musical figures including John Adams, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, Elvis Costello, Oliver Knussen, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, and John Zorn. Lubman has appeared with numerous orchestras and ensembles including Ensemble Modern, Musik Fabrik, Hamburg Symphoniker, Deutsches-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Brooklyn Philharmonic, and the Steve Reich Ensemble. He has recorded for BMG/RCA, Bridge, CRI, Koch, and Nonesuch. Lubman's music has been recorded on the Tzadik label. Mr. Lubman was a Fellow in Composition at the Tanglewood Music Center in 1990 where he studied with Oliver Knussen. Lubman is Associate Professor of Conducting and Ensembles at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester (www.rochester.edu/Eastman), New York. He is represented by Karsten Witt Musik Management (www.karstenwitt.com). Please also visit www.bradlubman.com

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Nicholas Photinos (Cello)

Nicholas Photinos, cellist, is a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning chamber music ensemble eighth blackbird. As a member of the group, he has won numerous competitions, including the Naumburg and Concert Artists Guild Competitions, has been featured on CBS's Sunday Morning and in the New York Times, performed throughout the US, Asia and Europe and currently gives 40-50 concerts annually. He teaches at the University of Richmond and the University of Chicago. Nicholas has taught at the 2007 Bang on a Can Summer Festival has also performed as a member of the Canton and Columbus Symphony Orchestras. He has toured with Bjrk as part of the Icelandic String Octet, and his interest in jazz had led him to perform with violinist Zach Brock and singer Grazyna Auguscik, among others. Solo work includes recital performances throughout the country and appearances as soloist with orchestras in California and Ohio. His principal teachers include Andor Toth, Jr., Irene Sharp, Lee Fiser, Hans Jorgen-Jensen, and Grace Vamos. Nicholas is a graduate of Northwestern University, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He has recorded for the Cedille and Naxos labels.

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Vicki Ray (Piano)

Pianist Vicki Ray performs widely as a soloist and collaborative artist. She is a member of the award winning California E.A.R. Unit and Xtet. As a founding member of PianoSpheres, an acclaimed solo piano series dedicated to exploring the less familiar realms of the piano repertoire, her playing has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times for "displaying that kind of musical thoroughness and technical panache that puts a composer's thoughts directly before the listener." A long-time champion of new music Ms. Ray has had works written for by composers John Adams, Paul Dresher, Stephen Hartke, Kamran Ince, Shaun Naidoo and many others. In 1989 she was the first place winner in the National Association of Composers USA competition for performers of contemporary music. Ms.Ray has been featured on the Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Series, with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the German ensemble Compania and the Blue Rider Ensemble of Toronto with whom she made the first Canadian recording of Pierrot Lunaire. Ray has played on various national and international festivals including the Salzburg Festival, the Berlin 750 Jahre Festival and the Ojai Festival where she premiered a new concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle. Her solo recording from the left edge, a collection of works written for her by composers living in California can be found on the CRI label. As a pianist who excels in a wide range of styles Ms.Ray's numerous recordings cover everything from the semi-improvised structures of Wadada Leo Smith to the twisted groove base of John Adam's Road Movies, from the elegant serialism of Mel Powell to the austere beauty of Morton Feldmans' Crippled Symmetries. Ms. Ray has been a member of the piano faculty at the California Institute of the Arts since 1991.

Todd Reynolds (Violin)

Todd Reynolds is violinist and assistant conductor for Steve Reich and Musicians and The Walter Thompson Orchestra. He was a student of the late Jascha Heifetz, a student at the Eastman School of Music, former Principal Second Violin of the Rochester Philharmonic, and holds a Master's degree from SUNY at Stony Brook. As an improviser and solo interpreter of new musics from classical to jazz and pop, Mr. Reynolds has appeared and/or recorded with such artists as Anthony Braxton, Uri Caine, John Cale, Steve Coleman, Joe Jackson, Dave Liebman, Graham Nash, Greg Osby, Steve Reich, Marcus Roberts, Wayne Shorter and Cassandra Wilson. In addition to his solo appearances at home and abroad, Mr. Reynolds appears as guest artist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and is often featured as violin soloist and chamber musician with Bang On A Can. Mr. Reynolds has premiered countless numbers of compositions by composers including Michael Gordon, John King, Steve Reich, Elliot Sharp, Julia Wolfe, and Randall Wolff, and recently appeared as soloist with Yo Yo Ma in Tan Dun's Water Passion after St. Matthew at the Barbican Center in London. He is a co-founder of Ethel, New York's hippest string quartet, and as composer/performer, Mr. Reynolds is currently developing Still Life With Mic, a theater piece which incorporates with his own composed and improvised music, elements of video and theater arts. He has recorded for Nonesuch, CRI, and Atlantic Records and can also be heard on Tan Dun's soundtrack for the film Fallen, starring Denzel Washington. On Broadway, he originated the role of "The Fiddler", playing and dancing on stage in the Tony Award-winning revival of Irving Berlin's Annie, Get Your Gun, starring Bernadette Peters and Reba McEntire. Currently he tours as part of the Mahavishnu Project, a five-piece jazz-fusion band which centers around the music of John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, performs often with The Betty Buckley Band, alongside Kenny Werner, Billy Drewes, Tony Marino, Jamey Haddad, and, of course, Ms. Buckley herself. Mr. Reynolds recently returned from a week of educational residencies in our nation's capitol with Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, performing and teaching with composer Bright Sheng, ethnomusicologist Ted Levin, and Yo Yo Ma, culminating in a season opening performance at the Kennedy Center.

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Christine Southworth (Gamelan)

Christine Southworth, through her work with robots and automated music systems as co-founder and Director of Ensemble Robot, is dedicated to making music based on the interaction between science, technology and creativity. Employing sounds from man and nature, from Van de Graaff Generator to honeybees, Balinese gamelan to seismic data from volcanoes, Southworth's works are performed worldwide by Gamelan Galak Tika, Ensemble Robot, and The Calder Quartet. Her collaborations with The Calder Quartet and Andrew W.K., including performances with robots, live honeybees and aerial dancers, have been dubbed "sinister and athletic" and "pleasingly post-minimalist" by the L.A. Times and "strange as hell... pretty much ruled" by Metal Edge Magazine. Christine is currently writing a new piece for Kronos Quartet and Gamelan Galak Tika's Electro Gamelan (designed by Alex Rigopulos of Harmonix Music). Southworth received a B.S. from MIT in 2002 in mathematics 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 Explorers Club, Carlsbad Music Festival, the MIT Eloranta Fellowship, and Bang on a Can. Her music is available on Airplane Ears recordings Zap! (2008) and Gamelan Galak Tika: Bronze Age Space Age (2009) Website: www.kotekan.com

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Ken Thomson(clarinet, saxophone, improvisation)

Ken Thomson, Brooklyn-based clarinetist, saxophonist, and composer, plays saxophone and writes for the NY-based punk/jazz band Gutbucket, with whom he has toured internationally to 19 countries and 32 states over seven years, and released 3 CDs for Knitting Factory, Enja, and Cantaloupe Records. He is a founding board member of Anti-Social Music, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the work of emerging composers with a punk aesthetic. He is a frequent collaborator with chamber orchestra Alarm Will Sound (Benedict Mason, Michael Gordon, Nancarrow, etc.), the Bang on a Can All-Stars (Europe 2007), percussion wizards So Percussion (Reich, Lang, Andriessen), and more. As a composer, he has been commissioned to write a work for the American Composers Orchestra+Gutbucket that will debut at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in October 2007. His through-composed rescoring of the 22-minute 1936 British film "Night Mail" was called "a masterful re-imagining of an old classic" by Indiewire.com upon its debut in March 2007 at the True/False Film Festival. His arrangement of Aphex Twin's "Gwely Mernans" for Alarm Will Sound was recorded on their acclaimed CD Acoustica (Cantaloupe Music), premiered at Lincoln Center Festival 2005, and later choreographed by Chicago's Hubbard Street Dance Company. He has had two works released on CD by Anti-Social Music, including "Song" (ASM Sings the Great American Songbook/Peacock Recordings), and an arrangement of Bob Massey's "The Mountain" (The Nitrate Hymnal/Lujo Records). In the July/August 2006 issue of the German-Dutch Sonic magazine, he was the "Top Interview," garnering a four-page feature in which critic Ulrich Steinmetzger remarked about his "intense performances" which "left behind astounded audiences... [who] witnessed him blow raw energy from the stage like few others can." The Boston Globe has called his improvisation "dazzling;" and Time Out New York has called him a "manic sax dervish." He has also performed in a variety of jazz, rock, chamber music and other settings; he is a member of the internationally-touring punk/cabaret band World/Inferno Friendship Society, klezmer duo Bop Kaballah, and the kids-rock band Dirty Sock Funtime Band (with 4 videos out now on Nickelodeon).

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Julia Wolfe (Composer, Bang on a Can Co-Artistic Director)

Julia Wolfe's music is muscular and kinetic and experienced through the body. She creates journeys like unfolding dramatic landscapes, a music meant to be entered into by the listener. Wolfe's work is distinguished by this intense focus on sound, the power of sound, the ways in which sound is related to memory and experience, the possibilities for new harmonies between familiar chords and micro tonal tunings or sounds found in nature and the urban world. With a care and attention to detail that is both masterful and highly respectful, Wolfe's music celebrates the extraordinary qualities contained within something as specific as a gesture or an inflection. Julia Wolfe's music is heard around the world in performances at the Next Wave Festival at BAM, the Sydney Olympic Arts Festival, Settembre Musica (Italy), the Holland Festival, Theatre de la Ville (Paris), the San Francisco Symphony, and more . Upcoming works include a string quartet concerto for Kronos quartet and Orchestra, a new work for the Munich Chamber Orchestra, a new work for music with film for the Asko Ensemble, an accordian concerto commissioned by the Miller Theater. Recent collaborations include the provocative theater piece, House Arrest, with playwright and performing artist Anna Deavere Smith; The Carbon Copy Building with comic book artist Ben Katchor, the Ridge Theater Company and composers Michael Gordon and David Lang; and Lost Objects, an oratorio with Gordon, Lang, and writer Deborah Artman that will receive it's first staged production under the direction of Francois Girard at BAM's Next Wave Festival 2004. For The Carbon Copy Building, she received the 2000 Village Voice OBIE Award for Best New American Work. Wolfe received a 2001 OBIE for the music to Jennie Ritchie, a collaboration with playwright Mac Wellman and Ridge Theater. Her recent recording "Julia Wolfe - The String Quartets" was released on the Cantaloupe label. Her music has also been recorded on Teldec, Universal, Sony Classical, and Argo/Decca.

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Evan Ziporyn (Clarinet, composition)

Evan Ziporyn has toured the globe with the All-stars since 1992. He is also founder and Artistic Director of Gamelan Galak Tika, a Boston-based Balinese music and dance troupe devoted to new works by American and Balinese composers. With Galak Tika, he has presented his groundbreaking Balinese/western fusion works in venues as diverse as New York's Zankel Hall and and the Balinese International Arts Festival. He is the recipient of the 2007 USA Artists Walker Fellowship and the 2004 American Academy of Arts and Letters Goddard Lieberson Award. His music has been commissioned and performed by Yo-yo Ma's Silk Road Project, the Kronos Quartet, Wu Man, the American Composers Orchestra, the American Repertory Theater (their acclaimed 2004's "Oedipus Rex"), Maya Beiser, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, with whom he recorded his 2006 orchestral CD, "Frog's Eye." His works have been released on Cantaloupe, Sony Classical, New Albion, New World, Koch, Innova, and CRI; his 2001 solo clarinet CD, "This Is Not A Clarinet," made numerous Top Ten lists and was featured on All Things Considered and PRI's The World. He has also recorded for Nonesuch (including Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint and the Grammy Award winning Music for 18 Musicians), Thirsty Ear, and Point; his music provided the soundtrack for the PBS film "Tail-enders", and his playing was featured in Tan Dun's soundtrack for the film "Fallen." With the All-stars, a partial list of collaborators includes Brian Eno, Ornette Coleman, Thurston Moore, Meredith Monk, Iva Bittova, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Don Byron, Louis Andriessen, Cecil Taylor, Henry Threadgill, Wayan Wija, Kyaw Kyaw Naing, and Pamela Z. He has also recorded with Paul Simon, Matthew Shipp, So Percussion, and Ethel. He is Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has two children, Leo (14) and Ava (7). His opera, "A House in Bali," featuring the All-stars and a full Balinese gamelan, was recently premiered in Bali and Berkeley.

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