LOUD Weekend at MASS MoCA is a fully loaded, three-day, eclectic super-mix of creative, experimental and unusual music taking place throughout the museum’s vast galleries and its stunning collection of indoor and outdoor performing arts venues.

LOUD Weekend kicks off  with Love in Exile – featuring Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, and Shahzad Ismaily plus Catalan folk duo Tarta Relena. Highlights of the weekend include multiple concerts by the singular legendary Kronos Quartet, Bang on a Can All-Stars, Ensemble Klang (from Holland), Theo Bleckmann, Jeff Zeigler; visiting composers Andy Akiho, Nicole Lizée, Pete Harden, David Sanford, Joan Tower, performers and composers from the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, and much more.

The Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA (the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) is a 3-week musical utopia for innovative composers and performers in the beautiful Berkshire mountains of western Massachusetts dedicated entirely to adventurous contemporary music. Thirty early career composers and performers will gather to create, rehearse, and perform new music in the gallery and performing arts spaces, as well as in the North Adams community. The residency culminates in a 3-day festival: LOUD Weekend!

Our three-day destination festival, LOUD Weekend is happening July 28 – July 30 at the stunning MASS MoCA. We’ll be running our Summer Festival at MASS MoCA leading up to the jam-packed festival of LOUD Weekend concerts on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

More info

The Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA is a 3-week residency and utopia for adventurous performers and composers

More info

2 days of ear-bending music and mind-blowing art featuring dozens of festival composers and performers, Kronos Quartet, the electric Bang on a Can All-Stars, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and special guests.

View LOUD Weekend schedule and program

Some highlights of the inaugural Bang on a Can LOUD Weekend at MASS MoCA include:  the electric Bang on a Can All-Stars performing Field Recordings, a major multi-media concert of endless ambient textures, film, and electro-acoustic forays into the future; Daniel Reimer, Dither Guitar Quartet,  the incomparable and outer-planetary Sun Ra Arkestra; Dracula – the timeless, classic, original 1931 film brought to life with Philip Glass’ acclaimed score, featuring Michael Riesman of the Philip Glass Ensemble; Brian Eno’s pre-ambient classic Discreet Music performed by Contact ensemble (Toronto); a communal, open-to-the-public, all ages and skill levels ‘performance’ of Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic Mediations; a hypnotic other-worldly odyssey solo set by electronic multi-instrumentalist and singer Julianna Barwick; the just intonation electric guitar driven Baltimore band Horse Lords; pioneering composer-singer Pamela Z’s unique blend of operatic bel canto and live digital creations; composer-singer-instrument inventor Lesley Flanigan’s live sonic sculpture; special guest composers Annie Gosfield, Tristan Perich, Brendon Randall-Myers, PLUS music by Bang on a Can co-founders Michael Gordon, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and more.

AND PERFORMANCES BY Gregg August, Vicky Chow, David Cossin, Mark Stewart, Ken Thomson, Brad Lubman, Nick Photinos, Todd Reynolds, Lauren Radnofsky, additional solo sets by Michael Riesman, and many more!

MASS MoCA

The Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA is a 3-week residency and festival of today’s most exciting new music. We invite 40 performers and composers from all over the world to learn from and play alongside our faculty, the world’s most accomplished contemporary musicians. The public performances include free performances in the community, recitals in the gallery and a blowout festival finale on July 28.

July 12-27: Daily (Mon-Sat) recitals in the galleries at 1:30 and 4:30

July 21: Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields with the Bang on a Can All-Stars and The Choir of Trinity Wall St, Julian Wachner, conductor

July 23: Ten world premieres by our festival composers

July 28: Marathon Concert with Steve Reich. 6 hours of non-stop music performed by our festival fellows and faculty.

Saturday, Aug 1, 4pm-10pm: 2015 Summer Marathon

Bang on a Can Marathon: $15 to $24

The Bang on a Can Marathon is a 6-hour day-night boundary-busting festival finale featuring 50+ musicians and composers from around the world and has become one of the most diverse, open and exciting summer music events in the Berkshires. This year’s highlights include excerpts from Philip Glass’s legendary Einstein on the Beach, music/video by Christian Marclay, songs by Meredith Monk, the forceful Singing in the Dead of Night by this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Wolfe, an ambitious world premiere by the brilliant Minneapolis based composer Jeffrey Brooks, and more.

Actually, why be coy? Here’s what we’ve programmed so far, not in program order yet:

Andy Akiho – NO one To kNOW
Anna Clyne, A wonderful Day
Chris Cerrone, High Windows
Christian Marclay, Fade to Slide
Claude Vivier, Et je reverrai cette cille etrange
David Lang: How To Pray
Jeffrey Brooks, Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother
Julia Wolfe, Singing in the Dead of Night
Kyle Gann: Snake Dance 3
Maura Bosch, About the Night
Meredith Monk, Double Fiesta
Michael Gordon, Tree-Oh
Orchestra of Original Instruments, led by Mark Stewart
Oscar Bettison, Gauze Vespers
Paul Dolden, Rave
Paula Matthusen, ontology of an echo
Pere Gudmonsen-Holmgreen, Din Tavshed
Philip Glass, Bed – from Einstein on the Beach
Philip Glass, Knee play 4 – from Einstein on the Beach

Saturday July 25, 8pm: Michael Gordon’s Van Gogh

A Michael Gordon Oratorio: Van Gogh

The electric Bang on a Can All-Stars team up with brilliant theater director David Herskovits for Michael Gordon’s oratorio, exploring the life and restless soul of Dutch master Vincent Van Gogh. The text is made entirely out of Van Gogh’s own words, revealed heartbreakingly in his letters to his much more together brother Theo. Joining the All-Stars will be violinist-singers Charles Yang and Eliza Bagg.

Listen to an excerpt from Van Gogh performed by Alarm Will Sound:

Bang on a Can returns to MASS MoCA for the annual Summer Festival featuring 40 fellows from around the globe and special guests. Performances at the Bang on a Can Festival at MASS MoCA begin July 15 and include daily recitals in the galleries (1:30pm M-F; 4:30 M-Sat.), all free with museum admission. For an up-to-the-minute list of upcoming concerts in the galleries:

The festival culminates with “Bang on a Can Plays Art,” a jam-packed new music extravaganza featuring 13 concerts in 8 days, from July 25 – Aug 1. Bang on a Can Plays Art draws inspiration from the visual art on display in the galleries at MASS MoCA. Each concert showcases music that interacts with the art on various levels – stylistically, thematically, and whimsically – performed by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Festival Artists and Fellows, and special guest Alvin Lucier.

STARTING SATURDAY, JULY 25, WE BEGIN THE “THE FESTIVAL WITHIN A FESTIVAL” that we call:

From July 14 – August 3, 2014 we head to the Berkshire mountains of MA for a three-week utopian residency for innovative composers and performers of contemporary music at one of the foremost US contemporary art museums, MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art), featuring Bang on a Can Plays Art from July 26 – August 2.

The Marathon concert is the heart and soul of Bang on a Can.  Bang on a Can’s annual 6-hour day-night boundary-busting festival concert featuring 50+ musicians and composers from around the world has become one of the most diverse, open and exciting summer music events in the Berkshires. “Imagine Lollapalooza advised by the ghost of John Cage,” Vanity Fair wrote. “There are other places to hear new contemporary music, but it is seldom offered with such a potent blend of intensity, authority, and abandon.”

This year’s Bang on a Can Marathon will close the Festival on August 3 from 4-10pm. Some of the many highlights include music by techno master Aphex Twin performed by a 20-member amplified chamber orchestra of festival musicians with guest conductor Alan Pierson of Alarm Will Sound; David Lang’s these broken wings recently featured on the 2013 GRAMMY Awards; British renegade composer Steve Martland‘s classic Horses of Instruction Michael Gordon‘s The Sad Park for string quartet, Bang on a Can’s Orchestra of Original Instruments, and much more.

MUSIC BY: Gregg August, Jacob Druckman, Sean Friar, Michael Gordon, Annie Gosfield, Eleanor Hovda, Bun Ching Lam, David Lang, Ingram Marshall, Steve Martland, Bill Ryan, Mark Stewart, Ken Thomson, Aphex Twin, Julia Wolfe.

Please note that times are approximate and subject to change.

4pm

• Ken Thomson: Music for Trains
• Julia Wolfe: Fuel
• Bill Ryan: Drive
• Eleanor Hovda: Onyx
• Sean Friar: Scale 9
• Mark Stewart: What, and if so, why?

6pm

• Jacob Druckman: Come Round 
• Orchestra of Original Instruments
• Annie Gosfield: Almost Truths and Open Deceptions 
• Gregg August: A Humble Tribute to Guaguancó
• Ingram Marshall: Muddy Waters 

8pm

• Steve Martland: Horses of Instruction
• Bun Ching Lam: Piccolo Concertino
• David Lang: these broken wings
• Michael Gordon: The Sad Park
• Aphex Twin  – Four, Meltphace, Cliffs, Cock/Ver 10

The Bang on a Can All-Stars and guest vocalists Emily Eagen, Katie Geissinger, Daisy Press perform Julia Wolfe’s mesmerizing evening-length art ballad Steel Hammer as part of the Bang on a Can Summer Festival @ MASS MoCA.

Wolfe’s Steel Hammer is inspired by her love for the legends and music of Appalachia, and culls from both the music and oral traditions of the region. The text is taken from over 200 versions of the John Henry ballad – based on hearsay, recollection, and tall tales – and explores the subject of human vs. machine in this quintessential American legend. Steel Hammer stretches the standard instrumentation of Bang on a Can All-Stars with wooden bones, mountain dulcimer, banjo, and more, to evoke the rich instrumental colors of Appalachia. The New York Times calls it a “wild hybrid” and an “obsessive study of the song’s many versions.”

From July 17- August 3 we return to MASS MoCA (the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) for our 12th Annual Summer Music Festival, a utopian residency program dedicated entirely to the creation, study, and performance of the most adventurous music of our time.

Performance highlights of the three-week intensive include daily recitals in the museum galleries at 1:30pm (M-F) & 4:30pm (M-Sat) (free with museum admission) featuring festival faculty and fellows; Bang on a Can All-Stars and special guests performing Julia Wolfe’s mesmerizing evening-length art ballad Steel Hammer on Saturday, July 27</strong>; the Composer Premiere Concert on Monday, July 29 showcasing brand new works written by the Summer Festival composition fellows; and the 12th annual Bang on a Can Marathon at MASS MoCA, the annual 6-hour day-night boundary-busting festival concert featuring 50+ musicians and composers from around the world, which closes the Festival on Saturday, August 3.

North Adams explodes with music as the fellows & faculty of the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival use every available space on the MASS MoCA campus & throughout the community to create and perform music. The festival features two recitals a day (Mon-Fri at 1:30pm and 4:30pm and Sat at 4:30pm), free with gallery admission. We are also celebrating George Crumb on a special weekend devoted to his combination of drama, darkness, & mysticism, and will throw our annual music bash, the Summer Marathon, a six-hour blow-out festival finale.

Buy a Festival pass for $60 which gets you into all concerts, recitals, & other events.

Wednesday July 14
4:30 Solo work and Be-In by Evan Ziporyn

Thursday July 15
4:30 Vicki Ray, piano. Music by Chinary Ung, Vicki Ray, Rand Steiger, David Rosenbloom

Friday July 16
4:30 Todd Reynolds: World premieres of music from his new CD featuring Bang on a Can faculty composers. Also a performance with the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR)

Saturday July 17
11:30am Family performance – “Kids Can Too”: Learn about and make music at this festive session with the faculty and fellows of Bang on a Can. Nose harps, kazoos, drinking straws and more have been used to fashion instruments in previous years. Sells out fast, reserve in advance.

4:30 Performances by Ashley Bathgate cello, and Vicky Chow, piano

Monday July 19
4:30 Nick Photinos, cello, with Todd Reynolds violin and Vicki Ray, piano. Music by George Crumb, Shaun Naidoo, Salvatore Sciarrino, Mischa Zupko

Tuesday July 20
4:30 Traditional music from Uzbekistan

Wednesday July 21
4:30 The Music of Martin Bresnick performed by festival ensembles

Thursday July 22
4:30 Music by Gregg August and Ken Thomson

Friday July 23
4:30 “Day of Viagara” A collaboration between Christine Southworth, Ken Thomson, and Evan Ziporyn. Music for Bagpipes, saxophones, and more

Saturday July 24 – International Crumb Day
3:00pm Closer to George Crumb: An informal, up close look at Crumb’s music-with film, projection, discussion, demonstration and performance, led by stage director and designer Jim Findlay and composer David Lang.

4:30pm Festival ensemble performs George Crumb: “Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III)”

8:00pm The Music of George Crumb: Enter the mystical world of Crumb’s music with staging by New York director Jim Findlay. Findlay uses lighting and video to seamlessly connect the stylized ritual theater of Vox Balaenae, the intense anti-war masterpiece Black Angels, the eerie lyricism of Madrigals and the mysterious and meditative Lux Aeterna for masked musicians. In the MASS MoCA Hunter Center. Tickets here

Monday July 26

4:30 World premieres of music written by the festival composers, performed by festival ensembles. Music by: Sophie Cash-Goldwasser, Jeremy Howard Beck, Amanda Feery, Maria Vladimirovna Grigoryeva, Adam Haws, Robert Honstein, Ravi Kittappa, Svetlana Maras.

Tuesday July 27

4:30 Music by Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe performed by festival ensembles

Wednesday July 28
4:30 New music for Balinese Gamelan, written by the festival composers

Thursday July 29
4:30 Music performed by festival ensembles including music by Kaija Saariaho, Tristan Perich and Kenny Savelson.

Friday July 30
4:30 “Typical Music” by Evan Ziporyn, for violin, cello, piano

Saturday July 31 – Bang on a Can Marathon
4:00 – 10:00 pm The ninth consecutive Summer Marathon showcases an eclectic super-mix of new and unusual music. Six non-stop hours feature explosive performances of just-written music alongside classic experimental masterpieces:

4:00pm:
Tan Dun, Snow in June
Chris Cerrone, Requiem for K.V.
Tom Johnson, Narayana’s Cows
Traditional music from Uzbekistan, TBA
Annie Gosfield, Flying Sparks and Heavy Machinery

6.00pm:
Arvo Pärt, Fratres I
Ted Hearne, Katrina Ballads (excerpts)
Oscar Bettison, Breaking and Entering
David Lang, Forced March
Christine Southworth, ZAP! (mvt 3 and 4)
Evan Ziporyn, Music from ShadowBang

8.00pm:
Julia Wolfe, Fuel (with film by Bill Morrison)
Nik Baersch, Moduls 32, 35, 33 (arr Evan Ziporyn)
Michael Gordon, Yo Shakespeare
Traditional music from Uzbekistan, TBA
Steve Reich, Double Sextet

In the MASS MoCA Hunter Center.

Bang on a Can and MASS MoCA present their 8th consecutive year of musical collaboration with a rich daily schedule of exciting performances. There will be 2 recitals daily in the museum galleries (except Sundays), free with museum admission, and concerts on the weekends in the Hunter Center Theater. Also visit the MASS MoCA website for more information.

Thurs July 16
1:30 pm Gallery recital by festival performers
4:30 pm Gallery recital: Todd Reynolds / Still Life with Microphone

Fri July 17
1:30 pm Gallery recital by festival performers
4:30 pm Gallery recital: Music by John Adams, Eric Chasalow, Daniel Wohl, Julia Wolfe, and Walter Zimmerman performed by Vicki Ray, piano

Sat July 18
11:00am “Kids can Too” family performance
4:30 pm Gallery recital: Performance of Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time”
8:00 pm alt-cabaret performance: Babe the Blue Ox

Mon July 20
1:30 pm Gallery recital by festival performers
4:30 pm Gallery recital: Music by Art Jarvinen, Aaron Jay Kernis, Steve Mackey, Steve Reich, Jeff Stanek, performed by Nick Photinos, cello with Derek Johnson, electric guitar

Tues July 21
1:30 pm Gallery recital by festival performers
4:30 pm Gallery recital: Music from Central Asia

Weds July 22
1:30 pm Gallery recital by festival performers
4:30 pm Gallery recital: Music by Louis Andriessen, Gregg August, Derek Johnson, Brad Lubman, and Sarah Kirkland Snider, performed by Gregg August, David Cossin, Ken Thomson, Lauren Radnofsky and members of the festival.

Thurs July 23
1:30 pm Gallery recital by festival performers
4:30 pm Gallery recital: Music by David Lang and Michael Gordon performed by festival ensembles

Friday July 24
1:30 pm Gallery recital by festival performers
4:30 pm Gallery recital: Music by Julia Wolfe performed by festival ensembles

Sat, July 25
3:00pm Reich on Lewitt: composer Steve Reich discusses artist Sol Lewitt
4:30 pm Gallery recital: Music by Steve Reich, performed by David Cossin, percussion, Nick Photinos, cello and members of the festival
8:00 pm Bang on a Can plays Steve Reich. Music for 18 Musicians, Eight Lines, and Piano Phase/Video Phase (arr D. Cossin) (Click here to purchase tickets.)

Mon July 27
1:30 pm Gallery recital by festival performers
4:30 pm Gallery recital: World premieres of new works written and performed by festival fellows.

Tues July 28
1:30 pm Gallery recital by festival performers
4:30 pm Gallery recital: World premieres of new works written and performed by festival fellows.

Weds July 29
1:30 pm Gallery recital by festival performers
4:30 pm Gallery recital: Morton Feldman’s “Why Patterns” performed by festival ensemble
7:00 pm Members of Bang on a Can perform a free concert at Windsor Lake in North Adams

Thurs July 30
1:30 pm Gallery recital by festival performers
4:30 pm Gallery recital: Festival ensembles perform

Fri July 31
1:30 pm Gallery recital by festival performers
4:30 pm Gallery recital: Festival ensembles perform

Sat Aug 1
Bang on a Can Summer Marathon. Program (subject to change):

More info at www.massmoca.org

Bang on a Can brings its signature event back to the Berkshires! 30+ musicians and composers of the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival join up with American Jazz innovator Don Byron for an ear-bending 6-hour non-stop concert program. It’s a lexicon of American 20th and 21st century music as rendered completely insane! Music by Don Byron, John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Gyorgy Ligeti, George Crumb, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Bradley Lubman, Martyn Padding,, Nobukazu Takemura, Henry Threadgill, Julia Wolfe, Evan Ziporyn and more.

Bang on a Can All-Stars and Iva Bittová

Bang on a Can All-Stars perform their riveting live collaboration with avant-gypsy-folk singer-violinist Iva Bittová from the Czech Republic. Bittová’s haunting and riveting performance blends vocal and violin pyrotechnics with a theatrical flair on a par with performance art icons Laurie Anderson and Meredith Monk. Also don’t miss the world premiere of a brand new work by Cornelis de Bondt, music by Michael Gordon, Gregg August and film by Bill Morrison.

Part of the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival July 6-25 2004.

• Julia Wolfe – Believing
• Michael Gordon – I Buried Paul
• Don Byron – Eugene
• Evan Ziporyn – Two Impersonations
• David Lang – little eye
• Hermeto Pascoal – Arapua