Program: “New Faces”
Nyokabi Kariūki – One, Your Name (2020)
Eliot Burk – blue and black marks athwart the weald, which releases (2021)
Hannah Selin – Tributaries I (2021)
Katherine Bodor – Fantasizing About Quitting My Day Job (2021)
Music that pushes the boundaries, that stays within the boundaries, that exists outside the boundaries, that expands the boundaries – that’s what you’ll hear on the January 7, 2022 First Fridays with Robert Black. New music for a new year from new composers Nyokabi Kariūki, Eliot Burk, Hannah Selin, and Katherine Bodor. New and Now.
First Fridays with Robert Black is a monthly series of virtual mini-concerts featuring brand-spanking new, recently new, and kind of new music for solo double bass – streaming from his home studio in Hartford, Connecticut, at noon (EST). Whether you’re having your morning coffee in Los Angeles, or lunch in New York, or that first glass of wine in Paris, or a late supper in Tashkent, tune in for some cool and compelling music.
Bang on a Can’s annual People’s Commissioning Fund concert returns with a high-octane concert of world premieres and an expanded Bang on a Can All-Stars lineup! The 2022 PCF concert is part of the Ecstatic Music Festival and will be hosted by WNYC’s John Schaefer.
The concert will also be live streamed on live.bangonacan.org
Tickets are $25 or $15 for students.
Program: “Multi-Bass”
Angélica Negrón: La Isla Mágica
Julia Wolfe: Stronghold
First Fridays with Robert Black is a monthly series of virtual mini-concerts featuring brand-spanking new, recently new, and kind of new music for solo double bass – streaming from his home studio in Hartford, Connecticut, at noon (EST). Whether you’re having your morning coffee in Los Angeles, or lunch in New York, or that first glass of wine in Paris, or a late supper in Tashkent, tune in for some cool and compelling music.
Julia Wolfe’s Steel Hammer is a moving retelling of “John Henry,” a classic American ballad of man versus machine. Based on hearsay, recollection, and tall tales, the piece features exquisite vocal writing complemented by Appalachian folk instruments, such as wooden bones, mountain dulcimer, banjo, clapping, and clogging.
Program:
Robert Black – Instant Compositions (today)
Digital delay, flanger, pitch shifter, distortion, chorusing, reverb, and more – meet the electronic genies in the bottle of effects processing. For the March 4 First Fridays with Robert Black, these electronic muses and their digital inspiration team up with Robert’s double bass to create Instant Compositions. Meet Robert in the Zone and discover what’s going to happen as it is happening.
First Fridays with Robert Black is a monthly series of virtual mini-concerts featuring brand-spanking new, recently new, and kind of new music for solo double bass – streaming from his home studio in Hartford, Connecticut, at noon (EST). Whether you’re having your morning coffee in Los Angeles, or lunch in New York, or that first glass of wine in Paris, or a late supper in Tashkent, tune in for some cool and compelling music.
The Southern Exposure New Music Series is devoted to exploring the rich variety of contemporary classical and world music written in the past 30 years and masterworks of the 20th century.
Program:
David Lang: sunray
Michael Gordon: For Madeline
Nick Dunston: Fainting is down, Whooshing is up
Julia Wolfe: Big Beautiful Dark and Scary
Meredith Monk: Spaceship
Louis Andriessen: Workers Union
Big Ears Festival is back in 2022! It’s all happening March 24-27 in Knoxville, TN. Bang on a Can All-Stars will perform MEMORY GAME with Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble and also Terry Riley’s Autodreamographical Tales. The full line up is outstanding, and we can’t wait to see you there!
The Bang on a Can All-Stars perform at Crosstown Arts!
Program:
- David Lang: sunray
- Michael Gordon: For Madeline
- Nick Dunston: Fainting is down, Whooshing is up
- Julia Wolfe: Big Beautiful Dark and Scary
- Meredith Monk: Spaceship
- Louis Andriessen: Workers Union
The April 1st First Friday with Robert Black will feature a special video presentation of Post-Natural Pastorale by the composers/sound artists Brian House and Sue Huang (with animation by Alexander Dupuis). Robert, Brian and Sue recorded this 8-channel audio and video piece entirely at the 2,200 acre Freshkills Landfill on Staten Island in New York City. The bucolic serenity of this reclaimed mammoth monument of the Anthropocene belies the chaos that lies beneath. Nature meets throwaway consumer culture.
Video Credits:
Animation: Alexander Dupuis
Producer: Mariel Villere
Co-Producer: David Feinberg
Director of Photography: Paul Shin
Bang on a Can All-Stars and Meredith Monk perform MEMORY GAME at the Southbank Centre in London!
More info
April 7 – Bang on a Can All-Stars and Ensemble Klang
April 8 – Meredith Monk’s MEMORY GAME
More info
Bang on a Can All-Stars perform on the “New Music Series” at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI
Program
David Lang: sunray
Michael Gordon: gene takes a drink
Nick Dunston: Fainting is down, Whooshing is up
Julia Wolfe: Big Beautiful Dark and Scary
Meredith Monk: Spaceship
Louis Andriessen: Workers Union
more info
“Right now – this minute – is an amazing time to love music. Musicians and listeners from every corner of the music world are pushing beyond their boundaries, questioning their roots, searching and stretching for the new. There has never been a time when music contained so much innovation and diversity, so much audacity and so much courage. And we want to show you all of it. With the creation of LONG PLAY we are presenting more kinds of musicians, playing more kinds of music, bending more kinds of minds. LONG PLAY expands and enlarges our scope and our reach, and puts more new faces on stages than ever before. It’s a lot of music!”
Michael Gordon, David Lang & Julia Wolfe
The May 6th “First Friday with Robert Black” will include 2 sonic delights. Miya Masaoka’s Four Moons of Pluto takes us to a beautiful, other-worldly place via a specially tuned double bass – pulsating overtones and beating harmonics are nested in a static and meditative soundscape. Valentine by Jacob Druckman delivers a cornucopia of taps, squeaks, whispers, thumps, bumps, and plucks with a timpani mallet in a theatrically tinged explosion of extended techniques.
Program
Four Moons of Pluto (2015) – Miya Masaoka
Valentine (1969) – Jacob Druckman
The 2018 Carnegie Hall performance of Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Anthracite Fields was one of the season’s most unforgettable events. Inspired by the lives of Pennsylvania coal miners, Wolfe uses oral histories, interviews with miners and their families, speeches, and children’s stories in moving musical tableaux that depicts their plight. Hear this “major profound work” (Los Angeles Times) for the first time or be moved by it once again.
Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Julia Wolfe caps her Carnegie Hall residency with a one-of-a-kind event in Manhattan’s Bryant Park, Asphalt Orchestra. Also featuring guest artists Pan In Motion, the program includes world premieres by first-time Carnegie Hall–commissioned composers Leila Adu, Jeffrey Brooks, and Kendall Williams, further highlighting Wolfe’s longtime reputation as a champion of innovative new works. Catch the beginning of the performance at the side of the park near the New York Public Library, or join the performers along the way as they march toward the main lawn!
FREE event
For the June “First Fridays with Robert Black,” Robert will perform Philip Glass’s The Not Doings of an Insomniac, which he commissioned in 2015. This 7-movement Partita includes poetry by Lou Reed, Laurie Andersen, Yoko Ono, David Byrne, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, and Arthur Russell. Special to this performance are charming video interstices by Gene Gort. The music, poetry and video create a remarkable emotional arc and tender story. Come join the journey.
Bang on a Can launches our 2022 season in partnership with the Noguchi museum on June 19 with a performance by Dawuna!
This event is free with museum admission. Masks are required indoors.
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
Celebrating the twelfth season of collaboration, Bang on a Can and The Noguchi Museum present a monthly concert series in the Museum’s garden and galleries in June through September.
July’s program is a double bill featuring eddy kwon and Iva Casian Lakos performing works by Joan La Barbara.
Free with admission; advance reservations recommended. Masks are required indoors.
More info
MASS MoCA 1040 MASS MoCA Way,
North Adams,
MA 01247,
USA map 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 world premiere of HER STORY, by Julia Wolfe!
Performed by Lorelei Ensemble and the Nashville Symphony
Her Story invokes the words of historical figures and the spirit of pivotal moments to pay tribute to the centuries of ongoing struggle for equal rights, representation, and access to democracy for women in America.
The immersive, visual performances will be directed by Anne Kauffman with scenic and lighting design by Jeff Sugg, costumes by Marion Talan, and produced by Bang on a Can.
Her Story was Commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Nashville Symphony, the National Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony and with the generous support of Linda and Stuart Nelson.
In the outdoor sculpture garden, Ned Rothenberg will present original and traditional solo work for shakuhachi, the end blown Japanese bamboo flute. He will also perform works on the clarinet and alto saxophone, which are informed by his travels back and forth to Japan throughout the last 35 years.
Free with admission; advance reservations recommended. Masks are required inside the Museum.
Photo of Ned by Lois Ellison
This performance has been postponed – stay tuned for the new date coming up!
Meredith Monk’s MEMORY GAME, as its title implies, is both a look back at a pivotal point in her storied career, and a richly layered portrait of how vocal music, under the guidance of an indefatigable master, can play with our expectations in poignant and compelling ways.
Meredith teams up for a live performance in NYC with her renowned Vocal Ensemble (featuring Theo Bleckmann, Katie Geissinger and Allison Sniffin) and the Bang on a Can All-Stars.
The Bang on a Can All-Stars are performing in Bruges!
Program:
Julia Wolfe: Big Beautiful Dark & Scary
Meredith Monk: Spaceship (arr. Michael Gordon)
Julius Eastman: Stay On It (arr. Ed Rosenberg III and Ken Thomson)
Brian Eno: Music for Airports
(photo of the All-Stars by Peter Serling)
Between 27th and 29th October, the magnificent RDM Submarine Wharf in Rotterdam will be the backdrop for a spectacular performance fusing music and contemporary dance. The BIG IDEA Foundation has invited Sasha Waltz & Guests, Bang on a Can All-Stars, and a large company of emerging Rotterdam artists to perform a gigantic version of Terry Riley’s “In C”.
Bang on a Can LIVE ONLINE Presents:
Armando Bayolo: Memorias Vagabundas, a World Premiere Commission of 11 Pianists, organized by Vicky Chow (Bang on a Can All-Stars)
On November 3, Bang on a Can brings you a world premiere video suite from All-Star Vicky Chow and Armando Bayolo, exploring Bayolo’s biography, evoking ancestral Spain, parental Cuba, native Puerto Rico and his life in the United States.
Featuring performances by: Vicky Chow, Geoffrey Burleson, Mikael Darmanie, Erika Dohi, Timothy Hoft, Blair McMillen, Megumi Masaki, Michael Mizrahi, Winston Choi, Vicki Ray, Ju-Ping Song
Bang on a Can and Joe Hisaishi Company co-present Music Future Vol.9!
Program:
Joe Hisaishi: 2 Dances for Large Ensemble,* performed by the Bang on a Can Festival Ensemble
Nico Muhly: Selections from Drones & Viola and Drones & Piano, performed by Nadia Sirota, viola, and Nico Muhly, piano/drones
Nico Muhly: Roots, Pulses,* performed by the Bang on a Can Festival Ensemble
Joe Hisaishi: Viola Saga,* performed by Nadia Sirota, viola, and the Bang on a Can Festival Ensemble
*US premiere
Bang on a Can’s special discount code for half-price tickets is: MFD39879
Cutting-edge cellist Maya Beiser and “America’s most astonishing choir” (The New York Times), The Crossing, form a fearless partnership to present Travel Guide to Nicaragua, a New York premiere by Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon. The evening-length work, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, tells the story of Gordon’s family’s journey from Poland to Nicaragua, beginning with his grandfather and concluding with Gordon’s childhood in the jungle on the outskirts of Managua.
Miriam Elhajli is an interdisciplinary improviser questioning along the fringes of song, folklore, and eco-poetics, living between Brooklyn and New Orleans. She works as an archivist at the Association for Cultural Equity founded by Alan Lomax & is currently producing various records to be released on her independent label Numina Records dedicated to documenting revolutionary women, song and poetics.
Free with admission; advance reservations recommended. Masks are required inside the Museum.
Artist and composer Rajna Swaminathan presents RAJAS, an ensemble of improvisers from diverse musical approaches exploring expansive, boundary-breaking music in conjunction with the exhibition New York: 1962-1964. For this performance, Rajna (mrudangam) will be joined by Ganavya (voice), Utsav Lal (piano), Darian Donovan Thomas (violin), and Miles Okazaki (guitar).
Morton Feldman’s For John Cage
Towards the end of his life, Feldman wrote several “tribute” pieces to people who had been important to him among them, For John Cage (1982), and it has become one of Feldman’s most well-known pieces. For John Cage will be performed by Karl Larson on piano and Erica Dicker, violin in conjunction with the exhibition New York: 1962-1964.
