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